Loomio
Wed 8 Oct 2014 2:16AM

Work Survey and Shift Swapping

J JK Public Seen by 23

I spoke with a member tonight about work scheduling, and he has some interesting ideas for the work survey and shift swapping.

The member's doctoral work is matching people to positions. He firmly believes in offering incentives to overcome the fact that many people are either not altruistic or are too comfortable with the status quo to change. This is why he has a strong negative opinion of the ICC policy preventing people from paying others to cover their shifts.

The ICC policy is inflexible, but we could provide non-financial incentives to get people to switch. One possible solution is to give swappers a higher priority in future swaps. Suppose two people want to swap out of the same shift, but only one of them has swapped with someone else in the past. Because the one who swapped in the past has provided a social benefit to the house, they should get first priority when they need a swap.

Also, we need to make it fun and easy to swap with someone who can't make their shift.

Thoughts?

J

JK Wed 8 Oct 2014 2:32AM

The current Qualtrics work survey is large and intimidating. For something so important, it really should be more concise and inviting.

Just brainstorming here: how might we apply principal component analysis to solve this problem?

EB

Emily Burgess Wed 8 Oct 2014 3:21AM

I agree that the work survey is a little intimidating and could use some redesigning, but the final part of this would put a lot more of a burden on the officers. Swaps are a constant issue in this House and prioritizing swaps is both inherently unequal and would create more work for the work manager.

J

JK Wed 8 Oct 2014 1:02PM

This is a shortcoming of the email-based swap system. Sam has to track everything by hand.

An automated system could computerize shift-swapping and update the work calendar in real-time. It could also keep track of and reward (through whatever non-monetary means we choose) people who volunteer to swap with others.

KR

Kelsey Rosenthal Fri 10 Oct 2014 4:40AM

@JK we have a tool in development to update the swap system to a calendar on the website and show as updated on the work schedule. It is still a couple of weeks out.
As to general scheduling that was the first thing I asked for in coop in a box, we have some stubs, but nothing finalized yet.
Lastly as a general note please remember this forum is intended for communicating between coops please do not post about specific member issues.

J

JK Fri 10 Oct 2014 2:01PM

@kelseyrosenthal Where is that tool being developed? I would like to follow that process.

I think work scheduling and shift swapping merits its own post -- it is a recurring issue that affects everyone. With our current tech team, we have an opportunity to make great strides in this area. I'm excited to see what comes out.

Your point about member issues is noted.

KR

Kelsey Rosenthal Sun 12 Oct 2014 2:37PM

@jk @amitshah is working on it, last status: He just got access to the member database, now he needs to interface with it, skin it, have it reviewed by Sam, post it. The first thing we will release won't have incentives as mentioned in your post above it will pretty much be a visualization tool that eliminates emails. In the future it has to potential to be anything we want.

As of right now it is one of the ad-hoc "I want this done now, don't worry about coop-in-a-box" type of things. Though, after the infrastructure is made for CIAB, Amit should be able to port it.