E10 - Part timers: Best practice

Modified on Thu, 19 Mar at 4:43 AM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preamble
Teachers > Teacher data (F2)
Teachers > Allowances
Advice to Part-time staff in regards to contracts
Lessen the impact of PT staff by:
Benefits of PT staff
Difficulties of PT staff

Preamble

Part-time staff pose some challenges for schools. This is the best practice to enter part-time staff in E10.

Teachers > Teacher data (F2)

Ensure that FTE is selected from the View menu in Teachers > Teacher data (F2).

When coding part-time staff in E10, give them an FTE that reflects their proportionate load. E10 will then calculate their MaxLoad by reading the Fulltime load per cycle from Setup > School info. FTE and MaxLoad are dynamically linked, but not to the unavailability/days off. The Work allocation index maximum weekly face to face hours is used for the Victorian work allocation index report (originally called the 480 report).

If the usual employed load for full-time staff is 44, then an FTE 0.5 would get exactly 50% of this, being 22 periods. Manual adjustments to the MaxLoad can be made to account for minor variations of a period or two up or down, but generally, it is proportionate to the FTE value. This allows double-click sorting on the MaxLoad column to group all the part-time staff together for analysis.

Teachers > Teacher data (F2) > Flexible work

Double-click on the Unavailable cell to open up the Flexible work tab, where you can enter a teacher’s unavailable times. The preferred syntax of 'non-specific' days off is far more flexible, allowing the timetable itself to dictate the best days off for each teacher. Only specify fixed days off if there is a strong need to be specific, such as pre-arranged external activities like childcare, other work or training, etc.

Non-specific unavailable times: Enter the number of Full days off and/or Half days off across the cycle that the teacher needs. E10 will find the best days/half days off for this teacher during construction. You can choose to set part-timer's days off at any stage during the construction process in Grid > Master grid > action bar: Staffing . Once allocated, these full days or half days off will appear shaded lavender on the Flexible work screen. Non-specific days off can be cleared in the Master grid and reassigned as needed.
Specific unavailable times: Single-click to toggle on/off a period or drag to highlight multiple periods. Black highlight indicates fixed unavailability. If for some reason this requirement is violated during construction, it will be flagged as a teacher clash.

Preferred unavailable times: Right-click to set a preferred period off or drag to highlight multiple periods. Grey highlight indicates preferred unavailability in that period. E10 will try to keep this teacher free during these times, but has permission to ignore that request if it needs to.

When finalising your timetable, go to HealthCheck > Staffing > Part -timers dissatisfied to confirm that all part-timers with non-specific days off have been allocated their required unavailabilities.

Teachers > Allowances

You can also give part-time staff an 'Allowance' loaded as zero periods. This is because allowances can be shown on timetables by selecting View > Staff loads in Teachers > Timetables (F3).

The allowance format should be:

Code = FTE0.8_1 for the first 0.8 part-timer and FTE0.8_2 for the second. FTE0.6_4 for the fourth PT staff at 0.6. etc. (The last number after underscore is the number in the sequence, just to ensure the allowance code is unique).
Allowance = Part-timer FTE 0.8 (Or just: Part-time 0.8)
#Per = 0
Teacher = <Teacher CODE>
Rotations = <Blank>

If you don't want to see part-timer FTE values on timetables, you don't need to give them an 'allowance'. In this case, you can enter the FTE value in the Teachers > Teacher data (F2) > Notes column - though some users don't bother, as FTE can be deduced from the MaxLoad or reasonably easily seen in the number of days off coded as well.

Advice to Part-time staff in regards to contracts

Part-time staff should understand they can't be 'overly impacting' on timetable generation. The following phrase, or variations thereof, may be considered as advice to part-time staff:

"While the school will make every attempt to allocate preferred days off, this is not hard-coded when generating a timetable, nor is it guaranteed for those staff who teach classes in years 11 & 12, due to the constraints such requests place on the spread of classes".

Lessen the impact of Part-time staff by:

Discourage part-timers teaching senior classes, unless job sharing, or suitable for creative timetabling (splits/offline classes). Discuss the impact of this with Head Teachers, so they are aware of the implications.
Minimise the use of hard-coded staff days off in your timetable. If teachers don’t have childcare commitments, they may be open to non-specific days off, which provides more flexibility when timetabling.
Encourage job sharing, so that two part-timers may be timetabled as one full person, and lessen the impact on the class spread of lessons, particularly seniors.
Utilise the 'Part-timer spreads' weight in Grid > Master grid (F11) construction, and the PT staffing tools during timetable construction.
Discuss the teacher's requirement for day-off symmetry across weeks, and set the symmetry value accordingly in the Flexible Work screen.

Benefits of Part-time staff:

Allow greater access to quality staff with differing skills than if all staff were full-time.
They can be more flexible in scheduling in some ways, as they have far reduced loads, so their own classes don't clash much.
Their 'Full-time equivalent' load (FTE) can be dynamically varied more easily in some cases, to match flexible needs from schools over time - such as going FTE from 0.6 to 0.8 if more load is needed in their area of speciality, where full-timers are always fixed.
Provides an option to retain good teaching staff who may otherwise retire, if there is no other way to reduce from full-time.
Allows flexible job share positions to be considered.
Part-time staff are often able to come in and work on their day off as a casual. Flexible covering of absences, and by a teacher who is directly attached to the school and perhaps more qualified than taking casuals from 'the pool'.

Difficulties of Part-time staff:

Part-timers require full days off. Full-time FTE 1.0 has no days off. An FTE 0.8 works 80% of the time and has 20% days off - usually one per week, and a day per week for each FTE 0.2 less. In some cases where it is especially difficult, part-timers may be allocated one morning and one afternoon off in lieu of a full day off, but this is far less desirable.
Class spreads become more of a problem with part-time staff, especially classes with few doubles or a lot of periods, as this causes conflict. The class will always need to have lessons on the part-timers' day off - or else the class needs to be split or run offline on some days.