Reading a year of it
What a year of mornings shows that a year of absence rates does not.
A Year of Mornings
Twelve months of the log shows things a year of absence rates cannot: when the hour is longest, which routes work, and which gaps keep reappearing.
The Months You Already Know About
Absence is seasonal, cover availability is seasonal in the opposite direction, and both are visible a year ahead. Almost nobody plans against either.
The One Team That Keeps Failing
One unit produces a disproportionate share of bad mornings. It is almost never the people, and the cause is usually visible.
When the Cover Becomes the Cause
The methods used to cover absence produce more absence. The loop is slow, it is visible in two years of data, and it is the main reason absence rates drift upward.
Six Numbers Worth Keeping
The whole of this subject reduces to six measures. Four describe what happened, two predict what will, and none of them is the absence rate.
The Morning That Goes Right
What the same absence looks like in an operation that has done the work. Nineteen minutes, one call, no premium, and a line in a log.
What None of This Fixes
Four problems that arrive at the morning wearing its clothes, cannot be solved there, and get worse when the morning process is tightened in response.