Writing a duty coverage notification policy staff won't mute

Three notification classes

• Personal — your duty tomorrow, your coverage request was claimed, your swap was accepted. Always on.
• Opportunity — an open duty you are eligible for. Batched, and only to eligible staff.
• Escalation — a post is still unfilled close to start time. Admins and named backups only.

Rules that keep it tolerable

1. 1Never send an opportunity notification to someone already assigned during that window.
2. 2Batch same-day open duties into one message rather than one per post.
3. 3Set a quiet window — no non-urgent sends between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m.
4. 4Let staff choose channel (email, in-app, push, Teams) but not opt out of personal notifications.
5. 5Give every message a single action: claim, accept, or view. No message with three buttons.

Escalation ladder

Define the clock in hours before start: 24 hours — notify eligible staff. 12 hours — re-notify with the post highlighted. 1 hour — notify admins by name. At start — log as unfilled and route to the floater. Write these numbers into the policy so nobody has to improvise at 6 a.m.

If a message does not require the reader to do something, it should not be a notification.