- How do I add my availability?
- How do I update an existing availability entry?
- What’s the locked availability challenge?
- Why shouldn’t I accept services to my schedule outside of my availability that’s listed?
- Do I have to give a two-week notice for taking time off?
- What if I need off for a time that I already have accepted visits on schedule?
- Why shouldn’t I have more than one availability entry per workday?
How do I add my availability?
You can add your work availability by going to My Availability in your pet sitter account in Precise Petcare (see steps below). Here, you can fill out and submit a form indicating when you’re “Available” and/or “Not Available” to work.
PLEASE NOTE: We do provide monetary rewards for those who choose to set their availability and keep it locked for an extended amount of time! See What’s the locked availability challenge to learn more!
To add your work availability, please complete the steps below:
- Login to your pet sitter account.
- Go to Scheduling > My Availability.
- Click on the New Availability Entry button
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- Fill out the form titled “Add New Availability Entry.”
- Type: Available or Not Available
- Schedule: Single Day, Multiple Days, Ongoing (make sure to fill out Start Date, End Date, and Days accordingly)
- “Single Day” means it’s availability for one single date.
- “Multiple Days” means there’s a start date and an end date.
- “Ongoing” means there’s a start date with NO end date.
- Except For
: These are the dates that you do NOT want included in your availability entry.
- Length: 24 hour, Block of Time, Overnight
- “24 hour” means 24 hours.
- “Block of Time” means there’s a start time and an end time for when you’re available/not available.
- “Overnight” means our 10pm-7am overnight stay time frame. Do NOT confuse this for “24 hour”. Thus, if you select “Overnight”, you are indicating that you ARE available during the daytime on the selected days in that entry.
- Notes: We appreciate any and all notes you put in this field; see Availability Entry Best Practices below for more.
- Double check that the form is filled out correctly! We don’t want to run into any misunderstandings or miscommunications when assigning work to you!
- Click Save.
How do I update an existing availability entry?
Sometimes, you may have to make updates to your existing availability. Likely, it’s because you forgot you want certain days/times OFF or ON that you didn’t account for when you put in your availability initially. As is often the case, let’s say your availability entry is for “Multiple Days” or “Ongoing” and you just want to update a single day in that set of days, please use the “Except For” feature in the availability entry form. Just simply add any and all dates that you do NOT want to be accounted for in that availability entry form and click Save. Then, add a brand new availability entry uniquely for that day (or days) not accounted for.
To make any availability updates, please complete the steps below:
- Login to your pet sitter account.
- Go to Scheduling > My Availability.
- Locate the availability entry you want to edit and click the down arrow in the upper right corner of the availability entry box.
- Click Edit
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- Edit the form accordingly.
- Double check that the edits are filled out correctly! We don’t want to run into any misunderstandings or miscommunications when assigning work to you!
- Click Save.
What’s the locked availability challenge?
As you know, there are NO requirements for number of work hours or assignments to complete on a regular basis. However, we favor unchanging and vast availabilities and provide monetary rewards based on the following:
- If you submit a locked availability for the next month and devote at least 40 available hours per week, you will earn $50. 💰
- If you submit a locked availability for the next 2 months and devote at least 40 available hours per week, you will earn $75. 💰
- If you submit a locked availability for the next 3 months and devote at least 40 available hours per week, you will earn $125. 💰
- If you submit a locked availability for the next 6 months and devote at least 40 available hours per week, you will earn $250. 💰
If you are locking in your availability for the next however many months on the basis of the rewards system above, please send a message in Slack #availability as well as add a note to the availability entry (see How do I add my availability?) so that way we are clear on your intentions and can track your availability accordingly.
By accepting a locked availability challenge, Hands N Paws reserves the right to assign you on the basis of how far out you are locking your availability for. For example, if you are attempting the 1 month challenge, and we receive a service request from a client (that no one from the team has accepted to their schedule yet), if you happen to have availability to take on that request, we can (and likely will) manually assign it to you.
Lastly, in order to complete the locked availability challenge properly and receive your reward, your work record must stay FREE of points/infractions for the duration of the challenge.
Why shouldn’t I accept services to my schedule outside of my availability that’s listed?
If you start accepting services to your schedule and it does NOT align with the availability you have submitted, it can get confusing. For those who do manual scheduling of services, they need full clarity on when team members ARE available and when they are NOT available. If there’s a mismatch between services you’ve accepted vs availability that’s listed, it prevents us from having clarity on how/when we can actually manually assign services to you (should we ever need to). Plus, Precise Petcare notifies us when accepted services and availability entries don’t match up, informing us to move towards keeping things clear and aligned.
Do I have to give a two-week notice for taking time off?
We really appreciate advanced notice for any availability changes; however, you are open to doing whatever works for you! As an independent contractor, you can set your availability for whenever you want and change it at any moment.
What if I need off for a time that I already have accepted visits on schedule?
If you already have accepted assignments on schedule for a time you’re suddenly unavailable for, it would be in your best interest to let the team know in Slack #availability (and hopefully secure alternative help from another available worker). We discourage you from backing out of any and all accepted assignments without trying to find alternative help, as this can affect our client experience and as a result, penalize your position with Hands N Paws. See Record Points for more information.
Why shouldn’t I have more than one availability entry per workday?
You totally can! Just as long as things are clear and easily understood on our end, there shouldn’t be any problems. In the past, we would have team members submit multiple entires for a single workday that overlapped with one another and were conflicting (see example below). The reason why we encourage you to have one availability entry per single workday is so that we avoid any potential misunderstandings.
The solution to this would be to update the main availability entry (one that was submitted first), and add an Except For date. See How do I update an existing availability entry? for more information!