How do you respond to a coworker who asks you to cover a shift on short notice?

• A. Decline the request without consideration and inform the supervisor.
• B. Offer to cover regardless of your availability and fairness.
• C. Check your availability, consider fairness, and communicate promptly with supervisor.
• D. Tell them to ask someone else and go back to your tasks.

Answer: (C)

Handling a request to cover a shift on short notice means balancing your own schedule with fairness to the team and communicating clearly. The best approach is to quickly check your availability, consider how covering would affect your workload and fairness to others, and then promptly tell your supervisor what you can or can’t do. This shows responsibility, respect for coworkers, and helps ensure the shift is managed smoothly.

Declining without consideration can leave the team short-handed and come across as uncooperative. Offering to cover regardless of your availability or fairness can put you in a difficult spot or disrupt fairness and planning. Telling the coworker to ask someone else and returning to your tasks ignores the staffing need and wastes time.