Here's my last 10-hour shift schedule post for awhile. This is another forum comment at 911Dispatch: "I have 9 Full Time (1 position open for total of 10) Dispatcher's and I'm trying my hardest to get us converted to 10 hour shifts. I would prefer 12 hours shifts but management is against it still at this time. I only have 3 working consoles so I would need no more than 3 on at a time and I have 3 supervisor's to account for. Any examples or ideas are VERY WELCOME!! You can email me or respond on here. My email is xxxxx! Thanks in advance!" 1. Justification. A variable workload is the only way to justify a change to 10-hour shifts to management. There is no mention of a variable workload here; just a desire to get 10-hour shifts. If you want 10-hour shifts, you have to find a way to justify the change to management. The only viable argument is that it will help us to better match our coverage with the workload. 2. Coverage. Coverage requirements are the starting point for all schedule design. All this person mentions is the maximum coverage, not the minimum. With 10 employees and a little bit of built-in overtime, this group could have 2-person coverage for 18 hours a day and 4-person coverage (when the shifts overlap) for 6 hours a day. 3. Physical capacity limitations. But wait! They can't have more than 3 people working at the same time. Now they're up a creek. When 4 people show up for 6 hours every day of the week, they'll have one person doing nothing. That's a waste. I'm not sure about the 3 supervisors. Are they in addition to the 10 dispatchers? They could have up to 6 people working during the 6 hours of overlapping shifts, but only have 3 consoles. This would be a mess. 4. Supervision. Should I repeat all the problems that 10-hour shifts create for supervision? Like crewless schedules and the need for at least 5 supervisors? 5. Schedule format. This person never mentioned whether they had fixed shifts or rotating shifts. If they changed to 10-hour shifts, this might make a difference. To achieve 2-person coverage with 10-hour rotating shifts takes 10 people working an average of 42 hours a week. To achieve 2-person coverage with 10-hour fixed shifts takes 12 people working only 40 hours a week. This is one additional area they might have to make a sacrifice just to get 10-hour shifts.    

Here's another comment I read at the 911Dispatch forum from someone who wants to adopt 10-hour shifts: "Our center has been looking into getting away from our 8 hour shifts. Most everyone here wants either 8's or 10's, 12's are out of the question for now anyways. We have 12 full time dispatchers, 3 being leads. Has anyone found a way to work a ten hour schedule with that number of people? Most of the research I've done says it is not able to be done." I'm going to break my comments down into a couple of categories: 1. Workload. Is there ever a mention of a variable workload? No. So why are they considering 10-hour shifts? 10-hour shifts are only appropriate for organizations whose workload varies throughout the day. I suspect that the desire to adopt 10-hour shifts is merely employee preferences to get more days off and more weekends off. Unfortunately, this is insufficient justification. 10-hour shifts require some major sacrifices, so you'll need a lot more than just employee preferences to support the change. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but there are several limitations to 10-hour shifts that employees fail to recognize. Some of them will be discussed below. 2. Coverage/staffing. To provide 3-person coverage on a 24/7 basis using 10-hour shifts would require 15 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. This organization only has 12 employees. They could have 3-person coverage on one shift and 2-person coverage on the other two shifts. If they tweaked the start/end times on the shifts, they could make the overlapping shifts cover another 6 hours of the day. The end result would be 4-person coverage for 6 hours, 3-person coverage for 10 hours, and 2-person coverage for 8 hours. 3. Crews. Most 10-hour shift schedules don't use crews. They are what I refer to as "crewless" schedules. For this group, I would create a 12-week schedule. Each employee would be initially assigned to one of the 12 weeks. When they finished the first week, they would rotate to the next week of the schedule. They would continue doing this until the finished the entire schedule, at which time they would go back to the first week of the schedule. 4. Leads. There are 3 leads. If they are working 10-hour shifts and are needed at all times, the organization would need 2 more leads. Even then, they would have to work 42 hours a week on average. And they wouldn't always be working with the same set of employees. This will make it much more difficult to supervise. 5. Overtime. Sometimes people think that changing to 10-hour shifts will allow them to have a schedule with no overtime built into it. Unfortunately, that only occurs with certain levels of coverage. The most efficient 10-hour schedule will have multiples of 7 people on each shift which will produce multiples of 4-person coverage. For the 3-person coverage this organization needs, overtime would be needed to ensure consistent coverage. As with their current 8-hour schedule, they would average 42 hours per week if they had 15 employees.    

  Here are links to articles I've written about 10-hour shift schedules:   1. 10-hour shifts   2. 10-hour shifts for 24/7 coverage 3. 10-hour shifts in 24/7 operations (staffing and templates) 4. 10-hour shifts in 24/7 operations 5. 10-hour shift schedules for police management 6. 10-hour shift schedules for police officers 7. 10-hour shifts vs. 12-hour shifts   8. Four 10-hour shifts for 24/7 coverage Do you have enough staff to adopt 10s? Here's a calculator that will quickly tell you how many people are needed:   1. Staffing Calculator     Unlike 8-hour and 12-hour shifts, we don't sell packages of schedule examples for 10-hour shifts. That's because they have to be custom designed for each situation. Please contact us to see how we can help:   Contact Us  

Higher-ranking law enforcement personnel (e.g., Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, Captains, and Lieutenants) tend to look at 10-hour shifts in a different way than their subordinates do. They are well aware of the popularity of 10-hour shifts among the officers/deputies, but often are unable to adopt them due to resource constraints. Let's look at the major considerations in the change to 10-hour shifts from the management perspective. Overtime Since four 10-hour shifts add up to 40 hours a week, some people believe 10-hour shifts will eliminate overtime from the work schedule. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as shown below: 24/7 Coverage Crews Needed Schedule Format Average Workweek 1 crew     5    Rotating shifts           42 1 crew     6      Fixed shifts           40 2 crews     5    Rotating shifts           42 3 crews   15          Either           42 4 crews   21          Either           40   A crew can consist of one to hundreds of officers. Unlike many 8 or 12-hour shift schedules that require 4 crews, 10-hour schedules require 5 or more crews. For example, to have 1-person coverage around-the-clock, you need 5 people if you use rotating shifts and 6 people if you use fixed shifts. To have 2-person coverage, you would need 10 people (5 crews of 2 each) with rotating shifts and 12 people (6 crews of 2 each) with fixed shifts. The most common 10-hour schedules rely on 5 or 15 crews. These schedules average 42 hours a week, the same as most 8-hour and 12-hour schedules that use 4 crews. I occasionally get calls from Police Captains and Lieutenants who have tried to create a schedule on their own, but can't make it work. They didn't realize that the schedule needed an occasional 50-hour work week or that it required more crews. Overtime is unnecessary only when the schedule is comprised of 6 crews or 21 crews (and sometimes with a crewless schedule).   Overlapping Shifts A schedule that uses three 10-hour shifts will have 6 hours a day in which the shifts overlap one another. There are two common ways to use the overlaps: Overlap each shift by two hours. Officers on the out-going shift can do their paperwork while officers on the in-coming shift are out on the street. This ensures continued coverage throughout the day. This approach tends to be preferred by the officers. Align the overlapping shifts with the busiest period of the day. Coverage can be boosted for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day depending on how the shifts are scheduled. I recommend this approach because the primary reason for having a schedule is to allocate the resources to match the workload. The downside is that it often requires unusual shift start/end times. This approach tends to be preferred by management. Coverage Reduction The biggest problem with 10-hour shifts is that they require more resources than 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. A 10-hour schedule requires more staff because the officers are working 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts). This will either require 25% more personnel or a 25% reduction in the coverage levels. In most cases, headcounts are frozen, so the impact is reduced coverage on each shift. Even if sufficient staff is available, they are usually needed for other purposes such as absence coverage. Since the absence rates in most police departments are rather high, most Chiefs opt to use any “extra” staff in one of two ways: Increase coverage levels above the minimum. For example, a department needs a minimum of 3 officers on each shift. This requires at least 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week. They use their staff of 16 officers to provide 4-person coverage. This allows for up to one absence on each shift. Build relief coverage into the schedule. This is often more efficient than increasing the coverage on each shift. For example, the same department only has 14 officers, so they adopt a 14-week rotating shift schedule in which 2 of the 14 weeks are devoted to relief coverage. This requires fewer staff and provides more flexible absence coverage. When the "extra" coverage is lost, absences (like vacations, sick time, training, court time, etc.) will have to be covered using overtime. This is the most common reason for rejecting the switch to 10-hour shifts. This is such an important point that I have to repeat it. Adopting 10-hour shifts will reduce the coverage on each shift (except for the periods of overlapping shifts). Since part of this coverage provides a cushion for absences, the 10-hour shifts will result in much higher levels of overtime.   Absences Some people believe that 10-hour shifts will reduce absences. Since the longer shifts provide one additional day off each week, this time can be used for doctor's appointments or other personal business. I am not aware of any studies that confirm this, but it seems possible. The Shift Length Experiment prepared by the Police Foundation did not report any significant reductions in sick leave when switching to 10s (http://www.policefoundation.org/publication/shift-length-experiment/). If there is an impact, it is undoubtedly small.    Conclusions 10-hour shifts are universally popular with the officers. Chiefs or Sheriffs are aware of this, but lack of resources to make the change. From what I've seen, it's primarily the larger departments that have adequate resources to adopt 10s. Smaller departments (less than 30 officers) rarely have enough personnel. 

Almost every week I'm contacted by police officers, sheriff's deputies, and patrolmen about 10-hour shifts. They believe that 10-hour shifts would benefit themselves and their fellow officers. I believe there are two reasons they think 10s would be an improvement over their current 8-hour schedule. I will take a closer look at each of these in an attempt to sort out the reality from the myth.      Time Off  In 24/7 operations, typical schedules using 8, 10 or 12-hour shifts provide the following number of days and weekends off:    Shift Length        Days Off Per Year             Max. Weekends Off    8-hour                           91                                       25%  10-hour                          146                                      40%         12-hour                          182                                      50% It is clear that 10-hour shifts offer more days off and more weekends off than 8s, but not as many as 12s. I believe that 10s are the most popular shift length because they offer more time off than 8s and they are seen as more tolerable than 12s. If the only objective was to maximize time off, 12-hour shifts would be the clear winner. The key point that is often overlooked is absence coverage. With 8-hour shifts, absences are covered either by holding someone over from the previous shift or by splitting the vacant shift into two 4-hour components that can be covered by the preceding and following shifts. With 10-hour and 12-hour shifts, absences must be covered by calling someone in from a scheduled day off. Many law enforcement agenices have built additional coverage into their schedules to compensate for their high absence rates. But what happens if that extra coverage isn't available? Since 10-hour shifts will reduce the available coverage by at least 25%, there won't be any extra capacity to cover absences. So, instead of getting the expected 3 days off every week, the officers might only get 1 or 2 days off.   On/Off Work Patterns The common perception of 10-hour work patterns is 4 days of work followed by 3 days off. In 24/7 operations, however, this pattern only works if you use 6 crews and fixed days of work. This requires a lot more staff, a backwards rotation, and fixed days of work. You can read more about this approach and its shortcomings here:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=problems-with-free-schedule-examples    The best 10-hour schedule for 24/7 operations uses 7 crews per shift or 21 total crews. There is no built-in overtime with this schedule. It also has the most attractive work pattern (4 or 5 consecutive days of work followed by 3 or 4-day breaks). The pattern can easily be adapted for use with either fixed or rotating shifts. If you don't have 7 officers or a multiple of 7 (14, 21, 28, etc.) per shift, your 10-hour schedule will have shorter blocks of work (two to four days) and shorter breaks (one to three days). Many officers are disappointed when they see these patterns because there are so many one and two-day breaks. These patterns are especially unattractive to anyone who is expecting to consistently get 3 consecutive days off by changing to 10-hour shifts.     Organization and Supervision  Many 8-hour and 12-hour schedules use 4 squads. Squad members work the same shift(s) and the same days of the week. 10-hour shift schedules for small organizations (less than 50 people), rarely use squads. Some days, Officer A might be working with officers C and E. On other days, he or she might be working with officers B and D, or maybe with officers G and J.   With 8 or 12-hour shift schedules, each squad usually has a sergeant or corporal who acts as the team leader/supervisor. With 10-hour shifts, in order to ensure that a supervisor is always on duty, it's necessary to put them on their own, separate schedule. This means the officers will not always be working with the same supervisor after changing to a 10-hour shift schedule.       Conclusions  10-hour shifts provide more time off than 8-hour shifts, but not as much as 12-hour shifts. The extra days off may not be realized since some of them will probably be used to cover absences. Although the schedule will provide 3 days off for most weeks, they won't always occur on consecutive days. 10-hour shifts also will change the way the group is organized and supervised. Although 10-hour shifts are clearly more attractive than 8-hour shifts, they may not live up to the high expectations that many police officers have of them. I think the shift length debate among officers should not be 8s vs. 10s, but 10s vs. 12s.   Please check out my other 10-hour blog posts, especially 10-hour shifts and Police Management. Go to the search box and type in 10 hour shifts. You really need to educate yourself about this before making a choice you might regret.  

  10-hour shifts are a popular choice among employees. However, when used with companies working 24/7, the 10-hour shifts create a few problems. The biggest is that it takes three 10-hour shifts to cover the day. This means the company is actually running for 30 hours a day instead of 24, which will boost the staffing requirements by at least 25%.   And, if that's not bad enough, how do you handle the fact that the shifts overlap one another for 6 hours a day? Do you overlap each shift by 2 hours or do you consolidate the overlap so there are 6 consecutive hours of double coverage?   If you overlap each shift for 2 hours, do you have one shift sit idle, while the other works? That seems pretty wasteful. The exception would be police departments where the first shift can go back to the office to do paperwork, while the second shift is out on patrol.   If you consolidate the overlaps, you might be able to take advantage of the double coverage. Maybe there is a special project that can be tackled, areas that can be cleaned / repaired, or a new production line that can be operated. Companies with variable work volumes can align the 6 hours of overlap with the busy period to match the coverage with the workload. The downside, of course, is that this may result in some weird shift start and end times that won't appeal to employees.   If you are considering 10-hour shifts in your 24/7 business, I hope you'll read the other articles I've written about the limitations of 10-hour shifts. Here are links to the most popular articles:   1. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/10-Hour_Shifts 2. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=10-hour-shift-schedules-and-police-management 3. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=10-hour-shift-schedules-for-police-officers  

If you've searched my website for articles about 10-hour shifts, you'll see that I have a pretty negative opinion toward them in 24/7 operations. Here are links to some of those articles:   10-Hour Shifts in 24/7 Operations (shift-schedule-design.com)   10-Hour Shifts for 24/7 Coverage (shift-schedule-design.com)   10-Hour Shift Schedules and Police Management (shift-schedule-design.com)   10-Hour Shift Schedules for Police Officers (shift-schedule-design.com) Most of the issues I raise are management concerns, like the fact that 10-hour shifts require at least 25% more staff than 8 or 12-hour shifts. Nevertheless, employees tend to believe that 10-hour shifts are the ideal shift length. They would do anything (maybe including a pay cut) to get them. Since employees love them so much, maybe it's worth the extra cost. After all, wouldn't it be great to have a happy, enthusiastic workforce?    The table below shows the staff needed to different levels of coverage:   Coverage per Shift Staff Required on Each Shift Total Staff Required Avg. Weekly Hours 1 2 6 40 2 4 12 40 3 5 15 42 4 7 21 40 5 9 27 40 Coverage levels greater than 5 would either be a multiple of one of the levels shown or it would require a custom-designed schedule. For example, 6-person coverage would use a schedule for 3-person coverage, whereas 7-person coverage would require a custom-designed schedule.   With some of these coverage levels, the schedule would have one or two overlapping days. This will produce more coverage than needed. This is necessary to ensure 40-hour work weeks. You can only avoid this by having an occasional 30-hour work week, which few employees would tolerate.   3-person coverage is the only level that would require some overtime in the schedule (a 50-hour work week once every 5 weeks). If you want to avoid the OT, you'd have to employ 6 people per shift or 18 total employees. I don't think it's worth it, but that's your call.   Want to see a few templates for your coverage requirements? You won't find these elsewhere on the Internet. They have to be custom-designed. Please fill out this form to get an idea of what we would provide and how much we would charge:   Contact Us  

Most shift length comparisons look at 8-hour shifts vs.12-hour shifts. They also focus on the advantages or disadvantages from the employee perspective. This post will address 10-hour shifts vs. 12-hour shifts from a management perspective. 10-Hour Shifts The primary advantage of 10-hour shifts (and only justifiable reason for considering them) is that they enable organizations to match their coverage with a variable workload. They are able to do this because the shifts overlap one another for 6 hours a day. There are three workload patterns that can be accommodated with 10s: The workload is higher for a single 6-hour period every day. The workload is higher for 12 hours every day. The workload is higher for 16 hours every day. Many police and dispatch centers have workload patterns like these, which is why you will find 10-hour shifts used so often in these organizations. Companies with steady workloads should never adopt 10-hour shifts. For them, the overlapping shifts are a waste of manpower. The primary disadvantage of 10-hour shifts is that they require more staff than 8s or 12s since they require the employees to work 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts) instead of the usual 24 hours. As a result, the organization would have to employ 25% more people with 10s than with 8s or 12s. Other problems with 10-hour shifts are covered in more detail here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/10-Hour_Shifts. 12-Hour Shifts The key advantage of 12-hour shifts is that they will produce maximum coverage from a given set of workers. Sometimes organizations can use this "extra" output to cover absences without resorting to mandatory hold-overs or call-ins: They can produce coverage that exceeds the minimum requirements. They can build relief coverage into the schedule. The biggest downside of 12s is that they require overtime in the schedule. Half the work weeks are 36 hours (three 12-hour shifts) and half are 48 hours (four 12-hour shifts). There are ways to eliminate or minimize this, but they are rarely worth the effort, e.g., see http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=12-hour-shift-schedules-with-no-overtime.   Alternative Scenarios If the organization has a variable workload, 10-hour shifts might be the best choice. The three situations in which 10s work best were listed above. If the organization has a steady workload, 12-hour shifts are the obvious choice. 10-hour shifts would be too wasteful since they would require more staff than 12-hour shifts. For example, if the organization needs 4-person coverage on a 24/7 basis, this would require 21 employees with 10-hour shifts and only 16 employees with 12-hour shifts. That's 31.25% more personnel. If the organization has limited staff relative to its coverage requirements, 12-hour shifts are the best choice. Using the example cited above, an organization with 16 employees could produce 4-person coverage with 12s but only 3-person coverage with 10s. If the organization has a high absence rate and sufficient staff, they can use 12-hour shifts to either create extra coverage or relief coverage in the schedule. Let's say they have 16 employees but only need 3-person coverage. With 12s, they could either increase the coverage on each shift to 4 people or, if they have rotating shifts, build relief coverage into the schedule. If the organization has both a variable workload and a high absence rate, which is common with many police departments and communication centers, the choice between 10s and 12s becomes more difficult. 10s are best for the variable workload, whereas 12s are best for squeezing extra coverage out to compensate for absences. The choice depends on which is most important to the organization, though it often boils down to what they can afford which usually means 12-hour shifts.  

When covering 24/7 with 10-hour shifts, most people think it takes three shifts since you would simply be replacing the three 8-hour shifts. The problem with three 10-hour shifts is that you are really covering 30/7 which can increase the staffing requirements by 25% or more.   For example, suppose you need 2-person coverage on every shift. With 8-hour fixed shifts, this would require 9 employees (3 per shift). With 10-hour fixed shifts, it would take 12 employees (4 on each shift). This is a 33% increase in the staffing, making it unaffordable for most organizations.   This is not the case for all situations, however. Let's say you needed 2 people on the day and afternoon shifts and only 1 person on the night shift. WIth 8-hour fixed shifts, this would require 8 employees. With three 10-hour fixed shifts, this would require 10 employees. But if you used FOUR 10-hour shifts, it would only require 8 employees. Here's one way to match that.   Assign 2 people to each of the following four 10-hour shifts.   This would produce 2-person coverage from 6 am to 10 pm and 1-person coverage from 10 pm to 6 am. With 2 people on each shift, there would be one day every week in which both people are scheduled to work (since everyone is working 4 shifts or 40 hours per week). This would give you 4-person coverage from 6a to 10p and 2-person coverage from 10p to 6a on that one day every week. You could use this extra coverage for group meetings, training or other purposes.   This approach only works if the coverage for 16 hours a day is double the coverage for the remaining 8 hours. So it would work if you needed 2-person/1-person, 4-person/2-person, 6-person/3-person, 8-person/4-person and so on.   If you want to get really complicated, you could boost the coverage on one shift. This would give you extra coverage for that 10-hour period. For instance, you could assign 4 people to the afternoon shift. This would give you 2-person coverage from 6a to 12p, 3-person coverage from 12p to 10p, and 1-person coverage from 10p to 6a.   Obviously, this can get really complicated. If you are dead-set on adopting 10-hour shifts, why not contact us for help. Get started by filling out this form:   Contact Us

Several years ago, I visited the forum at 911Dispatch.Unfortunately, that website has closed as the person who ran it has retired. Too bad because the site had a lot of useful information on it and I would often reply to people on the forum who asked scheduling questions. Here's one of the posts I came across: "We just hired a 5th dispatcher and I am trying to come up with 10-hour shifts that are agreeable to all. We are currently on 12's, where we get 4 hours OT built in each pay period (two weeks). We work one dispatcher per shift. Our schedule is 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off. Does anyone work 10's with just 5 people?" This woman apparently assumed that 10-hour shifts were a good idea because they would avoid the built-in overtime. The only concern was finding an on-off work pattern using the 10s. She didn't mention other factors that should be considered when making decisions about a new schedule, for example: 1. Workload. I believe that the workload is the most important consideration in the selection of a new schedule. The ideal schedule matches the coverage with the workload. If the workload is fairly constant throughout the day, 10-hour shifts are not a good choice since they overlap for 6 hours a day. Why would she want double coverage for 6 hours a day if it wasn't needed? It might even exceed the number of work stations the group has. If she can use the extra coverage, that's great, but there was no mention of that in her forum posting. 2. Absence rate. If her organization had a high absence rate, she probably should use the 5th employee for relief coverage, not to enable 10-hour shifts. 3. Training. If she needed to build training time into the schedule, I would use the extra capacity for that purpose rather than changing to 10-hour shifts. 4. Cost. Many people think that changing from 12-hour shifts to 10-hour shifts will eliminate overtime. To have 1-person coverage with rotating 10-hour shifts, the organization will need 5 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. The only difference from the 12s is that the 10s require one additional employee.  5. Employee preferences. Even though most employees say they prefer 10-hour shifts over 12-hour shifts, when they compare the actual schedules for each shift length, roughly 90% will favor the 12-hour schedules. The 12s offer more days off and more weekends off. Also the on-off patterns and crew configurations are easier to understand. 6. Fixed shifts. With the 12-hour shifts, her group could either use fixed or rotating shifts. If they change to 10-hour shifts, the only option is rotating shifts. Fixed 10-hour shifts would require 6 employees for the coverage she wants. And with the fixed 10s, there would be one day of overlap every week. They could end up with 4 people working for the 6 hours that the shifts overlap on the overlapping day of the week. Many people think that the selection of a new schedule starts by picking the shift length and then finding an on-off pattern that works. They reach out to others in their industry for ideas and suggestions. Unfortunately, this ignores other important considerations that can create a negative work environment (e.g., insufficient coverage during busy periods, mandatory overtime to cover absences, lack of time for training, loss of fixed shifts, and undesirable schedules). Schedule selection should always start with the workload and associated coverage requirements. Is there sufficient staff to achieve the coverage requirements or will it be necessary to build overtime into the schedule? What shift length(s) would work best at matching the coverage with the workload? Are there other issues, such as a high absence rate or a strong preference for fixed shifts, that should be considered? The next step would be to create a couple of different options that allow the employees to compare features such as shift length, consecutive days of work, nature of the breaks (i.e. days off), and the number of weekends off. That way they can make an informed decision based on the good and bad points of each option.