In the last few weeks, a number of people have contacted me for help with their schedules. What's unusual is that many of them didn't have a scheduling preference. They said they were open to 8-hour, 10-hour or 12-hour shifts. Most of them wanted fixed shifts.
 

I started by telling them that fixed shifts often require a few more employees than rotating shifts. This is true with both 8-hour and 10-hour shifts. This can be critical when the group is already staffed at a minimum or understaffed. They could still use fixed shifts, but they would either have to hire more staff or adopt a schedule with a lot of overtime in it.
 

Next, I went into the problems with 10-hour shifts. I know, everybody loves 10s. But 10s are really inefficient when you're trying to cover a 24-hour day. You need three shifts, which means you're really working 30 hours a day instead of 24 hours. This 25% increase in hours per day requires a 25% increase in staff or a 25% reduction in the amount of coverage. Few organizations can handle this.

That leaves 8-hour shifts and 12-hour shifts. And if the coverage is not the same at all times, a 12-hour shift schedule may not be a good fit. What is needed is a combination of 8s and 12s, for example 8 people on the 12s and 4 people on the 8s. Although the 12-hour shifts might improve the efficiency (i.e. require fewer people), the 8-hour fixed shifts are highly inefficient for low levels of coverage like one person. For example, 1-person coverage requires 2 people and there would be 3 days a week in which both of them are scheduled to work.

I believe that the people who contacted me with no schedule preferences did so to find a scheduling solution to their current situation. What they didn't realize was that they had a staffing problem, not a scheduling problem.

Yes, they might find some schedule changes that are a little more efficient, but not to the extent they hoped to find. And some of those changes might result in schedules that are not very employee-friendly (e.g., 8-hour rotating shifts).