Your group needs a new employee work schedule. Maybe the staff size has changed. Or the demand for your product/services requires you to increase the hours of operation. Perhaps you've run out of space and need to add a 2^nd or 3^rd shift. Maybe you're just tired of listening to employee complaints. Whatever the reason, you know that something has to be done.

If you're like most managers in this situation, you may be asking friends or associates in your industry about their schedules. And you're probably searching the Internet for additional ideas. It's important to find a solution that doesn't require a lot of time or money. Your regular responsibilities can't be put on hold and your budget has little room for unexpected expenditures.

Unfortunately, a schedule that's not tailored to the organization's hours of operation, coverage requirements, staff size, and pay week will rarely be a good solution. You will probably end up with problems such as these:

• Ineffective coverage
• Inconsistent coverage
• Over-staffing
• Unnecessary overtime
• Minimal weekends off

Let's look at each of these problems a little closer.

Ineffective Coverage
The fundamental purpose of the schedule is to ensure the right number of people at work during all the hours of operation, i.e., to match the coverage with the workload.

• If the work volume is fairly steady, then the coverage also should be constant. A schedule with hours of overlapping shifts would be ineffective for these situations. For example, using 10-hour shifts in an organization with a steady workload would be a waste. There is no need for the 6 hours of double coverage while the shifts overlap. It would also be costly, since it would require 25% more personnel than a schedule using 8-hour or 12-hour shifts.
  
  
• If the work volume varies by time of day or day of the week, the coverage should reflect that. Possible solutions include mixed shift lengths, overlay or power shifts, 10-hour shifts, staggered shift start times, or different coverage levels on each shift. An example of ineffective coverage is a police department with a heavier workload on Friday and Saturday evenings that uses a schedule with the same coverage throughout the week.
  
  

Inconsistent Coverage
An ideal schedule consistently matches the desired coverage. Some schedules don't do this. Here are two examples:

• Sometimes companies have more staff than the minimum necessary. They may have reached this position because they were using an inefficient schedule which required more employees or they thought the extra personnel would help to cover absences. A small food processing firm needs 5 people working on a 24/7 basis. They employ 23 people, three more than the minimum necessary. They could have used the extra employees to build relief coverage into the schedule, but instead adopted a schedule in which the coverage varies between 5 and 6 people.
  
  
• Sometimes organizations adopt schedules that produce fluctuating coverage because they like the work pattern even though it is a poor match for their requirements. For example, a warehouse needs at least 3 people working around the clock. They chose a schedule with a 6-on-3-off pattern because their employees thought it would be better than the current schedule. Because of their staff size, however, the coverage varied between 2 and 3 people. To maintain the minimum coverage levels, the company was forced to hire 3 more employees. The coverage now varies between 3 and 4 people. In this case, choosing the wrong schedule increased their costs by 25% and it is still producing inconsistent coverage.
  
  

Over-staffing
Nobody wants to overstaff, yet it happens all the time. It occurs primarily for three reasons:

• The organization sets an annual target of less than 2,080 work hours per employee (<40 hours a week). For example, a police department has a labor contract that limits employees to 1,820 hours a year. This is an average of 35 hours a week. They need 5-person coverage using 10-hour rotating shifts. Because of the reduced work hours, they have to employ 30 officers. If they worked an average of 42 hours a week, they would only need 25 officers.
  
  
• The organization builds extra coverage into the schedule rather than using relief coverage. For example, small utility needs 4-person coverage at all times. Although they could do this with 16 people working an average of 42 hours a week, they employ 20 people to have 5-person coverage at all times. They could have employed 17 people (rotating shifts) or 18 people (fixed shifts) and built relief coverage time into the schedule which would have accomplished the same thing.
  
  
• The organization wants a schedule with no built-in overtime. A small hospital needs 3 CNAs on a 24/7 basis. Their 8-hour fixed shift schedule requires at least 12 people working an average of 42 hours a week. However, they are instructed to eliminate overtime from the schedule. To maintain the same coverage, they are forced to employ 15 people at 40 hours a week.
  
  

Unnecessary Overtime
People adopt work patterns that were intended for a different pay week. If they don't tweak the schedule, they could end up with highly unbalanced work weeks and more overtime than necessary. Example:  A small trucking company found a schedule that was intended for a Sun-Sat pay week. Since their pay week starts on Monday, the employees work 60 hours one week and 24 hours the next, and the company has to pay for an extra 3 hours of overtime per employee every week.

Minimal Weekends Off
Employees want to get as many weekends off as possible. This may not be achieved if the organization chooses the wrong schedule or doesn't modify it to fit their pay week.

• A nursing home has a schedule with several split weekends in which employees work either Saturday or Sunday instead of both. A different pattern would have provided more full weekends off.
  
  
• Many work patterns work best for a certain pay week. For example, a popular 8-hour rotating shift schedule pattern that requires only 4 or 5 consecutive days of work provides 1 weekend off every four weeks - only if the pay week begins on Sunday. Trying to use this pattern with a Monday start will mean the workers never get a full weekend off.
  
  

Conclusions
When organizations select a schedule that is not matched to their specific resources or requirements, employees can suffer from fewer full weekends off and the organization can suffer from ineffective coverage and higher costs.