When employees say that want better “work-life balance,” they are really expressing a desire for more time off from work. They want a work schedule that offers more days off, especially weekends off. This usually requires changing to 10 or 12-hour shifts. Even though this means longer work days, many employees feel the extra time off is worth it.

We showed employees examples of 24/7 schedules using different shift lengths and asked them to rate the different shift lengths. Here are the results:

Ratings definitions:

     5 = I like it a lot

     4 = It has potential to be good

     3 = Neutral or not sure

     2 = It doesn't look promising

     1 = I don't like it

Are you surprised? If you simply asked your employees whether they wanted 8-hour or 12-hour shifts, you'd probably hear 80% saying they'd prefer 8-hour shifts. But if they saw the actual schedules, 12-hour schedules would likely come out on top. So please don't fall into this trap of thinking your group doesn't want 12-hour shifts. You have to show them actual schedule examples so they can make a truly informed decision.

The same goes for 10-hour shifts. Not only are the 10-hour schedules less attractive than the 12s, but you run into a bunch of problems. I've written many, many articles about this. Please do a search on this website for 10-hour shifts if you want to read a few of them.

In addition to more days off, employees also tend to prefer longer breaks between work days. Here are more results from our surveys of shiftworkers in 24/7 operations:

The demand for schedules that will improve work like balance makes it critical that you show your employees examples of both 12-hour and 8-hour schedules with more consecutive work days. This way, they can see and better judge whether the increased time off is worth the longer shifts OR the need to work more days in a row. Let us show you a few examples of each to make it easy for you to accomplish this. Get started here:

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