Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
8:00am - 5:00pm (Pacific Time Zone), Mon-Fri
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Wikipedia defines para-transit as follows:
"Para-transit is recognized in North America as special transportation services for people with disabilities, often provided as a supplement to fixed-route bus and rail systems by public transit agencies. Para-transit services may vary considerably on the degree of flexibility they provide their customers. At their simplest they may consist of a taxi or small bus that will run along a more or less defined route and then stop to pick up or discharge passengers on request. At the other end of the spectrum—fully demand-responsive transport - the most flexible para-transit systems offer on-demand call-up door-to-door service from any origin to any destination in a service area. In addition to public transit agencies, paratransit services are operated by community groups or not-for-profit organizations, and for-profit private companies or operators."
Because the demand for para-transit services is so highly variable, scheduling the drivers is a challenging task. Most para-transit organizations tend to rely on overtime and a large pool of drivers that can be called into work when needed. I believe there is huge opportunity to schedule the drivers more effectively and reduce the costs. This opportunity comes from two key points. The first point is that historical trip volumes can and should be used to develop a schedule. The second point is that relief coverage is the best way to accommodate both employee absences and deviations from historical average trip volumes. Let's take a closer look at the specific steps involved.
Step #1: Historical Trip Volumes
The first step is to determine the workload distribution throughout the hours of operation. Start by categorizing the trip data into 2 or 3 groups based on the time involved. For example, Category A consists of trips that last 30 minutes or less. Category B consists of trips that last 30 to 60 minutes. Category C consists of trips that last more than 60 minutes.
Then look through the past year's historical data of trips made during every 30 minutes of the hours of operation. So if the first trip of the day begins at 6 a.m., I would calculate the average number of trips in each category between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. Then I would do the same for 6:30 a.m. to 7:00 a.m., 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., and so on. I would put these averages into a summary table.
If you have the data (and the time), you could also determine the maximum number of trips that occurred during each 30-minute period and add this data to the summary table. You also could create separate tables for each region in the service area and for each season of the year.
Step #2: Driver Requirements
The second step is to determine the coverage requirements. The number of drivers needed during each 30-minute period depends on the type of service the organization offers. If the service is door-to-door, you will need one driver for each trip. If the service is limited to fixed routes, you will need fewer drivers per trip. The point is that you will need to translate the trip volumes into driver requirements by time of day. In scheduling jargon, this is called establishing the coverage requirements. Once these figures are made available, a scheduling expert can help with the remaining steps. I say this because the next few steps are the most difficult part of the process.
Step #3: Schedule Framework
This step will determine the shift lengths, start times, and number of drivers needed on each shift. This is basically a trial and error process. Here is a simple example:
Time Period Drivers Needed
0600 to 0700 5
0700 to 0900 6
0900 to 1300 8
1300 to 1500 7
1500 to 1800 5
You begin with the first time period of the day (0600 to 0700). 5 drivers are needed on this first shift. You can test the three standard shift lengths: 8-hour, 10-hour and 12-hour shifts according to how well they fit with the afternoon requirements. If we use a 12-hour shift, this will means 5 drivers will be working from 0600 to 1800. This matches the coverage needed from 1500 to 1800, so that would be the best choice. For most organizations, it's never this simple and compromises (e.g., over-staffing for part of the day) are likely to be necessary.
6 drivers are needed during the second period (0700 to 0900). We therefore will need 1 driver on this second shift (since we already have 5 people at work from the first shift of the day). Again we will test the three standard shift lengths for the impact on the afternoon. The best choice would be an 8-hour shift since anything longer would unnecessarily boost the coverage after 3 p.m. when it isn't needed.
We continue this process, sometimes going back to the beginning and changing earlier choices to make the entire framework more efficient, i.e. no understaffing and minimal overstaffing. The framework I would choose is as follows:
Shift Length Drivers Time Covered
12 5 0600 to 1800
8 1 0700 to 1500
4 2 0900 to 1300
If part-time drivers are not allowed in an organization, I would choose the following framework:
Shift Length Drivers Time Covered
12 5 0600 to 1500
8 3 0700 to 1500
Step #4: Basic Staffing Requirements
Now that we know the shift lengths and coverage requirements, we can determine the number of drivers needed to produce the coverage requirements. The 12-hour shift will require 10 drivers to produce 5 drivers every day of the week. The 10 drivers will all work an average of 42 hours a week. The 8-hour shift will require 2 drivers to produce 1 driver every day of the week. They will average 40 hours a week and there will be 3 days a week in which both drivers must be scheduled to work (to ensure 40-hour work weeks). If you can use part-time drivers, you can avoid the days of overlap. The 4-hour shift will require as many part-time drivers as you want.
Step #5: Supplemental Staffing Requirements
In the previous step, we focused on the staff needed just for the coverage requirements. But remember, the coverage is based on the average number of trips, not the peak demand. Also, drivers get sick, take vacation, or change jobs. That means we need some extra staff to allow for this. If we assume a 10% absence rate and another 30% difference between the peak demand and average demand, we need a 40% relief allowance.
In addition to the extra staff needed for relief coverage, some of the shifts will need extra personnel to simplify the schedule design. Here's a summary of the staff needed for each shift:
Shift Basic Staff Relief Staff Extras Total Staff
0600 to 1800 10 4 1 15
0700 to 1500 2 1 0 3
0900 to 1300 2 1 1 4
Step #6: Schedule Design
For the 12-hour shift, we will create a 3-crew schedule (5 drivers per crew) that averages 42 hours a week. For the 8-hour shift, we will create a 3-crew schedule (1 driver per crew) that averages 40 hours a week. For the 4-hour shift, we will create a schedule that averages 20 hours a week. We will use the staff on this part-time shift as trainees and reserves for full-time employees that decide to change jobs.
Here is an example of a schedule for the 12-hour shift:
Crew/Week Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Hours
A / Week 1 - 12 12 - - 12 12 48
B / Week 2 12 - - 12 12 - R 36
C / Week 3 R R R R R R - 42
The three crews of 5 employees are assigned to one of the 3 weeks in the cycle. Crew A is assigned to start in week 1, Crew B is assigned to start in week 2 and Crew C is assigned to start in week 3. At the end of each week, the crews move to the next week of the cycle: Crew A moves to week 2, B moves to week 3, and C moves up to week 1. They continue to move through the 3-week cycle. All three crews are working the same 3-week schedule. They are merely in different weeks of the 3-week pattern.
R is a relief shift which means the crew is on-call for the entire 7 days shown. If someone from week 1 or week 2 is scheduled for vacation, an employee on relief will simply work the vacationer's schedule that week. If no one is absent, the employees on relief can be called in for a couple of hours to satisfy a temporary increase in demand. The organization should establish rules on the priorities for relief work and limits on the hours and number of days worked during the 7-day period.
Here is an example of a schedule for the 8-hour shift:
Emp / Week Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Hours
A / Week 1 - - 8 8 8 8 8 40
B / Week 2 8 8 - - R R R 40
C / Week 3 R R R R R - - 40
Conclusions
We've demonstrated how assembling historical data on trip volumes can be used as the foundation for scheduling transit drivers. We also illustrated how to build extra capacity into the schedule to cover absences/vacancies and temporary fluctuations in demand. The key point is that schedules for variable workloads are ideally based on actual data rather than gut feelings, intuition, overtime considerations, etc. Using a full-time scheduling person that spends the day on the phone trying to get drivers to come to work is not the most efficient or effective approach when it comes to scheduling para-transit drivers. So if you want to keep service levels high and costs low, see if we can make this new scheduling process work for you.
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What time do most day shift workers want to start work? Surprisingly, few want to start at 8:00 a.m. or later. Most want to start before 7:00 a.m., as shown in the diagram below.
Why do so many people want to start work early? Workers tell us there are two reasons.
First, they want to get home earlier. It may be possible to arrive at home around the same time their children get out of school. There is more time in the evening to run personal errands or spend time with the family and friends. And, of course, there are more hours of daylight available for recreation, house repairs, or anything else best done while the sun is out.
Shiftworker Preferred Start Times
Median for 8-hour shifts = 6:30 a.m.
Median for 12-hour shifts = 6:00 a.m.
The second reason is they want to avoid traffic congestion during the commute to and from work. Nobody enjoys sitting in stalled traffic or poking along at a fraction of the posted speed limit. By starting work a little earlier, workers can avoid the rush hour and spend less time on the road. More than one shift worker has told us that by starting 15 minutes earlier they saved up to 45 minutes on their commute.
In addition, preferred work start times are heavily influenced by what people are familiar with. The graph below shows the preferred start times from two companies whose actual start times are significantly different. In both cases, the employees would like to have earlier start times. But the average preferences at the two plants are more than an hour apart. Clearly, the preferred start times are tempered by what the workers are used to. Once a start time is changed, preferences will gradually evolve, making acceptance of any change in start times a long-term process.
Preferred Start Times at Two Different Companies
A Company A
Company B
Current start time
6:30 a.m.
8:00 a.m.
Preferred start time (average)
6:27 a.m.
7:37 a.m.
What most people don't realize, however, is that early start times often result in less sleep. Why? Because most people won't go to bed earlier to adjust for an early work start time. They would rather sacrifice their sleep than their normal evening activities.
Here is an example from a major auto parts manufacturing plant. The plant operates on two different schedules that are an hour apart. Three-quarters of the workers on day shift start work at 6:30 a.m. The rest start an hour later at 7:30 a.m.
When surveyed, employees with the later starting time said they got an average of 34 minutes more sleep on the days they worked than the employees with the early start time did. The later start time simply allowed them to sleep longer. On their days off, both groups got about the same amount of sleep.
Asked how often they had problems with safety or performance due to sleepiness, the group with the later starting time reported they had frequent problems 31% less often than the employees on the earlier day shift. In addition, the “later starters” accounted for only 14% of the accidents over a one-year period, despite representing 24% of the total workers.
The later start times had mixed results with the afternoon and night shifts at the plant. As seen in the table below, the second shift with late start times got a little more sleep and the third shift with late start times got a little less sleep. The day shift was the only shift that experienced a significant change.
Shift
Average Hours of Sleep
Difference
Early Start
Late Start
Day shift
5.78 hours/day
6.34 hours/day
+34 minutes
Afternoon shift
6.46 hours/day
6.59 hours/day
+8 minutes
Night shift
5.98 hours/day
5.80 hours/day
-11 minutes
This is not an isolated case. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health found that a one-hour delay in morning shift start times at a steel mill increased worker sleep and improved waking alertness during the shift. They believe that sleep is often truncated when workers have early start times. The reason? Social limitations on retiring early in the evening. They also found that the evening and night shifts were affected negatively by starting work later, however, the results were not consistent.
The evidence seems to be consistent in supporting the conclusion that later start times increase the hours of sleep, at least for people working the morning shift. The question is whether the workers would choose later start times when given the choice. Does the advantage of extra sleep outweigh the disadvantages of longer commute times and less free time after work? And what about people working the other shifts? They didn't gain the same benefits, so why should they support a change?
In the NIOSH/Finnish study, the workers were allowed to vote on changing the schedule after a four-month trial of later start times. 75% of the workers voted against the later start times. The workers explained that this choice was unpopular because it interfered with social and other personal activities. How do you think your workforce would vote? Don't you think it's worth giving them the opportunity to decide? Before you do, make sure they are familiar with the studies described in this article.
Sources
1. Roger R Rosa, Mikko Harma, Katriina Pulli, Mirjam Mulder, Ove Nasman, “Rescheduling a three shift system at a steel rolling mill: effects of a one hour delay of shift starting times on sleep and alertness in younger and older workers,” Occupational andEnvironmental Medicine, Oct. 1996, Volume 53, No. 10, pp.677-685.
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Today, we're going to look at employee work schedules at a car dealership. The manager of this dealership runs the sales department 7 days a week for 12 hours a day (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.). He runs the parts department, service writers, and mechanics for 10 hours a day (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) on Mon-Fri, but wants to add Saturday. He doesn't need a schedule for the administrative staff since they work 8 hours a day Mon-Fri.
Like many dealers, he hasn't kept data on the volume of customers by time of day or day of the week. He says the volume fluctuates too much, though it's always busier on weekends. He wants at least 2 salespeople during the week and 3 or 4 salespeople on the weekends. For parts and service writing, he wants 2 people Mon-Sat. For mechanics, he wants 6 people Mon-Sat.
Salespeople
The current schedule for the sales people consists of fixed 8-hour shifts with fixed days of work. Eight salespeople needed to do this: four on days (Employees A, B, C, and D) and four on afternoons (Employees E, F, G, and H). The schedule is shown below. Employee A works the day shift (d8) from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday through Wednesday, Employee B works the day shift Thursday through Monday, and Employee F works the afternoon shift (a8) from 12 noon to 8 p.m. every Thursday through Monday.
Current Schedule
Employee
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Hours
A
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B
d8
d8
d8
-
-
d8
d8
40
C
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
d8
40
D
d8
d8
-
-
d8
d8
d8
40
E
a8
a8
a8
a8
a8
-
-
40
F
a8
a8
a8
-
-
a8
a8
40
G
a8
a8
a8
a8
-
-
a8
40
H
a8
a8
-
-
a8
a8
a8
40
Average
40
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (8am-4pm)
a8 = 8-hour afternoon shift (12pm-8pm)
Coverage:
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
8a - 12p
4
4
3
2
2
2
3
12p - 4p
8
8
6
4
4
4
6
4p - 8p
4
4
3
2
2
2
3
The resulting coverage is shown above. It produces higher coverage on the weekends, but it has a 4-hour overlap that is unnecessary. If 12pm to 4pm was a particularly busy period, the overlap would be great. But this isn't a particularly busy time of the day for sales.
Do the employees like this schedule? Well, they like working the same shift and the same days all the time, but they hate never getting a weekend off.
We were able to convince the manager that 12-hour shifts would be a better choice. Here's the schedule we designed.
Proposed Schedule
Emp. / Week
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Hours
A / Week 1
D12
D12
D12
-
-
-
-
36
B / Week 2
D12
D12
-
-
D12
D12
-
48
C / Week 3
-
-
D12
D12
-
-
D12
36
D / Week 4
D12
D12
-
-
D12
D12
-
48
E / Week 5
D12
D12
D12
-
-
-
-
36
F / Week 6
-
-
-
D12
D12
-
D12
36
G / Week 7
D12
D12
-
-
-
-
D12
36
Average
39.4
Key:
D12 = 12-hour day shift (8am-8pm)
Coverage:
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
8a - 8p
5
5
3
2
3
2
3
With this schedule, all the employees are on the same shift, but they work different days each week. This is called a fixed shift schedule with rotating days of work. Each employee starts in the week shown. After finishing this initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Employee A moves from Week 1 to Week 2, B moves from Week 2 to Week 3, and so on. Employee G moves from Week 7 up to Week 1. All the sales people would work the same 7-week pattern. It's just that they would be in different weeks of that pattern.
Unlike the current schedule with 8 salespeople, only 7 salespeople are needed with the 12s. The coverage is better too. The 4 hours of overlapping shifts is eliminated and they would have 5 people working both Saturday and Sunday instead of 4 people. The employees should be happier as well. They would get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks (weeks 3 and 6 of the schedule). There are also two 4-day breaks (Weeks 1 and 7) and one 7-day break (Week 5 into Week 6).
Parts, Service Writers, Mechanics
The current schedule for these three positions is Monday to Friday for 10 hours a day (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.). The manager organized them into 3 teams, with each team consisting of 1 Parts Person, 1 Service Writer, and 3 Mechanics.
Current Schedule
Team
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Hours
A
-
-
-
D10
D10
D10
D10
40
B
-
-
D10
D10
D10
D10
-
40
C
-
-
D10
D10
-
D10
D10
40
Average
40.0
Key:
D10 = 10-hr day shift (8am-6pm)
Coverage:
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
8a - 6p
2
3
2
3
2
Team A worked the 10-hour shift Tue-Fri, Team B worked it Mon-Thu, and Team C worked it Mon-Tue and Thu-Fri. The biggest problem was that all 3 teams worked every Tuesday and Thursday - which are not busy days. Employees liked the schedule, though Team C complained that they didn't get a 3-day weekend off like the other teams did.
We created a new schedule for Mon-Sat coverage with rotating days of work so that the employees wouldn't get stuck working every single weekend. Here's what we designed.
Proposed Schedule
Team / Week
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Hours
A / Week 1
D10
-
D10
D10
-
D10
D10
50
B / Week 2
D10
-
D10
D10
D10
-
-
40
C / Week 3
-
-
-
-
D10
D10
D10
30
Average
40.0
Key:
D10 = 10-hr day shift (8am-6pm)
Coverage:
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
8a - 6p
2
2
2
2
2
2
Without adding any staff, we rearranged the pattern so 2 teams were working every day from Mon-Sat. The only sacrifice was one 50-hour work week and one 30-hour work week. This could be resolved by moving the Tue shift in Week 1 to Week 3, however, that would leave the Mon shift in Week 1 sitting out there all by itself. This is poor scheduling because it encourages employees to call in sick or take vacation on that day to bridge the time off before and after that day.
The advantages of this new schedule are that it uses the same number of employees, but adds Saturdays and gets rid of the extra coverage on Tue and Thu. The manager was extremely pleased with this, since he got what he wanted for a small price – the overtime for one team every week (though this was offset partially by the 30-hour Week 3).
The employees didn't like the idea of rotating and working Saturdays, but they did like getting a 6-day weekend off every 3 weeks.
Conclusions
Sometimes it helps to have an outsider take a fresh look at your business, and especially your employee work schedule. The manager of this dealership would have lived with ineffective schedules and incurred unnecessary costs for years if he hadn't decided to expand the coverage to include Saturdays and contacted us for assistance.
We showed him how to improve the sales coverage and to do it with fewer people. We showed him how to add Saturday coverage for Parts, Service Writers, and Mechanics without adding more staff. In most cases, the employees were happy with the changes. They resisted the change to schedules that rotated the days of work, but they liked the longer breaks and opportunities for weekends off.
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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:
Coverage
Crews
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, producing double coverage. 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 really covering 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 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 often lack adequate resources to make the change. The simple fact that 10-hour shifts require at least 25% more staff than other approaches means that few departments can afford them. 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.
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Many retail and service businesses have found it necessary to stay open longer than 8 hours a day and more than 5 days a week. Examples of retailers include apparel, sporting goods, building supplies, household items, jewelers, stationers, and variety stores. Examples of service businesses include dry cleaners, pharmacies, auto repair, dentists, optometrists, and barbers/hair salons.
Reasons for expanding the hours of operation include the following:
Competition. Once a competitor changes its hours of operation, other local companies in that same line of business are pressured to do the same.
Customers. Longer hours expose a business to more prospects, which can increase sales. It also makes it more convenient for existing customers, which means more repeat business
Facilities. When the space or equipment is fully utilized, it's cheaper to increase the hours of operation than it is to rent a larger office/shop or to purchase more/larger machinery.
There are three factors that the business owners should consider when creating work schedules for the employees:
Coverage. What is the most effective way to match the number of people at work with the workload variations?
Cost. What is the most efficient way to staff and schedule the employees?
Satisfaction. Which approach will the employees prefer?
I've discussed these criteria previously, but only in the context of continuous 24/7 operations. Here's a link to the original article: http://www.shift-schedule design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies. In this post, we will take a closer look at each factor from the perspective of businesses that are less than 24/7.
Coverage
Once a company selects its new hours of operation, it should estimate the workload by hour of the day and by day of the week. The best way to do this is to gather historical data using measures such as:
Number of jobs or appointments
Number of in-bound phone calls
Number of customer visits
Number of out-bound service calls
Since some calls or visits require more time and effort than others, it might be necessary to classify them into 2 or 3 categories. Each category can be weighted differently to adjust for the time required by employees. A table of the weighted data can help in the selection of shift lengths and coverage on each shift. An example is shown below. Note that Category 2 work takes twice as long at Category 1 work so it counts double in the total work volume.
Days Time Category 1 Category 2 Total
Mon-Fri 0800 to 1200 50 4 58
Mon-Fri 1200 to 1600 70 8 86
Mon-Fri 1600 to 2000 85 10 105
Sat 0800 to 1200 70 9 88
Sat 1200 to 1400 81 7 95
Sat 1400 to 1700 92 5 102
As you can see, the volume of work is not constant throughout the hours of operation. It varies by time of day and day of the week. Let's take a closer look at each of these two types of workload fluctuations.
Hourly Variations. With this type of fluctuation, the volume of work changes by time of day. For example, the evenings are often busier than the rest of the day in many retail stores. The three typical ways to address these hourly workload variations are:
Staggered start times
Part-time employees that work shifts shorter than 8 hours
Multiple shifts that overlap one another
Since there are so many different situations, I'll try to give a simple example of each approach.
Example #1. An independent auto repair shop is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. It opens early because the owner wants to avoid commuter traffic. Most customers don't drop off their cars until 8 or 9 a.m., so he starts one mechanic at 8 a.m. and another at 9 a.m. The first mechanic leaves at 4:30 p.m. and the second leaves at 5:30 p.m. The owner stays until 6:00 p.m. to accommodate customers picking up their vehicles after work. The staggered work hours not only extend the coverage to 11 hours a day, but they also match the coverage with the workload.
Example #2. A store that sells bicycles is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. They are busiest from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. To match the coverage with this workload distribution, they have a 10-hour shift staffed by full-time employees plus a 3-hour shift (from 1600 to 1900) staffed by part-time employees (mostly students).
Example #3. A beauty salon is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Their busiest time of day is in the afternoon from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. They match this workload distribution by using two 8-hour shifts (0900 to 1700 and 1300 to 2100). The shifts overlap from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. This overlap is a little longer than necessary, but it allows the company to only use full-time employees who want to work 8-hour shifts.
Daily Variations. With this type of fluctuation, the volume of work changes throughout the week. For example, many businesses that deal with the public are busier on the weekends than they are on weekdays when people are at work. The two typical ways to address daily work variations are:
Weekend crews
Custom-designed work patterns
As with the hourly variations, there are too many possibilities to cover them all, so I'll just give one example of each approach.
Example #4. A stationery store is open every day of the week. The workload is fairly light on weekdays and busier on the weekends. The owner works by himself Mon-Fri. He employs several part-time people to work the weekend shifts. It's easier for him to find people to work weekends since this is usually a second job for them. Plus it gives him the weekends off. The downside, of course, is that the manager is unavailable to supervise the part-time employees. He or she is also unavailable when the store is busiest.
Example #5. A pharmacy is open every day of the week. They tracked the volume of prescriptions filled by day of the week. Wed, Thu and Fri have almost 50% more prescriptions than other days of the week. Weekends are the lightest, whereas Mon and Tue are average. The pharmacy employs 3 full-time pharmacists. All 3 pharmacists work the 3 busy days. Only one pharmacist works on Saturday and Sunday. Two pharmacists work on Mon and Tue.
Cost
Small business owners are especially concerned with keeping costs at a minimum. That's why it's important to compare the cost of different staffing/scheduling approaches before picking one. I'll try to illustrate how to do this.
This example is a retail store that is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon – Sun. Using data on the number of customer visits by hour of the day over the past year, the manager established the following coverage requirements:
Mon-Sun 1000 to 1500 2 people per hour
Mon-Sun 1500 to 1800 3 people per hour
Approach #1. This approach emphasizes the use of full-time employees supplemented by part-timers. There are 3 full-time employees that provide 2-person coverage throughout the week using 8-hour shifts. There are 3 part-time employees that are used to boost the coverage from 3 – 6 p.m. The total cost is calculated below:
3 FT employees * 40 hours/week * $12/hour wages * 1.4 cost of benefits = $2,520 per week
PT employees * 21 hours/week (average) * $10/hour wages = $210 per week (note that it doesn't matter how many part-time employees are used; it's only the total hours per week that's important)
The total cost is $2,730 per week.
Approach #2. This approach emphasizes the use of part-time employees with two full-time employees who will supervise the part-timers. The total cost is calculated below:
2 supervisors* 40 hours/week * $15/hour wages * 1.5 cost of benefits = $1,800 (note that the supervisors' time counts toward the coverage requirements)
PT employees * 53 hours/week * $10/hour wages = $530 per week (note that it doesn't matter how many part-time employees are used; it's only the total hours per week that's important)
The total cost is $2,330 per week.
Based on cost alone, Approach #2 (supervisors + part-time workers) is the best. The owner has to balance the cost savings with the time the manager will spend hiring and training the constant turnover of part-time employees. Although using part-time employees often is the least expensive approach, other considerations may override this.
Employee Satisfaction
Although employee satisfaction is important, it should never be the starting point in the search for a new schedule. I can't count the number of times I've been contacted by managers who selected the hours of operation to justify a shift length that he or she thought employees would like better than 8-hour shifts. They often forget that longer shifts will either increase the staffing requirements or reduce the available coverage.
For example, I had a manager of a business that ran 16 hours a day (two fixed 8-hour shifts) for 7 days a week. They needed 2-person coverage. They used 6 employees working an average of 37.33 hours/week. The manager said the employees were unhappy with the schedule, so he was thinking about changing to two 10-hour shifts.
The problem with two fixed 10-hour shifts with 2-person coverage is that it would require 8 employees or the coverage would drop to 1 person for 2 days a week on each shift. The manager forgot that the extra 2 hours a day for the 10-hour shifts would increase the hours of coverage by 25%.
In most cases, shift length is not left up to employees since this is more or less defined by the hours of operation or the hours in which overlapping shifts are needed. So the choice for employees usually boils down to the preferred work pattern. Here are a couple of examples.
Example #6. A hardware store needs 4 sales people on a 10-hour shift every day of the week. This requires 7 employees working 40 hours a week. To reward the most senior employees, the manager lets them bid on the days they work. He creates two schedule options:
Option #1. This schedule has 4 consecutive days of work followed by 3 consecutive days off. The downside to this schedule is that only 2 of the 7 will get both Sat and Sun off.
Option #2. This schedule allows 3 of the 7 to get both Sat and Sun off. However, not all of the schedules feature consecutive days of work.
Example #7. An appliance repair center needs 5 people on an 8-hour shift every day of the week. This requires 7 employees working 40 hours a week. The manager creates two schedule options:
Option #1. This schedule requires employees to work 7 days in a row. The employees get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks. One weekend off is 3 days and the other is 5 days. All the other breaks at 2 days.
Option #2. This schedule requires employees to work 2 to 4 days in a row. The employees get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks. Both are only 2 days off. The other breaks are only 1 or 2 days.
In both examples, the employees are shown the two schedules. They discuss the options, particularly the pros and cons. They then vote on the option they prefer. This forces them to make tradeoffs. In Example #6, they must choose the increased likelihood of getting a weekend off. In Example #7, they must choose between more consecutive days of work with longer breaks vs. fewer consecutive days of work with shorter breaks.
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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.
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When people search for a new shift schedule, they often cite one of these two goals: (1) better work-life balance, or (2) better staff utilization.
Work-life balance is an employee-oriented goal associated with more or better time-off. And that usually means 10 or 12-hour shifts and/or work patterns that feature fewer consecutive days of work or longer stretches of consecutive days off, e.g., the Pittman or DuPont schedules.
Staff utilization is a management-oriented goal associated with making the most cost-effective use of the employees. If the workload varies by time of day or by day of the week, that can mean matching the coverage with the workload. If the workload or available resources have changed, that can mean squeezing out more coverage. If the absence rate is high, it means trying to maintain coverage that's more than the minimum necessary, while keeping costs minimized.
When work-life balance is the top priority of the search, the resulting schedule will likely be great for employees but less-than-ideal for the organization. There are three reasons:
1. Effectiveness. Work patterns that are most popular with employees produce constant coverage on a 24/7 basis. If the organization's workload isn't constant, the schedule will not be the best match.
2. Efficiency. Most of these popular work patterns use four crews. If the staff size is not an exact multiple of 4, the organization will be wasting some of its resources.
3. Cost. 10-hour shifts tend to require at least 25% more staff than 12-hour shifts because they add six hours to the work day (three 10-hour shifts = 30 hours/day). Popular work patterns do not consider absences. The organization either uses overtime to cover those absences or it schedules extra coverage to exceed the minimum necessary. A less-costly approach would be to build relief coverage into the schedule.
So does that mean work-life balance should not be considered when searching for a new schedule? Of course not. But it should never be the starting point for the search. The needs of the organization must always come first. Once those are satisfied, then (and only then) can alternatives that offer more or better time-off be considered.
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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 2nd or 3rd 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.
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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
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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).
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