Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
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Surveys of shift workers show that schedule predictability is the most important schedule feature (see graph below). Employees want their time off to be predictable so they can plan their lives outside of work.
What are the most common causes of schedule unpredictability?
Chronic understaffing
Lax absenteeism policies
Incorrect schedule
Lack of skill balance/cross training
Unpredictable product demand
For each cause of unpredictability there is a solution. I will discuss each of these separately in the next few blogs. We'll start today with the first cause: chronic understaffing.
Chronic Understaffing
Three common indicators of understanding are:
If your overtime hours are consistently higher than 15% of straight-time hours
If you have a 5-day work schedule, but end up working a lot of the weekends
If you are frequently using employees to cover open positions that have yet to be filled
The solution is to hire more employees or fill the open positions faster. If you are frequently working employees on the weekends, consider changing schedules. You might find the discussion of expanding to a 7-day operation on my website at: 5 to 7 Days informative about the multiple ways to expand your 5-day schedule to accomodate higher work volumes.
If you have the work (which you've proven through high overtime), the new employees will pay for themselves. To avoid overstaffing, aim for a goal of between 5% to 15% overtime. Going below 5% is not advisable as it suggests overstaffing and the likelihood of unproductive, idle time.
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In my last blog, I started a discussion of schedule predictability and its impact on employee morale. In that first of a series of five articles, I addressed chronic understaffing. In this blog, I will talk about a second cause of schedule unpredictability: lax absenteeism policies.
The worst example I've seen is a manufacturer that allowed employees to call in a vacation day 30 minutes after the shift had started with no penalty. They also allowed employees to take their vacation in 15 minute increments. The result was chaos. Your problem may not be as bad as that, but if your employees are frequently called-in on short notice to cover for other absent employees, you have a problem with your time-off policies.
The best solution is to require employees to sign up in advance for most vacation. Assign a limit to the number of employees on vacation or other paid time off at the same time and stick to that limit. If absenteeism due to illness is a problem, ask for a doctor's note after the 2nd or 3rd occurrence of sickness in a year. Employees tire of covering for others on short notice and often want lax policies fixed even more than management does.
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This the the fourth of five articles on the subject of schedule predictability. This article will address one additional cause: lack of skill balance or cross training. This is often a hidden source of schedule unpredictability.
If you are moving employees from shift-to-shift and day-to-day because you need their specific skills, you probably don't have enough cross training or skill balance (the right amount of skills on each shift). Lack of cross training can be a vicious cycle. If employees see a highly-skilled employee work a schedule worse than their own, they may avoid learning the new skill so they are not forced onto that schedule.
The best solution is to train more employees on the same schedule or crew, and provide an incentive to learn new skills. This is much less expensive than hiring more staff with the special skills.
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This is the third blog in a series of five about the most common causes of schedule unpredictability and their associated solutions. Today's blog addresses the impact of an incorrect schedule.
Any time you have to change employees' schedules regularly for any reason other than absence coverage, your current schedule isn't working effectively. For example, if your current schedule is Monday through Friday, and you're constantly working employees on the weekend, you probably need a new 6-day or 7-day schedule. Yes, employees enjoy the extra overtime from the weekend work. But they hate not knowing until the last minute whether they have to work it or not. It's difficult to plan your time off if the weekend work is unpredictable. Another section of my website addresses the expansion from a 5-day operation to a 7-day operation. You can read it here.
If your coverage does not consistently match your workload, it's probably time to start looking for a new schedule. The best solution is to plot your actual workload over the course of a week by hour of the day. You'll want to develop a schedule that matches that shape by changing the shift start times, using longer shifts, part-time employees, or the strategic use of overtime. I've written more extensively about variable workloads here.
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Predictability |
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As a general rule employees prefer fixed shifts and employers prefer rotating shifts. You can read more about the pros and cons of each approach here: Fixed Shifts vs. Rotating Shifts.
WIth fixed shifts, you can adopt a schedule that has fixed days of work or rotating days of work. A fixed-fixed schedule means you work the same days every week on the same shift. A fixed-rotating schedule means you always work the same shift, but the days change from week-to-week, usually following a set pattern.
Employees like the predictability of a fixed-fixed schedule. It's easy to plan the rest of your life around it. Surveys of shiftworkers found that predictability is the most important schedule feature, higher than weekends off, coverage for vacations, ability to get overtime, maximum time off, and others. You can read more about this here: Schedule Predictability.
Fixed day schedules are frequently used in police departments and companies that operate less than 24/7, especially those that have a lot of part-time employees. With police, the officers bid on both the shift and the set of days worked. This is usually done once a year. They do this to reward seniority, since the most senior officers get the "best" schedules.
I've run into a number of medical facilities that create a new schedule every week. The most senior people have a fixed set of days they work. The scheduler then contacts everyone else to fill in the gaps. This is the absolute worst way to schedule. Not only is it a lot of work for the scheduler, but the junior employees never know when they will be working until just before the week begins.
With companies using part-time employees, fixed days makes it easier to find and schedule the part-time workers. They can work around their school schedules or other part-time jobs. They are often forced to build the entire schedule around the availability of a few key, part-time people.
The biggest problem with schedules using fixed days of work is that the employees are not treated the equally. Some people get both the shift they prefer AND every weekend off. Others (usually the newest, least-senior folks) get the worst shift and have to work every weekend. Double ouch! You can read more about this here: Fairness.
Most of the schedules I design feature rotating days of work. The schedule follows a multi-week pattern. If you look at the 24/7 schedules examples that I sell (Schedule Examples), you'll find various options with 8 or 12-hour shifts that follow a pattern that lasts anywhere from 2 weeks to 20 weeks. When I custom design schedules, I usually match the length of the pattern to the number of employees on a shift. For example, if there are 5 people on a shift, I would create a 5-week pattern.
With rotating days of work, every employee on a shift is treated exactly the same. For example, with 5 people on an 8-hour shift, all 5 will get the same number of weekends off (maybe 1 or 2 weekends off every 5 weeks). They are all working the same pattern. It's just that they are in different weeks of that 5-week pattern. You are still rewarding seniority by allowing the most senior employees to bid on the shift they prefer. To me, this is best for everyone.
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The earliest 24/7 schedules were based on 8-hour rotating shifts. These schedules require employees to rotate through all three shifts: days, afternoons, and nights. Most of them use 4 equal-sized crews. If the company needed 8 people working around-the-clock, they would have 8 employees on each of the crews. Three crews would be working each day of the week (one on each shift) while the fourth crew was off. The different work patterns vary in the number of days worked before getting time off and how long it takes to get to the next shift.
In this article, we will look at the two key features of 8-hour rotating shift schedules: (1) consecutive days of work, and (2) speed of rotation.
Consecutive Days of Work
As a general rule, the more consecutive days of work, the longer the breaks (days off) and the more frequent the weekends off. Unfortunately, when you increase the days of work, sleep debt accumulates. Choosing from different work patterns thus involves a tradeoff between increased fatigue and more attractive time off.
The Continental shift schedule, one of the earliest and most popular patterns, required working 7 shifts in a row before getting 2 or 3 days off. This schedule had one full weekend off every 4 weeks.
Many employees found that working 7 consecutive shifts was too much, so they insisted on working fewer days in a row. A pattern with 6 consecutive shifts (the Metropolitan Plan) only offered one weekend off every 8 weeks. A pattern with 5 consecutive shifts only offered one weekend off every 10 weeks, and those occurred back-to-back, so that employees would have to go 18 weeks without a weekend off. Ouch!
Here's a table that compares 4 most common patterns:
5 Days
6 Days
7 Days
7 Days
Sat-Sun off
every 10 weeks
every 8 weeks
every 4 weeks
every 4 weeks
Max. days off
2
2
3
4
Min. days off
1
2
2
1
Speed of Rotation
Some employees prefer to rotate quickly from shift-to-shift. That way, they don’t have to work a bunch of night shifts all at once. The Continental is a good example of a fast rotation. Here’s what that pattern looks like:
Crew / Week
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Hours
A / Week 1
-
-
D8
D8
A8
A8
N8
40
B / Week 2
N8
N8
-
-
D8
D8
A8
40
C / Week 3
A8
A8
N8
N8
-
-
D8
40
D / Week 4
D8
D8
A8
A8
N8
N8
-
48
Average
42
Key:
D8 = 8-hour day shift
A8 = 8-hour afternoon shift
N8 = 8-hour night shift
This is a 4-week, rotating schedule operated by four crews. When the schedule first starts, the crews are assigned to specific weeks in the cycle. For example, Crew A is assigned to start in Week 1 and Crew B is assigned to start in Week 2, and so on. At the end of each week, the crews rotate down to the next week in the cycle. Crew A moves to Week 2, Crew B moves to Week 3, etc. When a crew completes the 4th week, they rotate up to Week 1.
For companies that want a slower rotation, they could simply devote each block of days to a single shift, as shown below:
Crew / Week
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Hours
A / Week 1
-
-
D8
D8
D8
D8
D8
40
B / Week 2
D8
D8
-
-
A8
A8
A8
40
C / Week 3
A8
A8
A8
A8
-
-
N8
40
D / Week 4
N8
N8
N8
N8
N8
N8
-
48
Average
42
Key:
D8 = 8-hour day shift
A8 = 8-hour afternoon shift
N8 = 8-hour night shift
With this adjustment, the rotation is slowed to once a week. The other two patterns (6 days and 5 days) also rotate shifts on a weekly basis. This is still too fast for many people, but a slower rotation can be difficult to achieve.
One approach is to increase the number of crews from 4 to either 9 or 12. It’s not as efficient (i.e., it requires a slightly larger staff), but it will slow the shift rotation to once every 3 or 4 weeks.
The ultimate approach is to adopt a fixed shift pattern and then re-allocate the employees to different shifts periodically, such as every 6 or 12 months. This also may require a few additional employees since 8-hour fixed shift schedules are not as efficient as 8-hour rotating shift schedules.
Summary
8-hour rotating shift schedules have two key features: consecutive days of work and speed of rotation.
The most attractive schedules for employees in terms of time off require them to work 7 shifts in a row. Unfortunately, this is really tough on sleep. That’s why some employees would rather work fewer consecutive shifts, even though they get fewer weekends off.
Some employees prefer a fast shift rotation so they only work 2 or 3 night shifts in a row. Most employees, however, prefer a much slower rotation. This can be achieved by increasing the number of crews or by adopting a fixed shift schedule and having employees change shifts every 6 or 12 months.
As a general rule, employees prefer fixed shifts while employers prefer rotating shifts (Fixed shifts vs. rotating shifts). Because of this, many companies migrated to 8-hour fixed shifts or longer shift lengths (usually 12-hour shifts). Fixed shifts eliminated the need to change shifts, which helped to reduce fatigue and improve predictability (Schedule Consistency & Predictability). Longer shifts resulted in more days off and more weekends off, which also helped reduce fatigue (12 Hour Shifts).
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This is the 5th and last post regarding unpredictable shift schedules and how they impact employee morale. This post will address unpredictable product demand.
This is one of the hardest issues to correct. Not knowing your production needs from day to day can sometimes cause idle time and overtime within the same week. The best solution is to graph your production levels on a weekly basis over a couple of years. What appears to be unpredictable will often have a seasonal pattern. Schedule vacations or major maintenance during slow periods and limit vacations during busy times.
If production really is unpredictable, you can practice planned overtime periods where one or two crews are designated for overtime coverage, if needed, during a specified period of time. This allows the other crews to know their time off is really going to be off, until it's their turn for overtime duty.
Don't let an unpredictable schedule affect your employee morale. Using the solutions I've discussed in the last five blogs will give you a happier workforce.
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[Please note that a similar version of this appeared in Industry Week. It was written by Bruce Oliver and Dan Capshaw]
If you ask a group of shiftworkers to describe their ideal shift schedule, you'll probably hear statements like these:
“Monday through Friday with 8-hour day shifts.”
“Monday through Thursday with 10-hour day shifts.”
“Thursdays only -- so I can pick up my check.”
“I’ll just stay home, and you can mail me the check!”
These statements illustrate how much value shiftworkers place on their time-off. In fact, if compensation is unaffected, time-off is the shift worker’s primary consideration when comparing alternative shift schedules. Having adequate time-off allows them to have a life outside of work, i.e. the ability to balance their lives at work with their lives away from work.
There are four types of time-off that employees consider when evaluating a shift schedule:
Weekends off
Total days off
Daily time off
Consecutive days off
We will examine the schedule attributes that drive these four different types of time-off, supplementing this discussion with statistics from our surveys of over 20,000 shiftworkers working 24/7 schedules.
Weekends Off
Of the four types of time off, the number of weekends off is the usually the most important. The desire to increase the number of weekends off is a common reason for adopting longer shifts. The graph below shows the maximum number of full weekends off (Saturday and Sunday together) per year that are possible with 8-hour and 12-hour shifts (13 versus 26 weekends off).
Of course, the actual number of full weekends off depends on more than just shift length. Other factors include the number of consecutive days worked, the pattern of on-off work days, the amount of overtime, and the day the pay week begins. But, as a general rule, longer shifts will enable workers to get more full weekends off.
A key consideration with weekends off is predictability. Most shift workers (82% in the survey database) are willing to work their fair share of weekends. They simply want sufficient advance notice and no last-minute changes. This allows them to make plans for the weekend and not have to worry about getting an unexpected weekend assignment.
Total Days Off
Many shift workers also favor schedules that offer more total days off overall. As shown in the chart below, 12-hour shifts provide twice as many days off each year (compared to 8-hour shifts) for the same number of hours worked each week (182 days off versus 91 days off).
The substantial increase in days off is one of the reasons three-quarters of all shift workers prefer to work longer shifts. This is shown in the chart below:
Daily Time-Off
The third type of time-off is the number of hours off on the days of work. As seen in figure above, a quarter of the shift workers prefer shorter work days even though they would have to work more days a week. Shiftworkers who are older, have childcare concerns, are going to school, have second jobs, or participate in other non-work activities on workdays often prefer 8-hour or 8&12-hour shift schedules so they can have more “free” time each day.
Consecutive Days Off
The fourth type of time-off is the number of consecutive days off in the schedule. In the figure below, you can see that most shift workers prefer to work several days and then take a long break, i.e. get more consecutive days off. In general, there are two ways to get more consecutive days off. One way is to work 12-hour shifts. The other is to work longer stretches of days in a row.
With 8-hour shifts, a schedule that is based on working 7 shifts in-a-row can offer up to one 4-day break every month. With 12-hour shifts, a schedule that is based on working 3 and 4 shifts in-a-row can offer up to a 7 or 8-day break every month.
Discussion
It is clear that shift workers place a high value on their time-off. This is what enables them to reach a balance between work and their personal lives. What is not clear, however, is which type of time-off the schedule should emphasize. Should the schedule have 12-hour shifts to provide more weekends off and more total days off? Should the schedule mix 8-hour and 12-hour shifts to satisfy both those who want more weekends off and those who want more time off each day of work? Should it have longer stretches of days worked in a row to provide more consecutive days off?
While recognizing that each work site will have its own unique set of preferences, our surveys offer some additional insight into this dilemma. With each of our clients, we show the workers several different schedule options that satisfy the client’s business coverage requirements. By educating employees about the various possibilities, we enable them to make more informed choices from the schedule alternatives.
The options we show employees typically include one or more 8-hour, 10-hour (infrequently because they are not a good match with most 24/7 operations), 8&12-hour, and 12-hour schedules. Although the schedules for each shift length may differ from site to site, the results indicate a much stronger preference for schedules that incorporate 12-hour shifts.
Summary
When managers face the possibility of changing shift schedules, it is beneficial to be familiar with the schedule features that offer employees the best opportunities for work/life balance. This doesn’t replace the need to survey the workforce to determine their unique schedule preferences, but it does provide insights that will be valuable during the change process.
Although 75% of the shift workers would rather work longer shifts in order to get more days off, this does not always mean that 12-hour shifts are best. Some workers place a greater value on the hours off each day instead of the number of days off each week. Other schedule features such as the number of consecutive days of work are equally important in helping some individuals realize the type of time-off they prefer. Despite these qualifications, 12-hour shifts are clearly a favorite, gaining the highest ratings at nearly every organization we’ve worked with.
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Main Street businesses face three major challenges when it comes to scheduling their employees:
Coverage, i.e. matching the number of people at work with a workload that varies by time of day and day of the week.
Staffing, i.e. figuring out the best mix of full-time and part-time employees.
Weekends, i.e. alternating the weekend work, so that employees don't have to work every weekend (unless they want to, of course).
Managers don't have time to devote much attention to these challenges. They're too busy running the business and handling all the daily problems. They don't realize they're: (1) spending more than necessary for staffing, (2) irritating customers with slow response times, and (3) frustrating employees who want more weekends off.
Let's take a closer look at each of these challenges.
Variable Workloads
The primary purpose of the employee work schedule is to align the coverage with the workload. In other words, to match the number of people at work with the volume of work at that particular time. During busy periods, more employees should be scheduled to work; when it's slow; fewer people should be scheduled.
Some businesses can control the workload by making appointments with customers (e.g., doctors, dentists, and vets). Most businesses can't do that. They have workloads that vary by time of day and/or by day of the week, often in a fairly predictable manner. For many companies, late afternoons and early evenings (when their customers get off work) are busy times. For others, it's the weekends. The ideal schedule will reflect these changes in demand.
Few businesses keep data on customer volumes on an hourly basis, so they have to rely on more subjective feelings about the workload over broad periods of time. Here's an example. A local hardware store thinks the busy times are first thing in the morning (contractors), evenings, and weekends. They created a table showing the coverage requirements throughout the week as shown below:
Time
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
8a - 9a
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
9a - 3p
2
2
2
6
6
2
2
3p - 7p
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
Any business with a variable workload should put together a coverage table like this one. This table then becomes the target for the schedule. You can read more about the steps to create an effective work schedule for a variable workload here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/81.html.
Staffing
Small businesses often employ both full-time and part-time employees. Full-time employees will want benefits like paid holidays, vacations, sick time, health insurance, and maybe 401Ks. They also want 40 hours of pay every week, which can be difficult to achieve if the shifts are shorter than 8 hours. Part-time employees are less expensive and sometimes more flexible. They are open to working short shifts and odd shifts throughout the week. However, finding and maintaining good, dependable part-time workers can be a tough, time-consuming job.
Many years ago, I owned an independent video store. We had 3 full-time people and a number of part-time people who were mostly students. The full-time employees worked a fairly permanent schedule, usually an 8-hour shift (9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.). The part-time people did the closing shift (4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.) and most of the weekend work. We scheduled them around their availability due to class schedules and other commitments. We overlapped the shifts in the evening because that was the busiest time of day. Friday and Saturday were the busiest days of the week, so we would schedule the most staff to work on those days, especially during the evenings.
Many part-time employees can only work weekends or certain days of the week because they are students or it's their second job. If these part-time employees are highly valued and/or hard to replace, the business must plan around their availability. This can make the schedule design for the full-time employees much more difficult.
Weekends
Most businesses schedule their full-time employees to a single shift on the same 5 days every week. If the business is open on weekends, some of the employees may have to work every weekend as shown below:
Emp
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Hours
A
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
C
d8
d8
-
-
-
d8
d8
32
In this example, Employee A works Wed-Sun every week, Employee B works every Fri-Tue, and Employee C works every Mon-Thu. Employees A and B work every weekend, while Employee C gets every weekend off.
Most full-time employees want to avoid or minimize the number of weekend days they have to work. When a business is open one or more weekend days, they should consider schedules that provide occasional weekends off. This is done by creating a schedule with rotating days of work. Let's revise the schedule above to rotate the days of work and the weekends off.
Emp/Week
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Hours
A / Week 1
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B / Week 2
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
C / Week 3
d8
d8
-
-
-
d8
d8
32
This is a 3-week schedule. Employee A begins the schedule in Week 1, Employee B begins in Week 2, and Employee C begins in Week 3. After finishing the initial week, they all rotate to the next week of the schedule. Emp. A moves to Week 2, Emp. B moves to Week 3, and Emp. C moves to Week 1. With this pattern, all 3 employees get a 3-day weekend off once every 3 weeks. Unlike the previous schedule with fixed days of work, they would share equally in the number of weekends worked (and the number of weekends off).
Summary
Many Main Street businesses are now open more than 8 hours a day and more than 5 days a week. This can make it difficult to create a work schedule for the employees. The three biggest scheduling challenges are: (1) matching the coverage with a workload that varies throughout the day and the week, (2) juggling the mix of full-time and part-time employees, and (3) alternating the weekend work so it is more fairly distributed.
We showed how creating a coverage table becomes the basis for the schedule. This will help you decide the best mix of shift lengths and the number of people to put on each shift. You want to have the right number of people at work to handle the volume of work expected for that particular time period. You don't want to have a bunch of employees standing around with nothing to do either.
The staffing mix depends on the quality and availability of full-time and part-time employees. If good part-time employees are easy to find, the schedule design can start with the full-time people. Part-time people would be used to fill the gaps in the coverage, to work shifts shorter than 8 hours, and/or to cover a lot of the weekend shifts. If you can only find a few, key part-time workers, you may be forced to design the schedule around their availability.
Full-time employees prefer to have weekend days off. You may not be able to give them every weekend off, but you can alternate the weekend work. This requires a schedule with rotating days of work. Although employees tend to prefer fixed days of work (so their days off are predictable), you'll have to explain the need for rotating days of work so that everyone is treated equally in terms of weekends off.
We've written several articles about schedules for companies that operate on a less than 24/7 basis. You might want to check these out.
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=work-schedules-for-businesses-open-more-than-8-hours-day-or-5-days-week
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=employee-work-schedules-for-retail-and-service-businesses
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=schedules-in-the-hospitality-industry
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=restaurant-work-schedules
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=car-dealership-schedules
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