In my last 2 posts, I recommended using the following criteria to ensure a comprehensive approach to the schedule selection process:  (1) effectiveness, (2) efficiency, (3) sleep, and (4) employee satisfaction. This post will cover the second criterion - efficiency.  Efficiency indicates how well the schedule utilizes the organization's labor resources, i.e. employee wages, benefits and overtime. The most efficient schedule will consume the fewest labor resources. The following questions should help you to determine a schedule's efficiency:  1. How many employees are needed? 2. What is their average wage rate?   3. How many hours a week do they work on average to provide the basic coverage?   4. What is the value of the benefits they receive as a percent of wages?   5. What is the absence rate (expressed as a percentage of the hours for basic coverage?    Here's an example. Suppose an organization needs steady two-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. The average wage rate is $15 an hour. The cost of employee benefits (holidays, vacation, insurance, 401K, etc.) is 40% of the wages. The average absence rate is 8% of the normal labor hours. Option #1. This option uses 8 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. All absences would be covered by using overtime. 8 employees * 40 hours/week * $15/hour * 1.40 for benefits = $6,720/week 8 employees * 2 hours OT/week * $15/hour * 1.5 OT premium = $360/week 8 employees * 42 hours/week * 0.08 absences * $15/hour * 1.5 OT premium = $605/week TOTAL COST = $6,720 + $360 + $605 = $7,685   Option #2. This option uses 9 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. A week of relief coverage would be built into a 9-week schedule which should be adequate to cover most of the absences. 9 employees * 40 hours/week * $15/hour * 1.40 for benefits = $7,560/week 9 employees * 2 hours OT/week * $15/hour * 1.5 OT premium = $405/week TOTAL COST = $7,560 + $405 = $7,965    Option #3. This option uses 11 employees working an average of 40 hours a week. The extra coverage will eliminate the need for built-in overtime. It will also eliminate the need to use overtime for absences 4 days a week. Absences on the remaining 3 days will require overtime. 11 employees * 40 hours/week * $15/hour * 1.40 for benefits = $9,240/week 11 employees * 40 hours/week *$15/hour * 0.08 absences * 3/7 uncovered days * 1.5 OT premium = $339 TOTAL COST = $9,240 + $339 = $9,579 Option #1, which uses 8 employees working an average of 42 hours a week plus additional overtime to cover absences, is the most efficient of the three approaches since it has the lowest cost.

Everyone seems to have a different opinion as to what constitutes a good shift schedule. For many people, the judgment is based solely on whether the schedule satisfies a single concern or preference, such as:  (1) the desired shift length, (2) more weekends off, (3) a specific on-off work pattern, (4) no built-in overtime, or (5) coverage that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements. The problem with such a narrow focus is that it often requires sacrifices in other areas of the business. These tend to be ignored or never acknowledged, as illustrated by the following examples: Employees want management to adopt a 10-hour shift schedule because it will give them another day off each week. They don't realize that the organization would have to either increase the staff by 25% or reduce the coverage by 25%. The organization also would have to add one more supervisor, and the supervisors no longer would be working with the same crew at all times. In addition, the facility isn't large enough to accommodate the double coverage that would occur during the 6 hours a day that the shifts overlap. The city council insists on a 24/7 schedule with no built-in overtime as a way to reduce expenses in the police department. They don't realize that this will require a larger staff. If the cost of the additional officers and their benefits is disregarded, the council members will think they made a wise financial decision. In reality, they increased the department's overall expenses as a result of the increased headcount. Ideally, the search for a new schedule should consider the interests of all of the schedule's stakeholders (management, the union and employees). Establishing formal selection criteria to evaluate alternative schedules will force the organization to do this. It also will encourage them to set priorities and weigh the consequences. We recommend using the following criteria to ensure a comprehensive approach to the schedule selection process:  (1) effectiveness, (2) efficiency, (3) sleep, and (4) employee satisfaction. The next few blog posts will cover these four criteria and will show how they can be used to evaluate different scheduling options.

In my last post, I recommended using the following criteria to ensure a comprehensive approach to the schedule selection process:  (1) effectiveness, (2) efficiency, (3) sleep, and (4) employee satisfaction. This post will cover the first criterion - effectiveness. Effectiveness indicates how well a schedule satisfies the business needs. For most organizations, the primary concern is adequate coverage. Secondary issues include absence coverage, training time, cleaning and maintenance time, shift changes, equipment start-ups and shut-downs, and others. The following questions should help in the evaluation of schedule effectiveness: Do the coverage requirements match the workload by hour of the day? By day of the week? Does the coverage meet or exceed the minimum requirements? Is the coverage consistent? How well are the organization's other business issues addressed? Let's look at an example. A police department needs at least 2 officers working at all times. The department also has two busy periods each day in which it needs 4 officers on duty: (1) evenings from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and (2) from Midnight to 4 a.m. when the bars close. It also wants the 4 sergeants to work with the same crews at all times, and it wants rotating shifts. Here are three options they are considering:   Option #1:  8-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week to provide 3-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. This steady coverage does not address the two busy periods, so it falls short on this important consideration. The schedule uses 4 crews which would allow the sergeants to work with the same officers at all times. Option #2:  10-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 15 officers working an average of 42 hours a week on two separate 10-hour schedules. Each schedule would align its overlapping shifts with one of the busy periods. This will provide 3-person coverage around the clock, plus 4 and 5-person coverage during the two busy periods. Unfortunately, these schedules do not use crews, so the sergeants would not be working with the same officers at all times. Option #3: 12-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week. The shifts would start at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. to match the two busy periods. Coverage on the night shift would be 4 people. Coverage on the day shift would be 2 people. The schedule uses 6 crews. This means two crews would not have a sergeant.              

You can't believe how many people search for the terms "12-hour shift schedule examples" or "24/7 shift schedule examples." They apparently assume that any attractive schedule example will work. They also believe that they can "sell" their co-workers or upper management on this new schedule. These are dangerous assumptions. In groups of less than 50 employees, work patterns you find searching the Internet won't necessarily be the best choice. That's because they are designed for 24/7 coverage using 4 crews. They also may have different overtime weeks. And pushing a single scheduling option is rarely going to gain widespread support or buy-in. When I design schedules, creating the work pattern is the very LAST STEP in the process. I start by asking how the workload varies by hour of the day and by day of the week. Most organizations don't track this, but they can tell you the coverage requirements at different times of the day. Usually this is expressed in 8-hour blocks because the organization was using 8-hour shifts and they know the coverage needed on each shift. In many cases, this approximates but doesn't accurately match the work volumes. Many smaller organizations have either a heavier or a lighter workload on weekends. Police departments and dispatch units are often busiest on Friday and Saturday, especially in the evenings or when the bars close. Other industries often have less work on the weekends and can reduce the coverage to just one or two people all day Saturday and Sunday. Once you know the coverage requirements, you can determine whether the available resources are adequate. The resources are the staff size, absence rate, and average hours of work each week. I use a staffing calculator similar to the one on my website. You can access it here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. Then I decide which shift lengths would best match the coverage requirements. In most cases, this is either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. 10-hour shifts are only considered if the workload increases for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day. That's because the 10-hour shifts overlap for that many hours, depending on how you use them. For most 24/7 organizations, 10-hour shifts just have too many limitations. The next step is to look at the preferred schedule format, i.e. fixed or rotating shifts. Although employees tend to prefer fixed shifts, they present several challenges for management. With 8-hour shifts, using fixed shifts also may require a few more employees. The final step is to develop different work patterns. Sometimes, popular patterns such as the Panama, Pittman, DuPont, 4-on-2-off, 6-on-3-off, etc. can be used. Sometimes these patterns can be tweaked to fit the organization's overtime week. Sometimes a pattern must be created from scratch. The key point is that you should never start with a pattern. It will not ensure the most effective or efficient use of your staff. It can cause over-staffing. It can cause unnecessary overtime or sacrifice the maximum possible number of weekends off. It should always be the last step in the design process. During this final step, other considerations may come into play. For example, the group may be able to build relief coverage or training time into the schedule. They may have a bargained requirements for no less than 2 consecutive days off. Or they may want a slow shift rotation. These often require custom-designed patterns. One last point. I always encourage clients to choose from multiple options. This allows you to compare the pros and cons, and make the necessary tradeoffs. I also recommend that clients use a strategic schedule selection process, as described here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Selection_Process. This will lead to superior choices that are supported by a majority of the employees who must work the schedule plus managers who oversee the operation.

In my last 3 posts, I recommended using the following criteria to ensure a comprehensive approach to the schedule selection process:  (1) effectiveness, (2) efficiency, (3) sleep, and (4) employee satisfaction. This post will cover the third criterion - sleep.   When a schedule adversely impacts employee sleep, this can lead to health and safety problems. The following schedule elements are known to do this:   1. Excessive hours of work. If the schedule averages more than 42 hours a week, this could be a problem Since additional overtime is often needed to cover absences, 42 hours is probably the most hours the schedule should have. There may be occasional need to increase the hours of work, but as long as it doesn't last more than 4 to 6 weeks, you should be okay. You can read more about this topic here:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/uploaded/files/Overtime%20Problems.pdf   2. Too many consecutive days of work. For 8-hour schedules, more than 7 consecutive shifts is excessive. For 10-hour shifts, more than 5 consecutive shifts is too many. For 12-hour shifts, more than 4 consecutive shifts is too many. There are a few 12-hour schedules that have an occasional block of 5 shifts in a row, but they tend to offer longer breaks to recover from the sleep loss on the days of work.   3. Rotating shifts. Employees who work fixed shifts tend to get more sleep. Employees assigned to a permanent night shift get about the same amount of sleep as employees on a rotating shift schedule. There are many good reasons for organizations to avoid fixed shifts, but management should be aware of the impact on employee sleep and alertness. To read more about this topic, check this out: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Fixed_Shifts.   4. Early start times. If the day shift starts before 7 a.m., employees will get less sleep. I wrote a blog post on this subject several months ago. Here's a link: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=problems-with-early-morning-start-times.                 

Several years ago, I visited the forum at 911Dispatch.Unfortunately, that website has closed as the person who ran it has retired. Too bad because the site had a lot of useful information on it and I would often reply to people on the forum who asked scheduling questions. Here's one of the posts I came across: "We just hired a 5th dispatcher and I am trying to come up with 10-hour shifts that are agreeable to all. We are currently on 12's, where we get 4 hours OT built in each pay period (two weeks). We work one dispatcher per shift. Our schedule is 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off. Does anyone work 10's with just 5 people?" This woman apparently assumed that 10-hour shifts were a good idea because they would avoid the built-in overtime. The only concern was finding an on-off work pattern using the 10s. She didn't mention other factors that should be considered when making decisions about a new schedule, for example: 1. Workload. I believe that the workload is the most important consideration in the selection of a new schedule. The ideal schedule matches the coverage with the workload. If the workload is fairly constant throughout the day, 10-hour shifts are not a good choice since they overlap for 6 hours a day. Why would she want double coverage for 6 hours a day if it wasn't needed? It might even exceed the number of work stations the group has. If she can use the extra coverage, that's great, but there was no mention of that in her forum posting. 2. Absence rate. If her organization had a high absence rate, she probably should use the 5th employee for relief coverage, not to enable 10-hour shifts. 3. Training. If she needed to build training time into the schedule, I would use the extra capacity for that purpose rather than changing to 10-hour shifts. 4. Cost. Many people think that changing from 12-hour shifts to 10-hour shifts will eliminate overtime. To have 1-person coverage with rotating 10-hour shifts, the organization will need 5 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. The only difference from the 12s is that the 10s require one additional employee.  5. Employee preferences. Even though most employees say they prefer 10-hour shifts over 12-hour shifts, when they compare the actual schedules for each shift length, roughly 90% will favor the 12-hour schedules. The 12s offer more days off and more weekends off. Also the on-off patterns and crew configurations are easier to understand. 6. Fixed shifts. With the 12-hour shifts, her group could either use fixed or rotating shifts. If they change to 10-hour shifts, the only option is rotating shifts. Fixed 10-hour shifts would require 6 employees for the coverage she wants. And with the fixed 10s, there would be one day of overlap every week. They could end up with 4 people working for the 6 hours that the shifts overlap on the overlapping day of the week. Many people think that the selection of a new schedule starts by picking the shift length and then finding an on-off pattern that works. They reach out to others in their industry for ideas and suggestions. Unfortunately, this ignores other important considerations that can create a negative work environment (e.g., insufficient coverage during busy periods, mandatory overtime to cover absences, lack of time for training, loss of fixed shifts, and undesirable schedules). Schedule selection should always start with the workload and associated coverage requirements. Is there sufficient staff to achieve the coverage requirements or will it be necessary to build overtime into the schedule? What shift length(s) would work best at matching the coverage with the workload? Are there other issues, such as a high absence rate or a strong preference for fixed shifts, that should be considered? The next step would be to create a couple of different options that allow the employees to compare features such as shift length, consecutive days of work, nature of the breaks (i.e. days off), and the number of weekends off. That way they can make an informed decision based on the good and bad points of each option.

Most people think of work schedules as merely an on-off pattern for a specific shift length, for example, a 5-on-2-off pattern for 8-hour shifts or a 2-3-2 pattern for 12-hour shifts. While it's true that the work pattern and shift length are essential components of the schedule, they are not necessarily the most important and definitely not the best place to start the search for a new schedule. What? How can I say that? Let me explain. When people search for a new schedule, they often forget about its primary purpose. It's not to give employees 40 hours a week. It's not to give employees more days off each week or more weekends off. No. The schedule is there to make sure the organization always has the right number of people at work. Let me re-emphasize that point:  the primary purpose of the schedule is to match the coverage with the workload. In smaller organizations where the workload isn't constant (e.g., it's  lower at night or on the weekends), it's critical to schedule more employees to work when it's busy and fewer employees to work when it's slow. I can't tell you how many times I've had inquiries in which the person says they need 3 people for 16 hours and 1 person for 8-hours a day, but they wanted to change to 10 or 12-hour shifts. When I try to explain that these longer shifts don't match their workload distribution, they get indignant and say something like, "The employees are unhappy with the current schedule, so we're looking for a schedule that will give them more days off. If you can't help us, we'll find someone who can." This may not be an issue for large companies that have a steady workload around the clock. But with smaller organizations (less than 50 employees), it's often critical. And it applies to a variety of industries. You'd be surprised to hear the types of businesses that I've recently done schedules for - restaurants, auto dealers, and hair stylists. These are not typical shiftwork operations. Yet they all need to align their staff with the changing volume of work, whether it changes by hour of the day or by day of the week (or both). Let's take a closer look at a simple example: the mechanics at an auto dealer. Their service department is open 6 days a week (Mon-Sat) from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. (10 hours a day). There were 15 mechanics altogether. The workload is highest on Friday and Saturday. I assigned the staff to 5 crews of 3 each. Here is one of the schedules I came up with:                         Here's how it works. Team A is initially assigned to Week 1 of the schedule. They work 10 hours on Monday through Thursday that first week. When that week is done, they drop down to the second week of the schedule. For this second week, they work 10 hours on Wednesday through Saturday. They then begin the 3rd week of the schedule, followed by the 4th and 5th weeks. Once the 5th week has been completed, they go back to Week 1 and start the 5-week pattern over again. All 5 teams are working the same schedule; they are merely in different weeks of that pattern. The mechanics will naturally be most concerned with the schedule features listed below the schedule. As you can see, they will get one full weekend off every 5 weeks. They will have to work a maximum of 4 consecutive days. They will get 5 days off in a row (Week 1 into Week 2). Several times over the 5-week cycle, they will only get 1-day breaks (Sundays). Although they don't get many weekends off, they do get more days off than they would with an 8-hour schedule. The manager's primary concern is the coverage that the schedule produces. Three teams (9 mechanics) are scheduled to work Mon-Thu and four teams (12 mechanics) are scheduled to work Fri-Sat. We could have shifted more coverage to the two busy days, but the manager wanted the mechanics to have at least one weekend off. He was not happy with the 5-day break, since that would leave unfinished repairs for too long and the employees might forget what work they had completed in the prior week. To satisfy this concern, I revised the schedule by rearranging the weeks so that the longest break was only 3 days in a row. The key point of this example is to demonstrate the importance of starting the schedule design by examining the workload and coverage requirements rather than starting with a desired shift length and work pattern. Had we started with a 4-on-3-off pattern, the schedule might have looked like this:                         Unlike the previous schedule, the teams don't rotate to a different set of days each week. Instead, they always work the same 4 consecutive days and get the same 3 days off. This is great for Team A, which gets a 3-day weekend off, but not so great for the other four teams that have to work every Saturday. Most people probably would tolerate this because they are getting 3 consecutive days off. The big loser with this schedule is the organization. Although there are sufficient mechanics working on Fri and Sat, there is only one team working every Mon and Tue, and 5 teams every Wed and Thu. No matter how you juggle the weeks or the patterns around, you can't avoid problems with the coverage. If you start the schedule selection process with a specific work pattern in mind, the resulting schedule may be acceptable to employees but detrimental to the organization. In our example, the organization would have been understaffed 2 days a week and overstaffed 2 days a week. If you start the process with the coverage requirements and use rotating days of work, you can optimize the coverage and give employees a decent schedule that treats everyone equally. In our example, the coverage was perfectly matched to the workload and the employees all get one long weekend off every 5 weeks.

Many companies that operate 24/7 have their employees work an 8-hour fixed shift schedule. With this type of schedule, employees never change shifts, but may work different days each week following a multi-week work pattern. This is called a fixed shift schedule with rotating days of work. Unlike a schedule with fixed shifts and fixed days of work, this approach treats everyone equally in terms of weekends off, so it tends to be the preferred approach. When these companies first started covering 24/7, they may have adopted a work pattern that was popular for their line of business or the managers had some experience with. The schedule may have worked fine initially, but as the company grew and added more employees, management didn’t update the schedule. They may not have realized that the pattern only works properly for a specific coverage level. Let’s take a closer look at two popular 8-hour work patterns to understand why they only work under certain conditions. We will only show one shift (the 8-hour day shift = d8) since the pattern will be the same for all 3 shifts. Each crew should have the same number of people, so that the coverage is consistent from day-to-day. 4-on-2-off                 Crew / Week Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed 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 d8 40 D / Week 4 d8 - - d8 d8 d8 d8 40 E / Week 5 - - d8 d8 d8 d8 - 32 F / Week 6 - d8 d8 d8 d8 - - 32               Average 37.3   The way this pattern works is there are 6 crews for each shift, labeled A, B, C, D, E and F. Each crew begins the schedule in the week they are shown. Crew A begins on Week 1, Crew B begins on Week 2, Crew C begins on Week 3, and so on. After finishing that initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Crew A moves to Week 2, Crew B moves to Week 3, and Crew F moves to Week 1. They continue this rotation until after Week 6, in which they rotate back up to Week 1. If you start at the top, you’ll see that you would work 4 days (Thu-Sun) and have the next two days off (Mon-Tue). Then you would work 4 more days (Wed-Sat) and have the next two days off (Sun-Mon). This pattern of working 4 days in a row and then taking the next 2 days off continues indefinitely. You’ll see that there are four d8s shown under each day of the week. This means that 4 crews are always scheduled to work. If you need 4-person coverage, you would simply have one person in each of the 6 crews. If you need 8-person coverage, you would have two people in each of the crews. But what if you need 3-person coverage or 5-person coverage or something else that isn’t a multiple of 4? That’s where this pattern stops working correctly. Yes, people use it for the wrong coverage levels or with the wrong number of crews and wonder why the coverage isn’t consistent. It only works properly for coverage that is a multiple of 4 people. And it only works if you use 6 crews on each shift. Employees like this pattern because they only have to work 4 consecutive days and they always get 2 days off. They don’t like that they only get one full weekend off every 6 weeks. In addition, there are 2 weeks in which they only get 32 hours of pay. You could add more days to make 40 hours, but that would disrupt the 4-on-2-off pattern.   Here's another pattern: 6-on-3-off                 Crew / Week Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Hours A / Week 1 d8 d8 d8 d8 d8 d8 - 48 B / Week 2 - - d8 d8 d8 d8 d8 40 C / Week 3 d8 - - - d8 d8 d8 32 D / Week 4 d8 d8 d8 - - - d8 32 E / Week 5 d8 d8 d8 d8 d8 - - 40 F / Week 6 - d8 d8 d8 d8 d8 d8 48 G / Week 7 - - - d8 d8 d8 d8 32 H / Week 8 d8 d8 - - - d8 d8 32 I / Week 9 d8 d8 d8 d8 - - - 32               Average 37.3   This pattern uses 9 crews on a 9-week pattern. It works the same way as the previous schedule. The crews begin the schedule in the week they are shown next to: Crew A begins in Week 1, Crew B begins in Week 2, and so on. After finishing that initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. After completing Week 9, they rotate up to Week 1 and start the pattern over again. You’ll see that there are six d8s listed under each day of the week. This means that 6 crews are always scheduled to work. If you need 6-person coverage, you would simply have one person in each of the 9 crews. If you need 12-person coverage, you would have two people in each of the crews. Using this pattern with anything other than 9 crews throws everything off. Likewise, trying to achieve any coverage level that isn’t evenly divisible by 6 won’t consistently produce the coverage you want.   Recommended Approach So, if these popular 8-hour patterns only work for a limited number of situations, how are you supposed to pick a schedule? You should always begin with the desired coverage level. In this article, I will discuss 3 coverage levels: 1-person 2-person and multiples of 2 people such as 4, 6, 8, etc. 3-person and multiples of 3 people such as 6, 9, 12, etc. I won’t address odd coverage levels (such as 5, 7 or 11) as these would require a custom-designed schedule, often without any crews. I will show one pattern for each level of coverage, even though there are many others that are superior. Sorry, you have to pay for the good stuff. The patterns shown here simply illustrate the point that schedule selection should never begin with a preferred pattern. Instead, coverage levels should always be the starting point for schedule creation. Coverage levels dictate the number of crews or employees needed for each shift. Once that has been established, you can compare different work patterns using that number of crews/employees. 1-Person Coverage               Crew/Week Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Hours A / Week 1 - d8 d8 d8 d8 d8 - 40 B / Week 2 d8 d8 - - d8 d8 d8 40               Average 40   With 2 crews working 40 hours a week, there will always be 3 days a week with double coverage on each shift. In the pattern above, this occurs every Friday, Monday and Tuesday. If you eliminate the extra coverage, employees would only average 28 hours a week. Full-time employees won’t tolerate this, which is why it’s not shown. This inefficiency is why 8-hour fixed shifts are rarely used when you need 1-person coverage. Other approaches such as 8-hour rotating shifts or any type of 12-hour shift schedule would only require 4 people, though they do make employees work an average of 42 hours a week. Employees like this sort of schedule because they get every other weekend off. But it requires a lot more employees than other approaches, so few organizations can afford to adopt it. If you have unlimited resources and can tolerate the double coverage three days a week, go for it! Better yet, why not adopt a 12-hour fixed shift schedule that requires 33% fewer employees and gives them almost twice as many days off.   2-Person Coverage (and multiples of 2 people)       Crew/Week Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed 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 d8 40               Average 40   Unlike the pattern for 1-person coverage, this is more efficient because it only has 1 day of extra coverage every week. In the above example, there are 3 d8’s every Tuesday. This schedule can be used coverage that is any multiple of 2 people such as 4, 6, 8, 10, etc. The pattern shown here is not very good for employees, however, since they would never get a full weekend off. Don’t be discouraged. There are other patterns that provide one full weekend off every 3 weeks, some that are up to 4 days long. Like I said, you have to pay to see the good ones. You could drop the Tuesday shift in either Week 1 or Week 2 of the above pattern, but then the employees would only get 32 hours that week. Over a 3-week period, they would average 37.3 hours/week, the same as the 4-on-2-off and 6-on-3-off patterns shown earlier. In some cases, depending on the pay week, dropping the unnecessary coverage might extend the weekend off so that employees wouldn’t mind getting fewer hours of work/pay.   3-Person Coverage (and multiples of 3 people)       Crew/Week Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed 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 d8 d8 48 D / Week 4 d8 - d8 d8 d8 d8 - 40               Average 42.0   8-hour fixed shift schedules for 3-person coverage (or multiples of 3) are the most efficient of all, since there is no unnecessary extra coverage. They do require a small amount of overtime, however. For employees, the above pattern wouldn’t be very attractive since they would never get a full weekend off. There are other patterns using 4 crews per shift that provide weekends off. A pattern that is based on working 5 shifts in a row will provide 5 weekends off each year. A pattern based on working 6 shifts in a row will provide 6 weekends off each year. A pattern based on working 7 shifts in a row will provide 13 weekends off each year. For work-life balance, many employees will say that working 7 consecutive days to get 1 weekend off every 4 weeks isn’t worth it. But the prospect of only getting 5 or 6 weekends of a year is even worse. That is exactly why so many companies have switched to 12-hour shifts. They found that both the company and the workers benefitted from the longer shifts. Yes, workers hated working for 12 hours, but they accepted the long hours to get twice as many days off and up to half the weekends off (12 Hour Shifts | Shift Schedule Design (shift-schedule-design.com)).   Summary When choosing an 8-hour fixed shift schedule, adopting a well-known or familiar work pattern, such as the two discussed in this article, will only work properly if your coverage and number of crews match the pattern’s requirements. If your coverage or staff size doesn't match, you may have to overstaff to reach your desired coverage level and the coverage will vary from day-to-day. Many of these well-known patterns average less than 40 hours a week - not the most effective way to utilize your employees. For employees, although the pattern may be easy to remember or explain, they rarely provide as many weekends off as other 8-hour options. The best way to select an 8-hour fixed shift schedule is to start with the desired coverage level. That, in turn, will dictate how many crews are necessary. Three of the most common approaches were discussed in this article: One-person coverage using 2 crews per shift, or 6 total crews. Two-person coverage (or multiples of 2) using 3 crews per shift, or 9 total crews. Three-person coverage (or multiples of 3) using 4 crews per shift, or 12 total crews. Once the number of crews is decided, the company can search for compatible work patterns. That way, employees can discuss and compare the different patterns, and then vote for the one they prefer. I recommend that you also include a few options using 12-hour shifts, just so the employees are aware of what else is possible. Naturally, I hope you'll consider our company to show you these different options. Please click on this link below and fill out the form. I'll respond with a proposal that outlines the best solutions and what I would charge to create them for you.   Request a quote for custom schedule design)