Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
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I've written several articles about 12-hour shift schedules in 24/7 operations. Here are links to the most popular ones:
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/12-Hour_Shifts
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=12-hour-shifts-in-smaller-companies
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=matching-12-hour-shifts-to-your-workload-distribution
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=covering-absences-on-a-12-hour-shift-schedule
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=are-12-hour-shifts-too-long
I also sell 2 packages with 10 different options: one with only 12-hour fixed shifts and another with only 12-hour rotating shifts. You can read more about this here: Schedule Examples
Most 12-hour shift schedules for 24/7 coverage use 4 crews. When you divide the hours in a week (168) by 4 crews, you get a average of 42 hours/week. With 12-hour shifts, this will require half the work weeks to be 36 hours (three 12-hour shifts) and half to be 48 hours (four 12-hour shifts).
In many organizations, especially public agencies, avoiding overtime is a high priority. They view overtime as evil or an unnecessary expense. I have repeatedly tried to argue the fallacy of this belief, yet I continue to get requests for 12-hour schedules with no overtime in them. Here are 2 articles on this topic:
http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Overtime_Issues
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=why-eliminating-overtime-in-24-7-schedules-can-be-costly,
Reducing the hours of work to 40 or less a week will result in gaps in the coverage and will require additional personnel to fill the gaps. In most cases, this is more expensive than simply keeping overtime in the schedule. In addition to higher costs, this will also require other sacrifices as seen in the following four approaches to eliminating overtime in 12-hour schedules for 24/7 coverage.
Here is a key to the symbols used in the schedules below:
D12 = 12-hour day shift
N12 = 12-hour night shift
d8 = 8-hour day shift
n8 = 8-hour night shift
d4 = 4-hour day shift
a4 = 4-hour afternoon shift
e4 = 4-hour evening shift
n4 = 4-hour night shift
Here is how the schedules work. When the schedule first starts, the crews are assigned to specific weeks in the cycle. Crew A is assigned to start in Week 1, 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 last week, they rotate up to Week 1.
1. Eliminate the 48-hour work weeks. This sounds simple enough. Just change all the 48-hour work weeks to 36 hours by eliminating one of the shifts. To maintain the same coverage, this will require 5 crews (a 25% increase in headcount), rotating shifts, and a 4-hour pay cut for all employees. (Note that with fixed shifts, this would require 6 crews). There will also be one shift with double coverage (in the example below, it's the Friday day shift). Here's one example of a 5-crew schedule:
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
-
-
-
-
D12
D12
D12
36
B / Week 2
D12
-
-
D12
D12
-
-
36
C / Week 3
-
D12
D12
-
-
-
N12
36
D / Week 4
N12
-
-
-
N12
N12
-
36
E / Week 5
-
N12
N12
N12
-
-
-
36
Average
36
2. Include an 8-hour shift. If you devote one day a week to 8-hour shifts and give one of the three 8-hour shifts to employees who are outside the group (e.g., part-time employees), the remaining four crews would average 40 hours a week. You would have to use a 12-hour work pattern in which the 36-hour weeks and 48-hour weeks are staggered and you would have to be able to average the work hours over a 2-week period (most companies can't do this because of overtime laws). In the sample shown below, the 8-hour afternoon shift on Wednesday would have to be given to employees who are not part of the four crews. That uncovered shift is not shown in the table below.
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D12
d8
-
-
D12
D12
44
B / Week 2
D12
-
-
D12
D12
-
-
36
C / Week 3
-
N12
n8
-
-
N12
N12
44
D / Week 4
N12
-
-
N12
N12
-
-
36
Average
40
3. Include a 4-hour shift. If you devote one day a week to 4-hour shifts and give two 4-hour shifts (or one 8-hour shift) to employees who are outside the group, the remaining four crews would average 40 hours a week. This does not require the averaging of pay over a 2-week period or a pattern with staggered 36 and 48-hour weeks. In the sample shown below, there is an 8-hour gap in coverage on Wednesday that would have to be given to part-time employees or someone outside the four crews. That uncovered shift is not shown in the table below.
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D12
d4
-
-
D12
D12
40
B / Week 2
D12
-
a4
D12
D12
-
-
40
C / Week 3
-
N12
n4
-
-
N12
N12
40
D / Week 4
N12
-
e4
N12
N12
-
-
40
Average
40
4. Reduce the work days to 11.5 hours. If you include a 30-minute unpaid meal break in the 12-hour shift, you only have to pay employees for 11.5 hours. You would have to adopt a 12-hour shift pattern in which the 48-hour weeks and 36-hour weeks were staggered. This won't completely eliminate the overtime, and you would have to be able to average the work hours over a 2-week period. An example is shown below:
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D11.5
D11.5
-
-
D11.5
D11.5
46
B / Week 2
D11.5
-
-
D11.5
D11.5
-
-
34.5
C / Week 3
-
N11.5
N11.5
-
-
N11.5
N11.5
46
D / Week 4
N11.5
-
-
N11.5
N11.5
-
-
34.5
Average
40.25
If you are subject to Federal law that requires overtime after 40 hours a week, you won't be able to use Options #2 or #4. These can only be used by organizations such as police departments that are allowed to average the work hours over a 2-week period.
If you don't have enough part-time employees or you don't have employees from another department to cover the 8-hour gap in coverage every week, you'll won't be able to use Options #2 or #3. You'll either need a 5-crew schedule (see Option #1), a schedule with 11.5-hour shifts (see Option #4), or a crewless schedule that is custom-designed around your staff size.
Let's do a quick cost comparison of 4-crew schedules vs. 5-crew schedules:
4 crews * 40 hours/week * 1.4 benefit loading cost + 4 crews * 4 hours of OT pay/week = 240 hours of pay/week
5 crews * 36-hours/week * 1.4 benefit loading cost = 252 hours of pay/week
If you already have enough staff to create a 5-crew schedule, here's a way to save money. Keep the OT in the schedule and use your extra capacity to build relief coverage into the schedule to cover absences. Similar to Option #1, you would have a 5-week schedule that averages 42 hours a week. The difference is that the 5th week of the schedule would be devoted to relief coverage.
Doing this would shift the OT from outside the schedule to inside the schedule. When the overtime is outside the schedule, it requires volunteers or forced / mandated overtime. When it's inside the schedule, it is shared equally by the entire staff. In many cases, the total overtime is less. You can read more about this here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=you-can-t-eliminate-overtime-but-you-might-be-able-to-reduce-it.
We sell packages of 12-hour shifts for $199 apiece. One packages has 10 options with only fixed shifts and the other has 10 options with only rotating shifts. These all average 42 hours a week. You can read more about it here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Examples.
If you need help designing a 12-hour schedule with no overtime (e.g., to match your pay week or to accommodate a few part-time employees), please fill out this form: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/21.html
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During the coronavirus pandemic, organizations that employ first responders and critical workers want to minimize the risks associated with both public and employee interactions. Here are some scheduling strategies that can help:
Public Interactions
First responders and critical workers who are in close contact with the public, especially with people who might have virus, face a unique challenge. Their repeated exposures increase the chance of getting sick and not being able to perform their duties, or even worse, spreading it among their co-workers. How can managers of these frontline workers address this risk?
One approach would be to gradually rotate the staff through a 2-week furlough, so there's a reserve staff that hasn't been exposed to the virus. And, even if they have been exposed, keeping them away from work for that long will reduce the risk of spreading the virus to fellow workers.
In 24/7 operations, this can be done by adopting a 5-crew rotating shift schedule. If the organization is already on a 4-crew schedule, it would have to shrink the size of the crews by 20% to create 5 smaller crews. Here's an example of what this schedule would look like:
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
N12
N12
N12
N12
-
-
-
48
B / Week 2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
C / Week 3
-
-
-
-
N12
N12
N12
36
D / Week 4
-
D12
D12
D12
-
-
D12
48
E / Week 5
D12
-
-
-
D12
D12
-
36
Average
33.6
Key:
D12 = 12-hour day shift
N12 = 12-hour night shift
The way the schedule works is that each crew (A, B, C, D, and E) starts the schedule in the week shown next to them. After finishing the initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Crew A moves from Week 1 to Week 2, Crew B moves from Week 2 to Week 3, and so on. Crew E moves from Week 5 up to Week 1. All five crews continue rotating through this 5-week pattern for as long as needed.
Notice that there are 14 consecutive days off from Friday in Week 1 to Thursday in Week 3. This is the 2-week furlough mentioned above. If you only pay for the hours worked, the employees will average 35.2 hours a week when you factor in the overtime from the two 48-hour work weeks (Weeks 1 and 4). If you pay for an extra 40 hours of vacation time during Week 2 of the schedule, they will be paid an average of 43.2 hours a week over the 5-week period.
Employee Interactions
The secondary concern of these organizations is having sick or exposed employees spreading the virus to other employees. Here's an article I saw regarding this: https://shift-work.com/news/news/11-steps-you-can-take-today-to-keep-your-employees-safe-and-your-shift-work-operation-going/
As this article states, 24/7 operations can temporarily switch to using two 10-hour shifts that are separated by 2 hours each. This will minimize contact during shift turnovers/handoffs, and it frees up time that might be used for cleaning and sanitizing. This may not be practical for smaller groups, but the concept has merit and maybe can be modified to suit your unique circumstances.
How do you come up with a 10-hour schedule with only 2 shifts a day? Simple. You adopt any 12-hour pattern and replace the two 12-hour shifts with two 10-hour shifts. You could adopt the 5-week pattern shown above or any other popular 12-hour pattern that uses 4 crews.
If anyone comes up with other scheduling work-arounds during this pandemic, please let me know and I'll try to pass them on. Thanks.
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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)
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Few people realize the importance of the pay week when selecting a new shift schedule. Every schedule is designed for a specific pay week, e.g., Sunday's day shift until Saturday's night shift or 0001 Monday morning to 0000 Sunday night.
If you select a schedule that is designed for a pay week different than yours, you could end up with unbalanced work weeks, unnecessary overtime, or loss of weekends off. Let's take a look at a common schedule pattern for 8-hour shifts.
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B / Week 2
-
a8
a8
a8
a8
a8
a8
48
C / Week 3
a8
-
-
n8
n8
n8
n8
40
D / Week 4
n8
n8
n8
-
-
d8
d8
40
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, etc. At the end of each week, the crews rotate down to the next week in the cycle. After a crew completes the 4th week, they rotate up to week 1.
In this schedule, the night shift can be either the first shift of the day or the last shift of the day. You can see that once every four weeks there is a 3-day weekend (Sat, Sun, and Mon). But what happens if your pay week begins on Saturday? Here is the same pattern copied into a pay week that begins on Saturday.
Crew / Week
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Hours
A / Week 1
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B / Week 2
-
a8
a8
a8
a8
a8
a8
48
C / Week 3
a8
-
-
n8
n8
n8
n8
40
D / Week 4
n8
n8
n8
-
-
d8
d8
40
Now there are no full weekends off. In the second week of the schedule, you would be off Saturday but have to work Sunday. In the third week of the schedule, you would have to work Saturday and then be off on Sunday. With this particular pattern it is possible to modify it to make it work. But that is not always possible.
If you come across a website that shows a number of shift schedule patterns, you'll see that they imply the pay week doesn't matter. For example, here is a quote from one website regarding a similar schedule to this one, ”Day 1 usually starts on a Monday but it can be any day of the week.”
Sure, the pattern is the same. The average hours of work are the same. But you would lose all weekends off. So be very careful if you think you're saving money by copying a schedule off the Internet. You could end up with an inferior schedule and never know how much better things could have been with a schedule that was custom-designed around your requirements.
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Sometimes an organization's scheduling requirements make it difficult to find a solution. Here an example from last week. This client operated on a 24/7 basis. It used to have 7 employees, but was just given authorization to hire an 8th person. They wanted 8-hour rotating shifts with no overtime in the schedule. The difficulty was the labor agreement that required employees to have 3 days off after any series of night shifts.
My first step was to determine what kind of coverage the 8 employees could produce without incurring any overtime. We discussed a couple of different possibilities and the client agreed on weekday coverage of 3 on days, 2 on afternoons, and 1 on nights. The weekend coverage would be 2 on days, 2 on afternoons and 1 on nights. This combination of variable coverage (shift-to-shift and weekday-to-weekend), no overtime, and 3 days off after the night shifts made the schedule design especially challenging.
My second step was to create a schedule primarily using 7 consecutive shifts. This is shown below:
Employee / Week
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Hours
A / Week 1
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
B / Week 2
d8
d8
-
e8
e8
e8
e8
48
C / Week 3
e8
e8
e8
-
-
n8
n8
40
D / Week 4
n8
n8
n8
n8
n8
-
-
40
E / Week 5
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
F / Week 6
d8
d8
-
d8
d8
d8
-
40
G / Week 7
-
d8
d8
-
e8
e8
e8
40
H / Week 8
e8
e8
e8
e8
-
-
-
32
The way this schedule works is that the 8 employees are initially assigned to different weeks of the schedule (A to Week 1, B to Week 2, and so on). After they complete the first week, they move down to the next week of the schedule. They continue doing this until they finish the 8th week of the schedule, after which they rotate up to Week 1. All 8 employees are working the same schedule; they are simply in different weeks of the 8-week cycle.
Although this achieved the desired coverage and had 4 days off after the night shifts ended in Week 4, there was one 48-hour work week and one 32-hour work week. My first thought was to simply move a shift from Week 2 to Week 8 to balance the hours. The only open days in Week 8 were Thu, Fri and Sat. Moving the Thu shift from Week 2 would leave an isolated workday (Wed) in that week. Moving the Fri or Sat shift would result in an isolated workday in Week 8. An isolated workday is one with days off both before and after it, which makes it vulnerable to excessive absences.
Obviously, my initial approach would not satisfy all of the requirements. There are no rules of thumb or proven procedures for doing what I did next. It's like trying to solve a puzzle by moving shifts around and experimenting with different approaches. Finally, I was able to come up with 5 options that worked. Here is one of them - just to show you that it can be done:
Employee / Week
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
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
-
-
e8
40
D / Week 4
e8
e8
e8
-
-
n8
n8
40
E / Week 5
n8
n8
n8
n8
n8
-
-
40
F / Week 6
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
40
G / Week 7
-
-
e8
e8
e8
e8
e8
40
H / Week 8
e8
e8
-
e8
e8
e8
-
40
If you have multiple requirements like this client did, designing it by yourself will probably be too time-consuming or too frustrating. You might be tempted to accept inconsistent coverage or coverage that doesn't match your desired levels. But is it really worth those kinds of sacrifices, when you can hire a reasonably-priced expert to help?
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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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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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My latest client was a Fire Chief who was facing pressure from city management to change from a 24-hour schedule (48/96) to an 8-hour schedule. I assume that the city officials mistakenly believed that 8-hour schedules don't have any overtime in them. Like many public agencies, they think all overtime is bad and should be eliminated.
I started by showing the Chief what the current schedule looked like on a spreadsheet. It's a 6-week pattern with 6 teams working an average of 56 hours a week. The only way to get rid of the overtime is to add more staff. Shall I repeat that? The ONLY WAY to get rid of the overtime is by hiring more staff. Not changing the shift length. Not changing the work pattern. MORE EMPLOYEES is the only way.
With his coverage requirements (4 people at all times), the current schedule required 12 employees. By increasing the staff to 16, they could lower the average hours worked to 42 hours/week. It didn't matter whether they used 8-hour, 12-hour, or 24-hour shifts. All three approaches (with the exception of 8-hour fixed shifts, which would require 18 people) would need 16 employees averaging 42 hours a week.
What the city folks should have asked was:
Would adding 4 more employees cost less than the current approach (12 employees at 56 hours/week vs. 16 employees at 42 hours/week)?
And, if it is, is it worth disrupting the workforce and causing numerous personnel issues?
Overtime is really a substitute for staffing. In 24/7 operations, a little overtime can save a bundle. In this city's case, the answer is not so clear. However, the belief that changing to a different shift length would eliminate the overtime is not accurate. The only way to lower the overtime would be to hire more staff.
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“We work 24/7 and we want to change to 10-hour shifts. Can you help us?” How many times have I heard that? At least 2-3 times a week. Yeah, 8-hour shift schedules suck. You might want to read about them here:
· 8-Hour Rotating Shifts (shift-schedule-design.com)
· 8-Hour Fixed Shift Schedules (shift-schedule-design.com)
The problem is that few companies have enough resources to make the change to 10-hour shifts. If you are simply replacing your three 8-hour shifts with three 10-hour shifts, your coverage will be reduced by 25%. For example, if your current 8-hour schedule produces 4-person coverage, a new 10-hour schedule would reduce that to 3-person coverage.
Why is that? Let’s look at a simple example with rotating shift schedules. Here’s a popular 8-hour pattern called the Continental.
8-Hour Shifts
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 4 crews. When the schedule first starts, the crews are assigned to specific weeks in the cycle. Crew A is assigned to start in Week 1, 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.
Yes, this is a terrible schedule to work. You work 7 shifts in a row and you have to change shifts every 2-3 days. Worst of all, you only get one weekend off every 4 weeks.
You'll notice that there is a D8, A8, and N8 under each of the days of the week. This means one crew is scheduled to work each shift, all week long. Maybe not the same crew, but there will always be one crew scheduled for each shift. If the total staff is 16 people, each crew would have 4 employees. That means there would be 4 people at work at all times on a 24/7 basis.
Now let's see what happens if you change to a 10-hour rotating shift schedule.
10-hour Shifts
Crew / Week
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D10
D10
-
-
D10
D10
40
B / Week 2
D10
-
-
D10
D10
-
A10
40
C / Week 3
A10
A10
-
-
A10
A10
-
40
D / Week 4
-
-
A10
A10
-
N10
N10
40
E / Week 5
N10
N10
N10
N10
N10
-
-
50
Average
42
Changing to 10-hour shifts requires creating a 5th crew and it doesn’t get rid of the overtime in the schedule. There are better patterns than this one that would give you 2 weekends off every 5 weeks. I can show you options that do this, but not for free.
Since the staff size (16) hasn't changed, four of the crews will only have 3 people and one will have 4 people. This means the coverage will now be only 3 instead of the 4 you had with the 8-hour shifts.
The positives of the 10-hour schedule for employees are that you get more days off (3 days a week for 4 out of 5 weeks) and more weekends off (up to 2 weekends off every 5 weeks). Negatives are the smaller breaks and the change in absence coverage.
With 10-hour shifts, you can't hold people over to cover an absence like you did with 8s. Absences have to be covered by calling people into work who are scheduled to be off. As an employee, you could end up working 5 or more shifts a week depending on the absence rate and whether you had any extra capacity before making this change.
The key question of course is whether it’s worth switching to 10-hour shifts. Increasing the average hours of work by 25% or hiring 25% more employees is hard to justify. Reducing the coverage by 25% is not a good choice either. Would the employees benefit that much? Maybe, maybe not. I find it pretty hard to justify.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve written plenty of articles about how to use the 6 hours a day that 10-hour shifts overlap to match the coverage to a variable workload. 10-hour shifts do have a place, if you can afford it. It’s been my experience that few smaller organizations (less than 50 employees) can do it.
Here is another article about 10-hour shifts with links to several of the other articles I've written on this topic: 10-hour Shifts.
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Restaurants have highly variable workloads, which makes it difficult to schedule the employees effectively. In this post, we're going to discuss the schedules for two positions (Hosts and Servers). Obviously, there are a lot more positions than these (e.g., bussers/food runners, line cooks, dishwashers, bartenders, managers, and so on), but this should be enough to illustrate the process. To simplify the examples, we will only use full-time employees.
The primary goal of any schedule is to match the coverage (the number of people working) with the workload. In other words, when you're busy, you want enough people at work so that customers get served quickly, and when you're not busy, you don't want a bunch of employees standing around with nothing to do.
Hosts
The table below shows the coverage requirements for the Hosts. They are needed from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or a total of 16 hours a day. They are busiest Saturday and Sunday mornings, and then again Friday and Saturday evenings. They need 2 Hosts during the busy periods and only 1 Host the rest of the time. The heavier workload lasts on Sunday until 4 p.m. It begins on Fridays at that same time.
Hosts - Coverage Requirements
Time Period
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am-4pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
4pm-10pm
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
Since the Hosts are needed for 16 hours a day, a simple solution would be to adopt two 8-hour shifts. Let's see what that might look like.
Hosts - Option #1
Host / Week
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Hours
A / Week 1
-
d8
d8
d8
-
d8
d8
40
B / Week 2
d8
d8
d8
-
-
-
-
24
C / Week 3
e8
e8
e8
e8
e8
-
-
40
D / Week 4
e8
e8
-
-
d8
e8
e8
40
Average
36
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am-2pm)
e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm-10pm)
Coverage:
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am to 2pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
2pm to 10pm
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
The way this schedule works is that the 4 Hosts (A, B, C, and D) start the schedule in the weeks shown for them. After finishing the initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Host A moves from Week 1 to Week 2, Host B moves from Week 2 to Week 3, Host C moves to Week 4, and Host D moves to Week 1. They are all working the same 4-week pattern; it's just that they are all in different weeks.
The resulting coverage is also shown above. It's similar to the requirements, but changes at 2 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. To avoid this, we'll have to change the shift length. If we split the 16-hour day into a 10-hour shift from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. and a 6-hour shift from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. we can better match the coverage requirements. Here's what this would look like.
Hosts - Option #2
Host / Week
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D10
D10
-
-
D10
D10
40
B / Week 2
D10
D10
D10
D10
-
-
-
40
C / Week 3
e6
e6
e6
e6
e6
-
-
30
D / Week 4
e6
e6
-
-
D10
e6
e6
34
Average
36
Key:
D10 = 10-hour day shift (6am-4pm)
e6 = 6-hour evening shift (4pm-10pm)
Coverage:
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am to 4pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
4pm to 10pm
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
The schedule works the same way as Option #1. As you can see from the coverage, it is an exact match with the requirements. This approach requires the same number of employees and the same average weekly hours as Option #1. By changing the shift lengths, we were able to make more effective use of the staff.
Servers
The table below shows the coverage requirements for the Servers. They are also needed from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or a total of 16 hours a day. This position is busiest during lunches and dinners, especially Friday and Saturday evenings.
Servers - Coverage Requirements
Time Period
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am-12pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
12pm-2pm
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2pm-6pm
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
6pm-10pm
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
A simple solution would be to split the day into two 8-hour shifts. Let's see what that might look like.
Servers - Option #1
Server / Week
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
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
D / Week 4
e8
e8
e8
-
e8
e8
e8
48
E / Week 5
e8
e8
e8
e8
-
-
e8
40
F / Week 6
e8
e8
-
e8
e8
e8
-
40
Average
40
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am-2pm)
e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm-10pm)
Coverage:
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am to 2pm
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2pm to 10pm
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
This schedule has 6 Servers (A, B, C, D, E, and F). They start the schedule in the weeks shown for them. After finishing this initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Server A moves to Week 2, Server B moves to Week 3, and so on. Server F moves up to Week 1. They are all working the same 6-week pattern; it's just that they are all in different weeks.
The resulting coverage is shown above. Although dividing the day into two 8-hour shifts is simple, the coverage requirements are exceeded for most of the day. Only 1-person coverage is needed Mon-Fri from 6a-12p and again from 2p-6p, yet the schedule produces 2-person coverage during those periods. To avoid this, we could split the 16-hour day into four different shift lengths that overlap the busier meal times. Here's what this would look like.
Servers - Option #2
Server / Week
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Hours
A / Week 1
-
d8
d8
-
d8
d8
d8
40
B / Week 2
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
-
32
C / Week 3
E10
E10
E10
E10
-
-
-
40
D / Week 4
e4
e4
e8
-
E10
E10
E10
46
E / Week 5
e8
e8
-
e4
e4
e4
e4
32
Average
32
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am to 2pm)
e4 = 4-hour evening shift (6pm to 10pm)
e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm to 10pm)
E10 = 10-hour evening shift (12pm to 10pm)
Coverage:
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am to 12pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
12pm to 2pm
2
3
3
2
2
2
2
2pm to 6pm
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
6pm to 10pm
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
Not only does this match the coverage requirements closer, it only requires 5 full-time employees (one less than the simplified 8-hour shift approach).
Conclusions
It's tempting to look at the hours of operation (16 hours a day) and jump to the conclusion that this requires two 8-hour shifts. As we've shown, it's possible to develop schedules using two 8-hour shifts that come close to or exceed the coverage requirements. This certainly simplifies the scheduling process, so many restaurants will probably follow this path. However, we also demonstrated that this approach will result in higher costs along with periods of under and over-staffing.
If you want a schedule that is both effective and efficient, this is going to require more time and effort. Here are steps you will have to take:
Track customer volumes by hour of the day for each day of the week.
Create a table showing the coverage requirements (based on the customer volume history).
Decide the most appropriate shift lengths that match the hourly workload variations.
Develop a weekly work pattern that matches the daily variations.
If you want to get professional help with the shift length selection and work pattern design, please contact us to help: Request Quote.
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