Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
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What time do most day shift workers want to start work? Surprisingly, few want to start at 8:00 a.m. or later. Most want to start before 7:00 a.m., as shown in the diagram below.
Why do so many people want to start work early? Workers tell us there are two reasons.
First, they want to get home earlier. It may be possible to arrive at home around the same time their children get out of school. There is more time in the evening to run personal errands or spend time with the family and friends. And, of course, there are more hours of daylight available for recreation, house repairs, or anything else best done while the sun is out.
Shiftworker Preferred Start Times
Median for 8-hour shifts = 6:30 a.m.
Median for 12-hour shifts = 6:00 a.m.
The second reason is they want to avoid traffic congestion during the commute to and from work. Nobody enjoys sitting in stalled traffic or poking along at a fraction of the posted speed limit. By starting work a little earlier, workers can avoid the rush hour and spend less time on the road. More than one shift worker has told us that by starting 15 minutes earlier they saved up to 45 minutes on their commute.
In addition, preferred work start times are heavily influenced by what people are familiar with. The graph below shows the preferred start times from two companies whose actual start times are significantly different. In both cases, the employees would like to have earlier start times. But the average preferences at the two plants are more than an hour apart. Clearly, the preferred start times are tempered by what the workers are used to. Once a start time is changed, preferences will gradually evolve, making acceptance of any change in start times a long-term process.
Preferred Start Times at Two Different Companies
A Company A
Company B
Current start time
6:30 a.m.
8:00 a.m.
Preferred start time (average)
6:27 a.m.
7:37 a.m.
What most people don't realize, however, is that early start times often result in less sleep. Why? Because most people won't go to bed earlier to adjust for an early work start time. They would rather sacrifice their sleep than their normal evening activities.
Here is an example from a major auto parts manufacturing plant. The plant operates on two different schedules that are an hour apart. Three-quarters of the workers on day shift start work at 6:30 a.m. The rest start an hour later at 7:30 a.m.
When surveyed, employees with the later starting time said they got an average of 34 minutes more sleep on the days they worked than the employees with the early start time did. The later start time simply allowed them to sleep longer. On their days off, both groups got about the same amount of sleep.
Asked how often they had problems with safety or performance due to sleepiness, the group with the later starting time reported they had frequent problems 31% less often than the employees on the earlier day shift. In addition, the “later starters” accounted for only 14% of the accidents over a one-year period, despite representing 24% of the total workers.
The later start times had mixed results with the afternoon and night shifts at the plant. As seen in the table below, the second shift with late start times got a little more sleep and the third shift with late start times got a little less sleep. The day shift was the only shift that experienced a significant change.
Shift
Average Hours of Sleep
Difference
Early Start
Late Start
Day shift
5.78 hours/day
6.34 hours/day
+34 minutes
Afternoon shift
6.46 hours/day
6.59 hours/day
+8 minutes
Night shift
5.98 hours/day
5.80 hours/day
-11 minutes
This is not an isolated case. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health found that a one-hour delay in morning shift start times at a steel mill increased worker sleep and improved waking alertness during the shift. They believe that sleep is often truncated when workers have early start times. The reason? Social limitations on retiring early in the evening. They also found that the evening and night shifts were affected negatively by starting work later, however, the results were not consistent.
The evidence seems to be consistent in supporting the conclusion that later start times increase the hours of sleep, at least for people working the morning shift. The question is whether the workers would choose later start times when given the choice. Does the advantage of extra sleep outweigh the disadvantages of longer commute times and less free time after work? And what about people working the other shifts? They didn't gain the same benefits, so why should they support a change?
In the NIOSH/Finnish study, the workers were allowed to vote on changing the schedule after a four-month trial of later start times. 75% of the workers voted against the later start times. The workers explained that this choice was unpopular because it interfered with social and other personal activities. How do you think your workforce would vote? Don't you think it's worth giving them the opportunity to decide? Before you do, make sure they are familiar with the studies described in this article.
Sources
1. Roger R Rosa, Mikko Harma, Katriina Pulli, Mirjam Mulder, Ove Nasman, “Rescheduling a three shift system at a steel rolling mill: effects of a one hour delay of shift starting times on sleep and alertness in younger and older workers,” Occupational andEnvironmental Medicine, Oct. 1996, Volume 53, No. 10, pp.677-685.
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Many retail and service businesses have found it necessary to stay open longer than 8 hours a day and more than 5 days a week. Examples of retailers include apparel, sporting goods, building supplies, household items, jewelers, stationers, and variety stores. Examples of service businesses include dry cleaners, pharmacies, auto repair, dentists, optometrists, and barbers/hair salons.
Reasons for expanding the hours of operation include the following:
Competition. Once a competitor changes its hours of operation, other local companies in that same line of business are pressured to do the same.
Customers. Longer hours expose a business to more prospects, which can increase sales. It also makes it more convenient for existing customers, which means more repeat business
Facilities. When the space or equipment is fully utilized, it's cheaper to increase the hours of operation than it is to rent a larger office/shop or to purchase more/larger machinery.
There are three factors that the business owners should consider when creating work schedules for the employees:
Coverage. What is the most effective way to match the number of people at work with the workload variations?
Cost. What is the most efficient way to staff and schedule the employees?
Satisfaction. Which approach will the employees prefer?
I've discussed these criteria previously, but only in the context of continuous 24/7 operations. Here's a link to the original article: http://www.shift-schedule design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies. In this post, we will take a closer look at each factor from the perspective of businesses that are less than 24/7.
Coverage
Once a company selects its new hours of operation, it should estimate the workload by hour of the day and by day of the week. The best way to do this is to gather historical data using measures such as:
Number of jobs or appointments
Number of in-bound phone calls
Number of customer visits
Number of out-bound service calls
Since some calls or visits require more time and effort than others, it might be necessary to classify them into 2 or 3 categories. Each category can be weighted differently to adjust for the time required by employees. A table of the weighted data can help in the selection of shift lengths and coverage on each shift. An example is shown below. Note that Category 2 work takes twice as long at Category 1 work so it counts double in the total work volume.
Days Time Category 1 Category 2 Total
Mon-Fri 0800 to 1200 50 4 58
Mon-Fri 1200 to 1600 70 8 86
Mon-Fri 1600 to 2000 85 10 105
Sat 0800 to 1200 70 9 88
Sat 1200 to 1400 81 7 95
Sat 1400 to 1700 92 5 102
As you can see, the volume of work is not constant throughout the hours of operation. It varies by time of day and day of the week. Let's take a closer look at each of these two types of workload fluctuations.
Hourly Variations. With this type of fluctuation, the volume of work changes by time of day. For example, the evenings are often busier than the rest of the day in many retail stores. The three typical ways to address these hourly workload variations are:
Staggered start times
Part-time employees that work shifts shorter than 8 hours
Multiple shifts that overlap one another
Since there are so many different situations, I'll try to give a simple example of each approach.
Example #1. An independent auto repair shop is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. It opens early because the owner wants to avoid commuter traffic. Most customers don't drop off their cars until 8 or 9 a.m., so he starts one mechanic at 8 a.m. and another at 9 a.m. The first mechanic leaves at 4:30 p.m. and the second leaves at 5:30 p.m. The owner stays until 6:00 p.m. to accommodate customers picking up their vehicles after work. The staggered work hours not only extend the coverage to 11 hours a day, but they also match the coverage with the workload.
Example #2. A store that sells bicycles is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. They are busiest from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. To match the coverage with this workload distribution, they have a 10-hour shift staffed by full-time employees plus a 3-hour shift (from 1600 to 1900) staffed by part-time employees (mostly students).
Example #3. A beauty salon is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Their busiest time of day is in the afternoon from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. They match this workload distribution by using two 8-hour shifts (0900 to 1700 and 1300 to 2100). The shifts overlap from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. This overlap is a little longer than necessary, but it allows the company to only use full-time employees who want to work 8-hour shifts.
Daily Variations. With this type of fluctuation, the volume of work changes throughout the week. For example, many businesses that deal with the public are busier on the weekends than they are on weekdays when people are at work. The two typical ways to address daily work variations are:
Weekend crews
Custom-designed work patterns
As with the hourly variations, there are too many possibilities to cover them all, so I'll just give one example of each approach.
Example #4. A stationery store is open every day of the week. The workload is fairly light on weekdays and busier on the weekends. The owner works by himself Mon-Fri. He employs several part-time people to work the weekend shifts. It's easier for him to find people to work weekends since this is usually a second job for them. Plus it gives him the weekends off. The downside, of course, is that the manager is unavailable to supervise the part-time employees. He or she is also unavailable when the store is busiest.
Example #5. A pharmacy is open every day of the week. They tracked the volume of prescriptions filled by day of the week. Wed, Thu and Fri have almost 50% more prescriptions than other days of the week. Weekends are the lightest, whereas Mon and Tue are average. The pharmacy employs 3 full-time pharmacists. All 3 pharmacists work the 3 busy days. Only one pharmacist works on Saturday and Sunday. Two pharmacists work on Mon and Tue.
Cost
Small business owners are especially concerned with keeping costs at a minimum. That's why it's important to compare the cost of different staffing/scheduling approaches before picking one. I'll try to illustrate how to do this.
This example is a retail store that is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon – Sun. Using data on the number of customer visits by hour of the day over the past year, the manager established the following coverage requirements:
Mon-Sun 1000 to 1500 2 people per hour
Mon-Sun 1500 to 1800 3 people per hour
Approach #1. This approach emphasizes the use of full-time employees supplemented by part-timers. There are 3 full-time employees that provide 2-person coverage throughout the week using 8-hour shifts. There are 3 part-time employees that are used to boost the coverage from 3 – 6 p.m. The total cost is calculated below:
3 FT employees * 40 hours/week * $12/hour wages * 1.4 cost of benefits = $2,520 per week
PT employees * 21 hours/week (average) * $10/hour wages = $210 per week (note that it doesn't matter how many part-time employees are used; it's only the total hours per week that's important)
The total cost is $2,730 per week.
Approach #2. This approach emphasizes the use of part-time employees with two full-time employees who will supervise the part-timers. The total cost is calculated below:
2 supervisors* 40 hours/week * $15/hour wages * 1.5 cost of benefits = $1,800 (note that the supervisors' time counts toward the coverage requirements)
PT employees * 53 hours/week * $10/hour wages = $530 per week (note that it doesn't matter how many part-time employees are used; it's only the total hours per week that's important)
The total cost is $2,330 per week.
Based on cost alone, Approach #2 (supervisors + part-time workers) is the best. The owner has to balance the cost savings with the time the manager will spend hiring and training the constant turnover of part-time employees. Although using part-time employees often is the least expensive approach, other considerations may override this.
Employee Satisfaction
Although employee satisfaction is important, it should never be the starting point in the search for a new schedule. I can't count the number of times I've been contacted by managers who selected the hours of operation to justify a shift length that he or she thought employees would like better than 8-hour shifts. They often forget that longer shifts will either increase the staffing requirements or reduce the available coverage.
For example, I had a manager of a business that ran 16 hours a day (two fixed 8-hour shifts) for 7 days a week. They needed 2-person coverage. They used 6 employees working an average of 37.33 hours/week. The manager said the employees were unhappy with the schedule, so he was thinking about changing to two 10-hour shifts.
The problem with two fixed 10-hour shifts with 2-person coverage is that it would require 8 employees or the coverage would drop to 1 person for 2 days a week on each shift. The manager forgot that the extra 2 hours a day for the 10-hour shifts would increase the hours of coverage by 25%.
In most cases, shift length is not left up to employees since this is more or less defined by the hours of operation or the hours in which overlapping shifts are needed. So the choice for employees usually boils down to the preferred work pattern. Here are a couple of examples.
Example #6. A hardware store needs 4 sales people on a 10-hour shift every day of the week. This requires 7 employees working 40 hours a week. To reward the most senior employees, the manager lets them bid on the days they work. He creates two schedule options:
Option #1. This schedule has 4 consecutive days of work followed by 3 consecutive days off. The downside to this schedule is that only 2 of the 7 will get both Sat and Sun off.
Option #2. This schedule allows 3 of the 7 to get both Sat and Sun off. However, not all of the schedules feature consecutive days of work.
Example #7. An appliance repair center needs 5 people on an 8-hour shift every day of the week. This requires 7 employees working 40 hours a week. The manager creates two schedule options:
Option #1. This schedule requires employees to work 7 days in a row. The employees get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks. One weekend off is 3 days and the other is 5 days. All the other breaks at 2 days.
Option #2. This schedule requires employees to work 2 to 4 days in a row. The employees get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks. Both are only 2 days off. The other breaks are only 1 or 2 days.
In both examples, the employees are shown the two schedules. They discuss the options, particularly the pros and cons. They then vote on the option they prefer. This forces them to make tradeoffs. In Example #6, they must choose the increased likelihood of getting a weekend off. In Example #7, they must choose between more consecutive days of work with longer breaks vs. fewer consecutive days of work with shorter breaks.
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