Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
8:00am - 5:00pm (Pacific Time Zone), Mon-Fri
Search Results
I just had a call from a guy with a 24/7 operation. The regular employees work fixed 8-hour shifts Monday through Friday. The weekend crew works 8-hour shifts on Thursday and Friday and 12-hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday. That means double (or extra) coverage every Thursday and Friday. He wanted to adopt a 24/6 schedule for the regular associates and have the weekend crew work Sundays only. I assume this was to eliminate the wasteful double coverage every Thursday and Friday.
I first explained the shortcomings of a weekend crew:
Lower productivity
High turnover (especially on the night shift)
Extra (unnecessary) pay for the double coverage on Thu/Fri
The cost of an additional supervisor
Then I explained the problems with a 24/6 schedule:
Loss of fixed shifts for some employees
Loss of all weekends off
Some employees would have to work rapidly rotating shifts
The need for a schedule that uses 7 half crews
I don't think I made a strong enough case. Either that or he already had his mind made up. I suspect he was merely hoping to get a free example of a 24/6 schedule that he could adopt. Does anyone else have stories to share about either weekend crews or 24/6 schedules? Maybe if you share your story, you might save someone else a lot of aggravation.
|
|
I just finished designing a set of shift schedules for a senior living facility. They needed 1 person working for 8 hours (day shift) and 2 people working for the next 8 hours (afternoon shift) throughout the week.
This amount of coverage requires at least 4 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. But, in this case, the manager wanted his employees to have every other weekend off.
To achieve that much time-off in a 24/7 operation, I would normally recommend 12-hour shifts. But this facility only needed coverage for 16 hours a day, so 12-hour shifts would not be a good fit. The only other solution would be to increase the staff size.
I decided to show the manager schedules for 4, 5, and 6 employees. This way I was able to show how the different staffing levels affected his goal of having every other weekend off. If he wanted to hire more staff over time, he had schedules for each level of staffing.
For each staff size, I created 2 patterns: one with lots of consecutive days worked (7 or 8) and one with few consecutive days worked. All of them had the same number of weekends off, but fhe former had longer breaks and longer weekends off (3 and 4 days). This way the employees could compare the two to decide which one they preferred.
Custom-designed schedules illustrate different approaches for reaching your goals. They can help with staffing decisions and with obtaining employee buy-in for a new schedule. Seeing actual examples of the different approaches supports making superior workforce decisions.
|
|
Almost every week I'm contacted by police officers, sheriff's deputies, and patrolmen about 10-hour shifts. They believe that 10-hour shifts would benefit themselves and their fellow officers. I believe there are two reasons they think 10s would be an improvement over their current 8-hour schedule. I will take a closer look at each of these in an attempt to sort out the reality from the myth.
Time Off
In 24/7 operations, typical schedules using 8, 10 or 12-hour shifts provide the following number of days and weekends off:
Shift Length Days Off Per Year Max. Weekends Off
8-hour 91 25%
10-hour 146 40%
12-hour 182 50%
It is clear that 10-hour shifts offer more days off and more weekends off than 8s, but not as many as 12s. I believe that 10s are the most popular shift length because they offer more time off than 8s and they are seen as more tolerable than 12s. If the only objective was to maximize time off, 12-hour shifts would be the clear winner.
The key point that is often overlooked is absence coverage. With 8-hour shifts, absences are covered either by holding someone over from the previous shift or by splitting the vacant shift into two 4-hour components that can be covered by the preceding and following shifts. With 10-hour and 12-hour shifts, absences must be covered by calling someone in from a scheduled day off. Many law enforcement agenices have built additional coverage into their schedules to compensate for their high absence rates. But what happens if that extra coverage isn't available? Since 10-hour shifts will reduce the available coverage by at least 25%, there won't be any extra capacity to cover absences. So, instead of getting the expected 3 days off every week, the officers might only get 1 or 2 days off.
On/Off Work Patterns
The common perception of 10-hour work patterns is 4 days of work followed by 3 days off. In 24/7 operations, however, this pattern only works if you use 6 crews and fixed days of work. This requires a lot more staff, a backwards rotation, and fixed days of work. You can read more about this approach and its shortcomings here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=problems-with-free-schedule-examples
The best 10-hour schedule for 24/7 operations uses 7 crews per shift or 21 total crews. There is no built-in overtime with this schedule. It also has the most attractive work pattern (4 or 5 consecutive days of work followed by 3 or 4-day breaks). The pattern can easily be adapted for use with either fixed or rotating shifts.
If you don't have 7 officers or a multiple of 7 (14, 21, 28, etc.) per shift, your 10-hour schedule will have shorter blocks of work (two to four days) and shorter breaks (one to three days). Many officers are disappointed when they see these patterns because there are so many one and two-day breaks. These patterns are especially unattractive to anyone who is expecting to consistently get 3 consecutive days off by changing to 10-hour shifts.
Organization and Supervision
Many 8-hour and 12-hour schedules use 4 squads. Squad members work the same shift(s) and the same days of the week. 10-hour shift schedules for small organizations (less than 50 people), rarely use squads. Some days, Officer A might be working with officers C and E. On other days, he or she might be working with officers B and D, or maybe with officers G and J.
With 8 or 12-hour shift schedules, each squad usually has a sergeant or corporal who acts as the team leader/supervisor. With 10-hour shifts, in order to ensure that a supervisor is always on duty, it's necessary to put them on their own, separate schedule. This means the officers will not always be working with the same supervisor after changing to a 10-hour shift schedule.
Conclusions
10-hour shifts provide more time off than 8-hour shifts, but not as much as 12-hour shifts. The extra days off may not be realized since some of them will probably be used to cover absences. Although the schedule will provide 3 days off for most weeks, they won't always occur on consecutive days. 10-hour shifts also will change the way the group is organized and supervised. Although 10-hour shifts are clearly more attractive than 8-hour shifts, they may not live up to the high expectations that many police officers have of them. I think the shift length debate among officers should not be 8s vs. 10s, but 10s vs. 12s.
Please check out my other 10-hour blog posts, especially 10-hour shifts and Police Management. Go to the search box and type in 10 hour shifts. You really need to educate yourself about this before making a choice you might regret.
|
|
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
|
|
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.
|
|
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.
|
|
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.
|
|
This is the third blog in a series of five about the most common causes of schedule unpredictability and their associated solutions. Today's blog addresses the impact of an incorrect schedule.
Any time you have to change employees' schedules regularly for any reason other than absence coverage, your current schedule isn't working effectively. For example, if your current schedule is Monday through Friday, and you're constantly working employees on the weekend, you probably need a new 6-day or 7-day schedule. Yes, employees enjoy the extra overtime from the weekend work. But they hate not knowing until the last minute whether they have to work it or not. It's difficult to plan your time off if the weekend work is unpredictable. Another section of my website addresses the expansion from a 5-day operation to a 7-day operation. You can read it here.
If your coverage does not consistently match your workload, it's probably time to start looking for a new schedule. The best solution is to plot your actual workload over the course of a week by hour of the day. You'll want to develop a schedule that matches that shape by changing the shift start times, using longer shifts, part-time employees, or the strategic use of overtime. I've written more extensively about variable workloads here.
|
|
This is the second post in a series on the subject of fatigue. In each post, I will focus on steps that management can take to address fatigue.
In the first post, I noted that employees don't think they need more than 7 hours sleep. Managers may want to post articles explaining the impact of sleep debt and the need for more than 7 hours of sleep a day. Just run a Google search for "sleep debt" and copy of few of the articles. If you can find anything by William Dement, he is the subject matter expert. I doubt that doing this will change employee behavior, but it may help to justify any actions management undertakes to address fatigue.
This post draws from a previous post in which I showed how early shift start times reduce the average hours of sleep for day shift workers (http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=problems-with-early-morning-start-times). To summarize, people who start work at 7 a.m. sleep about 20 minutes more per night than those who start a 6 a.m.
Changing shift start times is difficult because people build their lives outside of work around the shift start and end times. When I review employee surveys, they often list the pros and cons of early start times. They say that the best thing about their current schedule is that they get off early, giving them time to do all sorts of things. Then they turn around and say that the worst thing about their schedule is having to get up so early and always feeling tired. How do you resolve this dilemma? It's both the best and worst features of your schedule - at the same time.
The other consideration with shift start times is traffic congestion. Later shift start times may require employees to spend extra time commuting. This takes time away from other activities. For those "other" activities to continue to take place, sleep is often the first thing sacrificed. Although many companies flex their hours to allow commuters to minimize time spent in traffic, this can be challenging for those with shiftwork operations.
Early start times affect more than just shift workers. I've seen articles about the impact of early school start times on student performance. Teenagers have an internal clock that makes it difficult for them to be alert early in the morning, suggesting that learning would improve if schools started at 9 a.m. instead of 8 a.m.
|
|
This is the 7th an final post in a series on Fatigue in the Workplace. Previous posts on this topic have covered the impact of: (1) education, (2) start times, (3) shift length, (4 consecutive days of work, (5) rotating shifts, and (6) employee preferences. Today's post will address the role of overtime in employee alertness and fatigue.
Let's face it, overtime disrupts people's lives. They have plans that get changed at the last minute. They are forced to work when they had other plans. How do they respond? Forfeiting sleep is one of the most common ways employees try to recover time off lost to overtime.
How much overtime is too much is a difficult question to answer. Most companies feel that an annual average of between 5% and 15% is about right. However, there are a lot of considerations other than alertness that go into finding the perfect amount for any operation. You may wish to read a more complete article on the impact of high overtime (http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/preview/uploaded/files/Overtime%).
Here is a quick summary from the above referenced article. "Our surveys of shiftworkers show that, on average, they get 21% less sleep time on the days they work than the days they are off. When employees work lots of overtime, they don't get time off to recover or catch up on their sleep. This, in turn, can lead to fatigue and reduced alertness. Managers simply cannot ignore the possibility of increased safety and quality incidents under these conditions."
|
|
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 2023 by Shift Schedule Design