In the last few weeks, a number of people have contacted me for help with their schedules. What's unusual is that many of them didn't have a scheduling preference. They said they were open to 8-hour, 10-hour or 12-hour shifts. Most of them wanted fixed shifts.
 

I started by telling them that fixed shifts often require a few more employees than rotating shifts. This is true with both 8-hour and 10-hour shifts. This can be critical when the group is already staffed at a minimum or understaffed. They could still use fixed shifts, but they would either have to hire more staff or adopt a schedule with a lot of overtime in it.
 

Next, I went into the problems with 10-hour shifts. I know, everybody loves 10s. But 10s are really inefficient when you're trying to cover a 24-hour day. You need three shifts, which means you're really working 30 hours a day instead of 24 hours. This 25% increase in hours per day requires a 25% increase in staff or a 25% reduction in the amount of coverage. Few organizations can handle this.

 

That leaves 8-hour shifts and 12-hour shifts. And if the coverage is not the same at all times, a 12-hour shift schedule may not be a good fit. What is needed is a combination of 8s and 12s, for example 8 people on the 12s and 4 people on the 8s. Although the 12-hour shifts might improve the efficiency (i.e. require fewer people), the 8-hour fixed shifts are highly inefficient for low levels of coverage like one person. For example, 1-person coverage requires 2 people and there would be 3 days a week in which both of them are scheduled to work.

 

I believe that the people who contacted me with no schedule preferences did so to find a scheduling solution to their current situation. What they didn't realize was that they had a staffing problem, not a scheduling problem.

 

Yes, they might find some schedule changes that are a little more efficient, but not to the extent they hoped to find. And some of those changes might result in schedules that are not very employee-friendly (e.g., 8-hour rotating shifts).

 

10-hour shifts are a popular choice among employees. However, when used with companies working 24/7, the 10-hour shifts create a few problems. The biggest is that it takes three 10-hour shifts to cover the day. This means the company is actually running for 30 hours a day instead of 24, which will boost the staffing requirements by at least 25%.
 

And, if that's not bad enough, how do you handle the fact that the shifts overlap one another for 6 hours a day? Do you overlap each shift by 2 hours or do you consolidate the overlap so there are 6 consecutive hours of double coverage?
 

If you overlap each shift for 2 hours, do you have one shift sit idle, while the other works? That seems pretty wasteful. The exception would be police departments where the first shift can go back to the office to do paperwork, while the second shift is out on patrol.
 

If you consolidate the overlaps, you might be able to take advantage of the double coverage. Maybe there is a special project that can be tackled, areas that can be cleaned / repaired, or a new production line that can be operated. Companies with variable work volumes can align the 6 hours of overlap with the busy period to match the coverage with the workload. The downside, of course, is that this may result in some weird shift start and end times that won't appeal to employees.

 

If you are considering 10-hour shifts in your 24/7 business, I hope you'll read the other articles I've written about the limitations of 10-hour shifts. Here are links to the most popular articles:

 

1. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/10-Hour_Shifts

2. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=10-hour-shift-schedules-and-police-management

3. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=10-hour-shift-schedules-for-police-officers

California is one of the few states with overtime laws that differ from the federal guidelines. Companies in California are required to pay overtime when employees work more than 8 hours a day. This is why 12-hour shifts are rarely used in that state.

I have never attempted to understand this state's complex requirements and exceptions. I always advise prospective clients to have their legal representative research this before having me design schedules with anything other than 8-hour shifts.

 

Recently, I was contacted by Cindy Opeka of O'Peka HR Consulting who stated that she might be able to help. I don't have first-hand experience with her expertise, but thought I would share her comments with you. Here's what she said:

 

"I'm currently working with a client who is dealing with the Department of Labor. They are up against thousands of dollars in fines. If you work with CA customers, I'd be happy to share info at no charge. I just want to help small employers avoid penalties."

 

If you would like to reach her, the website is https://hrsolutions-oc.com/. Her email address is: copeka@comcast.net and her phone number is:  (916) 337-4719.

 

 

When people search for a new shift schedule, they often cite one of these two goals: (1) better work-life balance, or (2) better staff utilization.

Work-life balance is an employee-oriented goal associated with more or better time-off. And that usually means 10 or 12-hour shifts and/or work patterns that feature fewer consecutive days of work or longer stretches of consecutive days off, e.g., the Pittman or DuPont schedules.

Staff utilization is a management-oriented goal associated with making the most cost-effective use of the employees. If the workload varies by time of day or by day of the week, that can mean matching the coverage with the workload. If the workload or available resources have changed, that can mean squeezing out more coverage. If the absence rate is high, it means trying to maintain coverage that's more than the minimum necessary, while keeping costs minimized.

When work-life balance is the top priority of the search, the resulting schedule will likely be great for employees but less-than-ideal for the organization. There are three reasons:

1.       Effectiveness. Work patterns that are most popular with employees produce constant coverage on a 24/7 basis. If the organization's workload isn't constant, the schedule will not be the best match. 

 

2.       Efficiency. Most of these popular work patterns use four crews. If the staff size is not an exact multiple of 4, the organization will be wasting some of its resources. 

 

3.       Cost. 10-hour shifts tend to require at least 25% more staff than 12-hour shifts because they add six hours to the work day (three 10-hour shifts = 30 hours/day). Popular work patterns do not consider absences. The organization either uses overtime to cover those absences or it schedules extra coverage to exceed the minimum necessary. A less-costly approach would be to build relief coverage into the schedule.

So does that mean work-life balance should not be considered when searching for a new schedule? Of course not. But it should never be the starting point for the search. The needs of the organization must always come first. Once those are satisfied, then (and only then) can alternatives that offer more or better time-off be considered.

 

 

Over the past couple of weeks, I've had requests from several managers of small groups (5 or 6 people) for help in finding a 24/7 schedule. In most cases, the groups consisted of supervisors rather than workers. They wanted 8, 10 or 12-hour shifts, and they were open to either fixed shifts or rotating shifts.

 

The managers wanted to see what the different options looked like so they could choose the one that appealled to the most people. I explained that this was not the best way to search for a schedule. The starting point should always be the business requirements. You want to make sure there is adequate coverage and that it matches the workload. You also want to use the resources (staff and overtime) efficiently. Schedule attractiveness can only be pursued after the business requirements are satisfied.

 

If I assume that these groups needed 1-person coverage on a 24/7 basis, this is what they would see with the six different combinations of shift length and format (fixed vs. rotating shifts):

8-hour Rotating Shifts

1-person coverage requires 4 people working an average of 42 hours a week. With a staff of 5 or 6, they would have 1 or 2 "extra" employees. This extra capacity could be used to increase the coverage, reduce the average hours of work, or to build relief coverage into the schedule to cover absences. The biggest downside is that the schedules are miserable for the employees.

8-hour Fixed Shifts

1-person coverage requires 6 people working 40 hours a week (2 people per shift). There would be 3 days a week in which both employees on a shift would be working, so this is something to keep in mind if there isn't enough room for 2 people at the same time. There would be no extra capacity with this type of schedule. Although not as efficient as 8-hour rotating shifts, they are a little better for employees.

10-hour Rotating Shifts

10-hour shifts always require the most personnel because the group is working 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts). I only recommend using 10-hour shifts if the group can take advantage of the 6 hours of overlapping shifts that could be matched to the group's busiest time of the day. 1-person coverage requires at least 5 people working an average of 42 hours a week. If there were 6 employees, this would leave 1 extra. This extra person could be used to increase the coverage on one shift or to build relief coverage into the schedule to cover absences. Even though employees get one more day off each week (as compared to 8-hour schedules), the work patterns aren't that attractive, i.e. quick rotations and lots of 1 or 2-day breaks.

 

10-hour Fixed Shifts

1-person coverage requires at least 6 people working 40 hours a week (2 people per shift). There would be 1 day a week in which both employees on a shift would be working. During the 6 hours of overlapping shifts on the overlapping day, there would be 4 people at work. If this exceeds the physical capacity of the site, this would not be a good choice. As with fixed 8-hour shifts, there would be no extra capacity.

 

12-hour Fixed or Rotating Shifts

1-person coverage requires only 4 people working an average of 42 hours a week. With a staff of 5 or 6, they would have 1 or 2 "extra" employees (the same as 8-hour rotating shifts). This extra capacity could be used to either increase the coverage, reduce the average hours of work, or to build relief coverage into the schedule to cover absences. Despite the long days of work, most employees prefer these patterns since they offer twice as many days off and up to half the weekends off.

 

Summary

Rather than looking for examples of every possible combination of shift length and format (fixed vs. rotating shifts), these groups should first decide what is most important to them:

• Increased coverage. Does the group need more than 1-person coverage for part of the day or during certain days of the week? If so, the desired coverage levels should be the starting point of the schedule search since several options (as pointed out above) have no extra capacity to increase the coverage with.
  
  
• Reduced work hours. Some groups avoid overtime like the plague. They will do anything (including hiring one or two extra staff) so they never have to work more than 40 hours a week. Even though I have argued repeatedly that this is not the best financial approach, many organizations still think the schedule should never have overtime in it.
   
• Relief coverage. If increased coverage isn't needed, any extra capacity can be used to create relief coverage, i.e. time in the schedule available to cover absences. This will reduce the need to cover absences with overtime. Relief coverage works best with rotating shifts since it can be used to cover absences on any shift. With fixed shifts, you would need to build relief coverage into each shift's schedule, so it will require more staff.

Once the priorities are clear, this will narrow down the feasible approaches. There are too many possibilities to discuss here, so if you need more help, please let me know.

When managers explain why they're searching for a new shift schedule, it usually boils down to one of these three reasons:

 

 

Resource Changes

Either the staff size or the group's budget is changing. If the group is getting bigger, there may be opportunities to use the extra capacity to reduce the average weekly hours, boost coverage on one or more shifts, or build relief coverage into the schedule to cover some of the absences. If the group is getting smaller, the average weekly hours of work may have to be increased to maintain the minimum coverage requirements.

 

Sometimes upper management wants to cut costs but not change the headcount. The group will have to do a cost analysis of overtime in the schedule vs. overtime outside the schedule to determine the best approach. You can read about this here:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Overtime_Issues. The group may also be forced to consider other schedule changes that will lower costs as discussed here:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Cost_Reduction.

 

 

New Business Requirements

When the demand for an organization's products or services changes (usually by increasing), this may require them to hire more employees or make more effective use of their current employees. In either case, it's a good time to align the coverage with the workload. We start the schedule design process by evaluating work volumes and the associated coverage requirements by time of day and day of the week. We also consider absence coverage if the resources are adequate.

 

 

Employee Satisfaction

When employees search for a new schedule, they are primarily looking for ways to increase the days off and weekends off. When managers cite employee satisfaction as a reason for changing schedules, they hope that the change will reduce absenteeism and employee turnover, or improve productivity and morale issues. Once business requirements are satisfied, we will evaluate solutions that maximize days off and weekends off and, if possible, reduce the need for mandatory overtime.

 

 

 

 

Most people think a shift schedule is effective if it does a good job with one of these 3 goals:

1. Better staff utilization – coverage that is consistent and matched with the workload
2. Reduced labor costs – lower wages and/or overtime
3. Greater employee satisfaction – more days off and/or more weekends off

Unfortunately, doing well with one goal often means compromising the other two.

Here's an example. Suppose the employees want a 10-hour shift schedule to get one more day off each week and possibly more weekends off. This would certainly help the third goal: greater employee satisfaction. But what would it do to the other two goals?

Since the 10-hour shifts would overlap for 6 hours a day, this would exceed the physical capacity of the work area. Employees from one of the overlapping shifts would be sitting around with nothing to do for 6 hours – every day of the week. This is definitely not a good way to use the staff.

What about labor costs? Well, since the 10-hour shifts would require the organization to work 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts), the additional hours of coverage would necessitate an increase in the staff size by 25%. This certainly would not save money.

So how do you find a schedule that satisfies all 3 goals? Simple. Instead of starting the search for a new schedule with a focus on Goal #3: Greater Employee Satisfaction, you start with #1: Better Staff Utilization. You then move to the second goal, and finally to the third goal.

Here are the steps we follow when designing a new employee shift schedule:

• Feasibility. We start by comparing your coverage requirements and scheduling preferences with your staff size to determine the feasibility. Sometimes the resources are inadequate, so different approaches may have to be considered.
  
  
• Possibilities. Sometimes, overtime may need to be built into the schedule to avoid gaps in coverage. Occasionally there may be more staff than necessary, so we'll show you different ways to utilize these "extra" resources.
  
  
• Work patterns. In this third step, we start the actual shift schedule design. Often we can apply common scheduling patterns as a starting point, and modify them to fit your unique circumstances.
  
  
• Options. We create several different shift schedule options to show you the range of possibilities, such as the number of consecutive days worked, different shift lengths, relief coverage, alternative patterns, and so on.

This process ensures that the schedules we create are effective with all three goals, not just one of them.

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.

Higher-ranking law enforcement personnel (e.g., Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, Captains, and Lieutenants) tend to look at 10-hour shifts in a different way than their subordinates do. They are well aware of the popularity of 10-hour shifts among the officers/deputies, but often are unable to adopt them due to resource constraints. Let's look at the major considerations in the change to 10-hour shifts from the management perspective.

Overtime

Since four 10-hour shifts add up to 40 hours a week, some people believe 10-hour shifts will eliminate overtime from the work schedule. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as shown below:

24/7 Coverage	Crews Needed	Schedule Format	Average Workweek
1 crew	5	Rotating shifts	42
1 crew	6	Fixed shifts	40
2 crews	5	Rotating shifts	42
3 crews	15	Either	42
4 crews	21	Either	40

 

A crew can consist of one to hundreds of officers. Unlike many 8 or 12-hour shift schedules that require 4 crews, 10-hour schedules require 5 or more crews. For example, to have 1-person coverage around-the-clock, you need 5 people if you use rotating shifts and 6 people if you use fixed shifts. To have 2-person coverage, you would need 10 people (5 crews of 2 each) with rotating shifts and 12 people (6 crews of 2 each) with fixed shifts.

The most common 10-hour schedules rely on 5 or 15 crews. These schedules average 42 hours a week, the same as most 8-hour and 12-hour schedules that use 4 crews. I occasionally get calls from Police Captains and Lieutenants who have tried to create a schedule on their own, but can't make it work. They didn't realize that the schedule needed an occasional 50-hour work week or that it required more crews. Overtime is unnecessary only when the schedule is comprised of 6 crews or 21 crews (and sometimes with a crewless schedule).

 

Overlapping Shifts

A schedule that uses three 10-hour shifts will have 6 hours a day in which the shifts overlap one another. There are two common ways to use the overlaps:

• Overlap each shift by two hours. Officers on the out-going shift can do their paperwork while officers on the in-coming shift are out on the street. This ensures continued coverage throughout the day. This approach tends to be preferred by the officers.
  
  
• Align the overlapping shifts with the busiest period of the day. Coverage can be boosted for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day depending on how the shifts are scheduled. I recommend this approach because the primary reason for having a schedule is to allocate the resources to match the workload. The downside is that it often requires unusual shift start/end times. This approach tends to be preferred by management.

Coverage Reduction

The biggest problem with 10-hour shifts is that they require more resources than 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. A 10-hour schedule requires more staff because the officers are working 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts). This will either require 25% more personnel or a 25% reduction in the coverage levels. In most cases, headcounts are frozen, so the impact is reduced coverage on each shift.

Even if sufficient staff is available, they are usually needed for other purposes such as absence coverage. Since the absence rates in most police departments are rather high, most Chiefs opt to use any “extra” staff in one of two ways:

• Increase coverage levels above the minimum. For example, a department needs a minimum of 3 officers on each shift. This requires at least 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week. They use their staff of 16 officers to provide 4-person coverage. This allows for up to one absence on each shift.
  
  
• Build relief coverage into the schedule. This is often more efficient than increasing the coverage on each shift. For example, the same department only has 14 officers, so they adopt a 14-week rotating shift schedule in which 2 of the 14 weeks are devoted to relief coverage. This requires fewer staff and provides more flexible absence coverage.

When the "extra" coverage is lost, absences (like vacations, sick time, training, court time, etc.) will have to be covered using overtime. This is the most common reason for rejecting the switch to 10-hour shifts. This is such an important point that I have to repeat it. Adopting 10-hour shifts will reduce the coverage on each shift (except for the periods of overlapping shifts). Since part of this coverage provides a cushion for absences, the 10-hour shifts will result in much higher levels of overtime.

 

Absences

Some people believe that 10-hour shifts will reduce absences. Since the longer shifts provide one additional day off each week, this time can be used for doctor's appointments or other personal business. I am not aware of any studies that confirm this, but it seems possible. The Shift Length Experiment prepared by the Police Foundation did not report any significant reductions in sick leave when switching to 10s (http://www.policefoundation.org/publication/shift-length-experiment/). If there is an impact, it is undoubtedly small. 

 

Conclusions

10-hour shifts are universally popular with the officers. Chiefs or Sheriffs are aware of this, but lack of resources to make the change. From what I've seen, it's primarily the larger departments that have adequate resources to adopt 10s. Smaller departments (less than 30 officers) rarely have enough personnel.