Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
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I hope you've had a chance to try out our new staffing calculator. If not, here's a link: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. You can use this set of calculators for several purposes:
1. Staff size. You can see how many employees are required to achieve the basic coverage requirements. This does not factor in other considerations such as absences, maintenance, or training. But it will quickly tell you if you have enough staff.
2. Coverage. If you don't have enough staff for the required coverage, you can determine what coverage levels are possible. If you have more than enough staff, you can also determine how much coverage is possible.
3. Shift length. You can explore the staffing and coverage implications of different shift lengths. For example, suppose you want your group to adopt 10-hour shifts. You can use the calculator to determine whether they are feasible for your minimum coverage requirements. Alternatively, you can see how much coverage is possible for a given staff size.
4. Weekly hours. With 8 and 10-hour shifts, the calculators show the staffing requirements using 40 hours per week and 42 hours per week. The reason for the 42 hours is that many 24/7 schedules require this much time to avoid gaps in the coverage.
5. Schedule format. You can also see whether changing to fixed shifts is feasible for your group. Each shift length except 12s has separate calculators for fixed shifts and rotating shifts. The reason is that fixed shifts (with 8s and 10s) often require a few more staff than rotating shifts for the same shift lengths.
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Staffing Calculators Instructions Choose one of the five different calculators shown below. Note that ... there are separate calculators for fixed and rotating shifts ... shifts, so they require different calculators. This is not the case ... 12-hour shift schedules, the staffing requirements are based on an ... both options to compare the staffing requirements. For example, 2-person ... hours. Staffing Requirements Here are some considerations when using the calculators: If ... schedule. Let's say the calculator shows that you need 4 ... the weekends. Absences The 5 staffing calculators DO NOT take absences (vacations ... | |
Here are links to articles I've written about 10-hour shift schedules:
1. 10-hour shifts
2. 10-hour shifts for 24/7 coverage
3. 10-hour shifts in 24/7 operations (staffing and templates)
4. 10-hour shifts in 24/7 operations
5. 10-hour shift schedules for police management
6. 10-hour shift schedules for police officers
7. 10-hour shifts vs. 12-hour shifts
8. Four 10-hour shifts for 24/7 coverage
Do you have enough staff to adopt 10s? Here's a calculator that will quickly tell you how many people are needed:
1. Staffing Calculator
Unlike 8-hour and 12-hour shifts, we don't sell packages of schedule examples for 10-hour shifts. That's because they have to be custom designed for each situation. Please contact us to see how we can help:
Contact Us
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When organizations need a new shift schedule, their managers often begin by searching for either:
A specific work pattern, e.g., Pitman, DuPont, 6-on-3-off, or 4-on-2-off
A desired schedule format, e.g., 10 or 12-hour fixed shifts
This approach often will produce inferior results for three reasons: (1) workload variations, (2) crew requirements, and (3) overlapping shifts. Let's take a look at each of these reasons in more detail.
Workload Variations
Most smaller organizations don't have a steady volume of work. Some have a workload that varies by time of day. For example, police and communications centers are often busier during the evening hours. Customer service centers may have more calls during the daylight hours, such as 4-person coverage from 0800 to 1700 and 2-person coverage from 1700 to 0800. Some organizations don't have a steady work volume throughout the week. For example, they may have lighter workloads on the weekends, such as 4-person coverage Monday to Friday and only 2-person coverage on Saturday and Sunday.
Most 24/7 schedule patterns are designed to provide the same coverage around-the-clock, e.g., 3-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. This are inappropriate for organizations whose workload varies by shift or day of the week. It's important to keep in mind that the primary reason for having a schedule is to match the coverage with the workload. Managers tend to forget this key point when they search for a schedule pattern they hope will improve morale or reduce turnover.
Crew Requirements
Work patterns are designed for a specific number of employees or crews. For example, the Pittman 12- hour shift pattern (also known as an Every Other Weekend Off schedule) is designed for 2 crews per shift. The 6-on-3-off pattern using 8-hour shifts is designed for 9 crews (or employees) on each shift. Yet organizations use these patterns with the wrong number of crews all the time.
I just finished a job for a client that was using the 6-on-3-off pattern with only 5 employees on each shift. As a result, their coverage varied from day to day in a haphazard fashion. Employees liked the schedule pattern, but it was not an effective solution for the organization. Starting the search for a new schedule with a specific pattern in mind will rarely result in the most effective choice for the organization.
Overlapping Shifts
When organizations choose a desired shift length in an attempt to satisfy employees, they fail to consider the impact on coverage. This usually occurs with 10-hour shifts. Employees want to get an extra day off each week and they dread the idea of 12-hour shifts. So 10-hour shifts seem to be an ideal choice. The problem is that they come at a high price for the organization.
Since the organization is now working 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts), this requires 25% more personnel or 25% less coverage. For example, a group of 16 employees on 8-hour shifts had 4-person coverage around-the-clock. After changing to 10s, the coverage dropped to 3 people. In addition, there are six hours every day in which the shifts overlapped. They now had 6 people working for this six-hour period every day when they only needed 4 people.
Summary and Recommendations
Have you ever reflected on why you have a schedule? Yes, satisfying the employees is important. But that's not the reason for the schedule. The schedule is there to ensure the organization deploys its resources as effectively as possible. Many managers seem to forget this critical point. They hear about a popular pattern or they think 10-hour shifts will make everyone happy. They don't think about the impact on the organization.
I'm not saying that we ignore employee preferences. I'm simply saying that they're not the starting point in the search for a better schedule. Here is the approach I recommend:
Determine the hours of operation. Does the organization operate 24/7 or something less than that? If the hours are less than 24/7, make sure they are based on business requirements, not on shift length preferences. For example, a recent client was looking for 20/7 schedule. He didn't have enough staff to achieve the desired coverage levels, so I questioned him about the hours. He said he chose them in order to justify using two 10-hour shifts. He forgot that working an extra 4 hours a day would require 25% more personnel.
Determine whether the workload is constant or variable. If it's variable, two general approaches can be followed. One way is to establish base coverage using either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts and then add an overlay shift (sometimes called a Power shift) to boost coverage during the busy period. The other way is to combine different shift lengths or use 10-hour shifts and match the overlapping shifts with the busy period(s).
Identify the coverage requirements (i.e. the number of employees you need to show up for work - by hour of the day and day of the week). Many managers mistakenly specify the coverage requirements using the current shift length. This simplifies the task, but it may not be the best match for the workload. If you can identify the work volumes and coverage requirements by hour of the day, that is ideal.
Decide which shift lengths are the best fit with the coverage requirements. If the workload is constant, 8-hour or 12-hour shifts would be best. If the workload varies, which shift length(s) are the best fit? If more than one shift length would work, which is preferred? Notice that shift length selection is the 4th step in the process, not the first.
Calculate whether the staff size is adequate to produce this coverage. If not, overtime may have to be built into the schedule or more employees hired. The free staffing calculator on my website can help with this step. Go to: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. If there is more staff than necessary, can these "extra" resources be used to build relief time into the schedule to cover absences?
If the resources are adequate, it's time to start the actual shift schedule design. Often you can apply common schedule patterns as a starting point, and modify them to fit your unique circumstances. Suppose you have 5 employees on a 12-hour day shift. This will require a 5-week schedule. You could start with a common 2-week pattern, double it to 4 weeks, and add a new pattern for the 5th week. An important consideration is to use a pattern that matches your organization's pay week. If the original pattern was intended for a different pay week, you could end up with unnecessary overtime and you could lose some of the weekends off. Again, please note that pattern selection is the 6th step in the process - not the first step.
We always try to create several different shift schedule options to show a range of possibilities, such as the number of consecutive days worked, different shift lengths, different work patterns, with or without relief coverage, and so on. The goal is to both satisfy client specifications and explore possibilities the client may not have considered.
The bottom line is that the search for a new schedule begins with the business requirements, not with employee preferences. If you reverse this by searching for a schedule that you think employees will be happier with, the organization will suffer the consequences. My recommended approach does not ignore employee preferences; it just doesn't start with them.
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You can't believe how many people search for the terms "12-hour shift schedule examples" or "24/7 shift schedule examples." They apparently assume that any attractive schedule example will work. They also believe that they can "sell" their co-workers or upper management on this new schedule.
These are dangerous assumptions. In groups of less than 50 employees, work patterns you find searching the Internet won't necessarily be the best choice. That's because they are designed for 24/7 coverage using 4 crews. They also may have different overtime weeks. And pushing a single scheduling option is rarely going to gain widespread support or buy-in.
When I design schedules, creating the work pattern is the very LAST STEP in the process. I start by asking how the workload varies by hour of the day and by day of the week. Most organizations don't track this, but they can tell you the coverage requirements at different times of the day. Usually this is expressed in 8-hour blocks because the organization was using 8-hour shifts and they know the coverage needed on each shift. In many cases, this approximates but doesn't accurately match the work volumes.
Many smaller organizations have either a heavier or a lighter workload on weekends. Police departments and dispatch units are often busiest on Friday and Saturday, especially in the evenings or when the bars close. Other industries often have less work on the weekends and can reduce the coverage to just one or two people all day Saturday and Sunday.
Once you know the coverage requirements, you can determine whether the available resources are adequate. The resources are the staff size, absence rate, and average hours of work each week. I use a staffing calculator similar to the one on my website. You can access it here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator.
Then I decide which shift lengths would best match the coverage requirements. In most cases, this is either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. 10-hour shifts are only considered if the workload increases for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day. That's because the 10-hour shifts overlap for that many hours, depending on how you use them. For most 24/7 organizations, 10-hour shifts just have too many limitations.
The next step is to look at the preferred schedule format, i.e. fixed or rotating shifts. Although employees tend to prefer fixed shifts, they present several challenges for management. With 8-hour shifts, using fixed shifts also may require a few more employees.
The final step is to develop different work patterns. Sometimes, popular patterns such as the Panama, Pittman, DuPont, 4-on-2-off, 6-on-3-off, etc. can be used. Sometimes these patterns can be tweaked to fit the organization's overtime week. Sometimes a pattern must be created from scratch. The key point is that you should never start with a pattern. It will not ensure the most effective or efficient use of your staff. It can cause over-staffing. It can cause unnecessary overtime or sacrifice the maximum possible number of weekends off. It should always be the last step in the design process.
During this final step, other considerations may come into play. For example, the group may be able to build relief coverage or training time into the schedule. They may have a bargained requirements for no less than 2 consecutive days off. Or they may want a slow shift rotation. These often require custom-designed patterns.
One last point. I always encourage clients to choose from multiple options. This allows you to compare the pros and cons, and make the necessary tradeoffs. I also recommend that clients use a strategic schedule selection process, as described here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Selection_Process. This will lead to superior choices that are supported by a majority of the employees who must work the schedule plus managers who oversee the operation.
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When creating a work schedule for your employees, I recommend the following steps:
1. Coverage. The primary purpose of the schedule is to match the coverage with the workload, so this should always be your first step. If you start by searching for schedules with a desired shift length or a popular work pattern, you won't get an effective schedule. Your schedule needs to be designed around the number of people you need working during different times of the day on each day of the week that you're open. You can read more here: Variable Workloads
2. Shift length. How many hours a day are you trying to cover? If it's less than 12 hours, you should use that as the shift length. If it's more than 12 hours, you'll need two or more shifts. Shifts less than 8 hours long will require part-time employees. If you are covering 24 hours a day, you might be able to use 8, 10 or 12-hour shifts. This guide will help: Shift Length Selection
3. Format. If you have more than one shift per day, you'll have to decide if you want employees to always work the same hours (i.e. the same shift), or if you want them to work different hours from time-to-time, i.e. rotating shifts. Most full-time employees will prefer to work the same hours (i.e. fixed shifts). On the other hand, you may want them to gain experience both opening and closing, or working during both the busy and slower periods. Read about the pros and cons of each approach here: Fixed vs. Rotating Shifts.htm
4. Staffing. Determine how many people it takes to produce the desired coverage. Do you need to hire more staff or increase the overtime? Here's a tool to help: Staffing Calculator
5. Work Pattern. Develop alternative work patterns. Most shift lengths have a number of popular patterns for 24/7 coverage. Will any of those work? You may need to modify them or create new ones from scratch. It's critical to match the schedule to the organization's pay week to avoid unnecessary overtime and to ensure maximum weekends off for employees.
6. Alternatives. When I design schedules, I often look for alternative approaches using different shift lengths or combinations of shift lengths. For example, in 24/7 operations with an uneven workload, you might be able to use 8-hour shifts, combined 8 and 12-hour shifts, or sometimes even 10-hour shifts. For each approach, I then try to come up with a few different work patterns. Every option has different pros and cons, so having alternatives to compare will help you find the best schedule.
Need expert assistance? We've helped over a thousand companies from all over the world, in every industry imaginable. Contact us today: Contact Us
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Did you know that your shift schedule actually determines how the organization will use its two key labor resources: employees and overtime? Many people don't. They think the schedule simply determines when employees come to work and when they get time off. That's why they focus on specific work patterns (e.g., 5-on-2-off or the DuPont rotating shift pattern) or shift lengths (e.g., 10-hour shifts) when searching for a new schedule. As a result, they end up with schedules that have attractive patterns or a preferred shift length, but make poor use of the resources. Here are two examples.
Example 1
A group works 24/7. It needs 2-person coverage for 16 hours and 1-person coverage for the remaining 8 hours when the work volumes are lightest. They have 7 employees working 8-hour rotating shifts. One of the employees spends a weekend searching for free schedule examples on the Internet. He comes up with a 12-hour rotating shift pattern that provides every other weekend off. This pattern is sometimes called a Panama schedule. The other employees think it would be great to get that many weekends off, and whole-heartedly support the change. The problem is that the pattern uses 4 crews. Because of the group's size, it would have 3 crews of 2 people each and 1 crew with just one person. The coverage would fluctuate between 1 and 2 people on each shift. Adopting this pattern would create a complete mismatch between the coverage and the workload.
Example 2
A police department with 18 officers needs 4-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. They are working an 8-hour fixed shift schedule that follows a 4-on-2-off pattern. Due to budget cuts, the department will be losing 2 officers. They decide to keep the current work pattern because the officers are familiar with it and seem to like it. The problem is that the pattern only works properly with 6 people per shift. Using that same pattern with only 5 people per shift will cause the coverage to fluctuate between 3 and 4 people. The worst part is that the reduced coverage occurs on Wednesday through Saturday (when workloads are the heaviest). Once again, the chosen schedule is not an effective use of the department's resources.
You increase the likelihood of an inappropriate, ineffective, or costly solution if you ignore the resources and business requirements during the schedule search. We recommend the following process to make optimal use of your labor resources:
Step 1
Compare the staff size with the coverage requirements. Our free staffing calculators can help: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. If the desired coverage can be achieved with the existing staff, you can proceed to the next step. Otherwise, determine whether adding overtime to the schedule will allow you to consistently achieve the coverage requirements. If you're still short, you'll either need to hire more staff or reduce the coverage.
Step 2
Compare different shift lengths with the coverage requirements to identify the best fit. Our free schedule evaluation can point you in the right direction: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Free_Schedule_Evaluation. If the workload is steady throughout the day, you could use either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. Anything else will have overlapping shifts and will require extra resources. Using 10-hour shifts, for example, would result in 6 hours of overlap (and double coverage) every day of the week. Plus it would require 25% more staff. That would be wasteful. What if the workload varies by hour of the day? For instance, if it changes at 8 hour intervals, using 12-hour shifts probably would not be a good match. In situations with highly variable workloads (e.g., communication centers or airline security operations), you may need to adopt multiple shift lengths with staggered start times. These situations often require professional assistance.
Step 3
Find a work pattern that fits or can be adapted. In Example 1 above, the group's size (7 employees) does not match standard 4-crew patterns, so the schedule might have to be created from scratch. It might be possible to modify a standard 4-crew pattern, but this requires some experience in schedule design. In Example 2 above, the group's size (16 employees) would allow them to use any popular 4-crew pattern with 12-hour shifts. If they decide to stay on 8-hour fixed shifts, they would need to modify patterns that use 4 crews per shift.
Step 4
The last step of the process is to tweak the pattern to maximize the weekends off. At this point, it's important to take the overtime pay week into account. You don't want the changes to create unnecessary overtime or compromise the coverage. A professional schedule designer can help with this step.
Conclusion
Shift schedules determine how you will utilize your labor resources. If you want to make optimal use of these resources, we recommend a 4-step process. Yes, choosing a shift length and work pattern are steps in the process, but they are not the best places to start. If you don't feel comfortable following this process and want the best possible schedule, contact us today.
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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).
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