Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
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I've written several articles about 12-hour shift schedules in 24/7 operations. Here are links to the most popular ones:
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/12-Hour_Shifts
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=12-hour-shifts-in-smaller-companies
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=matching-12-hour-shifts-to-your-workload-distribution
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=covering-absences-on-a-12-hour-shift-schedule
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=are-12-hour-shifts-too-long
I also sell 2 packages with 10 different options: one with only 12-hour fixed shifts and another with only 12-hour rotating shifts. You can read more about this here: Schedule Examples
Most 12-hour shift schedules for 24/7 coverage use 4 crews. When you divide the hours in a week (168) by 4 crews, you get a average of 42 hours/week. With 12-hour shifts, this will require half the work weeks to be 36 hours (three 12-hour shifts) and half to be 48 hours (four 12-hour shifts).
In many organizations, especially public agencies, avoiding overtime is a high priority. They view overtime as evil or an unnecessary expense. I have repeatedly tried to argue the fallacy of this belief, yet I continue to get requests for 12-hour schedules with no overtime in them. Here are 2 articles on this topic:
http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Overtime_Issues
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=why-eliminating-overtime-in-24-7-schedules-can-be-costly,
Reducing the hours of work to 40 or less a week will result in gaps in the coverage and will require additional personnel to fill the gaps. In most cases, this is more expensive than simply keeping overtime in the schedule. In addition to higher costs, this will also require other sacrifices as seen in the following four approaches to eliminating overtime in 12-hour schedules for 24/7 coverage.
Here is a key to the symbols used in the schedules below:
D12 = 12-hour day shift
N12 = 12-hour night shift
d8 = 8-hour day shift
n8 = 8-hour night shift
d4 = 4-hour day shift
a4 = 4-hour afternoon shift
e4 = 4-hour evening shift
n4 = 4-hour night shift
Here is how the schedules work. When the schedule first starts, the crews are assigned to specific weeks in the cycle. Crew A is assigned to start in Week 1, Crew B is assigned to start in Week 2, and so on. At the end of each week, the crews rotate down to the next week in the cycle. Crew A moves to Week 2, Crew B moves to Week 3, etc. When a crew completes the last week, they rotate up to Week 1.
1. Eliminate the 48-hour work weeks. This sounds simple enough. Just change all the 48-hour work weeks to 36 hours by eliminating one of the shifts. To maintain the same coverage, this will require 5 crews (a 25% increase in headcount), rotating shifts, and a 4-hour pay cut for all employees. (Note that with fixed shifts, this would require 6 crews). There will also be one shift with double coverage (in the example below, it's the Friday day shift). Here's one example of a 5-crew schedule:
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
-
-
-
-
D12
D12
D12
36
B / Week 2
D12
-
-
D12
D12
-
-
36
C / Week 3
-
D12
D12
-
-
-
N12
36
D / Week 4
N12
-
-
-
N12
N12
-
36
E / Week 5
-
N12
N12
N12
-
-
-
36
Average
36
2. Include an 8-hour shift. If you devote one day a week to 8-hour shifts and give one of the three 8-hour shifts to employees who are outside the group (e.g., part-time employees), the remaining four crews would average 40 hours a week. You would have to use a 12-hour work pattern in which the 36-hour weeks and 48-hour weeks are staggered and you would have to be able to average the work hours over a 2-week period (most companies can't do this because of overtime laws). In the sample shown below, the 8-hour afternoon shift on Wednesday would have to be given to employees who are not part of the four crews. That uncovered shift is not shown in the table below.
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D12
d8
-
-
D12
D12
44
B / Week 2
D12
-
-
D12
D12
-
-
36
C / Week 3
-
N12
n8
-
-
N12
N12
44
D / Week 4
N12
-
-
N12
N12
-
-
36
Average
40
3. Include a 4-hour shift. If you devote one day a week to 4-hour shifts and give two 4-hour shifts (or one 8-hour shift) to employees who are outside the group, the remaining four crews would average 40 hours a week. This does not require the averaging of pay over a 2-week period or a pattern with staggered 36 and 48-hour weeks. In the sample shown below, there is an 8-hour gap in coverage on Wednesday that would have to be given to part-time employees or someone outside the four crews. That uncovered shift is not shown in the table below.
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D12
d4
-
-
D12
D12
40
B / Week 2
D12
-
a4
D12
D12
-
-
40
C / Week 3
-
N12
n4
-
-
N12
N12
40
D / Week 4
N12
-
e4
N12
N12
-
-
40
Average
40
4. Reduce the work days to 11.5 hours. If you include a 30-minute unpaid meal break in the 12-hour shift, you only have to pay employees for 11.5 hours. You would have to adopt a 12-hour shift pattern in which the 48-hour weeks and 36-hour weeks were staggered. This won't completely eliminate the overtime, and you would have to be able to average the work hours over a 2-week period. An example is shown below:
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D11.5
D11.5
-
-
D11.5
D11.5
46
B / Week 2
D11.5
-
-
D11.5
D11.5
-
-
34.5
C / Week 3
-
N11.5
N11.5
-
-
N11.5
N11.5
46
D / Week 4
N11.5
-
-
N11.5
N11.5
-
-
34.5
Average
40.25
If you are subject to Federal law that requires overtime after 40 hours a week, you won't be able to use Options #2 or #4. These can only be used by organizations such as police departments that are allowed to average the work hours over a 2-week period.
If you don't have enough part-time employees or you don't have employees from another department to cover the 8-hour gap in coverage every week, you'll won't be able to use Options #2 or #3. You'll either need a 5-crew schedule (see Option #1), a schedule with 11.5-hour shifts (see Option #4), or a crewless schedule that is custom-designed around your staff size.
Let's do a quick cost comparison of 4-crew schedules vs. 5-crew schedules:
4 crews * 40 hours/week * 1.4 benefit loading cost + 4 crews * 4 hours of OT pay/week = 240 hours of pay/week
5 crews * 36-hours/week * 1.4 benefit loading cost = 252 hours of pay/week
If you already have enough staff to create a 5-crew schedule, here's a way to save money. Keep the OT in the schedule and use your extra capacity to build relief coverage into the schedule to cover absences. Similar to Option #1, you would have a 5-week schedule that averages 42 hours a week. The difference is that the 5th week of the schedule would be devoted to relief coverage.
Doing this would shift the OT from outside the schedule to inside the schedule. When the overtime is outside the schedule, it requires volunteers or forced / mandated overtime. When it's inside the schedule, it is shared equally by the entire staff. In many cases, the total overtime is less. You can read more about this here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=you-can-t-eliminate-overtime-but-you-might-be-able-to-reduce-it.
We sell packages of 12-hour shifts for $199 apiece. One packages has 10 options with only fixed shifts and the other has 10 options with only rotating shifts. These all average 42 hours a week. You can read more about it here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Examples.
If you need help designing a 12-hour schedule with no overtime (e.g., to match your pay week or to accommodate a few part-time employees), please fill out this form: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/21.html
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Main Street businesses face three major challenges when it comes to scheduling their employees:
Coverage, i.e. matching the number of people at work with a workload that varies by time of day and day of the week.
Staffing, i.e. figuring out the best mix of full-time and part-time employees.
Weekends, i.e. alternating the weekend work, so that employees don't have to work every weekend (unless they want to, of course).
Managers don't have time to devote much attention to these challenges. They're too busy running the business and handling all the daily problems. They don't realize they're: (1) spending more than necessary for staffing, (2) irritating customers with slow response times, and (3) frustrating employees who want more weekends off.
Let's take a closer look at each of these challenges.
Variable Workloads
The primary purpose of the employee work schedule is to align the coverage with the workload. In other words, to match the number of people at work with the volume of work at that particular time. During busy periods, more employees should be scheduled to work; when it's slow; fewer people should be scheduled.
Some businesses can control the workload by making appointments with customers (e.g., doctors, dentists, and vets). Most businesses can't do that. They have workloads that vary by time of day and/or by day of the week, often in a fairly predictable manner. For many companies, late afternoons and early evenings (when their customers get off work) are busy times. For others, it's the weekends. The ideal schedule will reflect these changes in demand.
Few businesses keep data on customer volumes on an hourly basis, so they have to rely on more subjective feelings about the workload over broad periods of time. Here's an example. A local hardware store thinks the busy times are first thing in the morning (contractors), evenings, and weekends. They created a table showing the coverage requirements throughout the week as shown below:
Time
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
8a - 9a
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
9a - 3p
2
2
2
6
6
2
2
3p - 7p
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
Any business with a variable workload should put together a coverage table like this one. This table then becomes the target for the schedule. You can read more about the steps to create an effective work schedule for a variable workload here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/81.html.
Staffing
Small businesses often employ both full-time and part-time employees. Full-time employees will want benefits like paid holidays, vacations, sick time, health insurance, and maybe 401Ks. They also want 40 hours of pay every week, which can be difficult to achieve if the shifts are shorter than 8 hours. Part-time employees are less expensive and sometimes more flexible. They are open to working short shifts and odd shifts throughout the week. However, finding and maintaining good, dependable part-time workers can be a tough, time-consuming job.
Many years ago, I owned an independent video store. We had 3 full-time people and a number of part-time people who were mostly students. The full-time employees worked a fairly permanent schedule, usually an 8-hour shift (9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.). The part-time people did the closing shift (4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.) and most of the weekend work. We scheduled them around their availability due to class schedules and other commitments. We overlapped the shifts in the evening because that was the busiest time of day. Friday and Saturday were the busiest days of the week, so we would schedule the most staff to work on those days, especially during the evenings.
Many part-time employees can only work weekends or certain days of the week because they are students or it's their second job. If these part-time employees are highly valued and/or hard to replace, the business must plan around their availability. This can make the schedule design for the full-time employees much more difficult.
Weekends
Most businesses schedule their full-time employees to a single shift on the same 5 days every week. If the business is open on weekends, some of the employees may have to work every weekend as shown below:
Emp
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Hours
A
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
C
d8
d8
-
-
-
d8
d8
32
In this example, Employee A works Wed-Sun every week, Employee B works every Fri-Tue, and Employee C works every Mon-Thu. Employees A and B work every weekend, while Employee C gets every weekend off.
Most full-time employees want to avoid or minimize the number of weekend days they have to work. When a business is open one or more weekend days, they should consider schedules that provide occasional weekends off. This is done by creating a schedule with rotating days of work. Let's revise the schedule above to rotate the days of work and the weekends off.
Emp/Week
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Hours
A / Week 1
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
B / Week 2
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
C / Week 3
d8
d8
-
-
-
d8
d8
32
This is a 3-week schedule. Employee A begins the schedule in Week 1, Employee B begins in Week 2, and Employee C begins in Week 3. After finishing the initial week, they all rotate to the next week of the schedule. Emp. A moves to Week 2, Emp. B moves to Week 3, and Emp. C moves to Week 1. With this pattern, all 3 employees get a 3-day weekend off once every 3 weeks. Unlike the previous schedule with fixed days of work, they would share equally in the number of weekends worked (and the number of weekends off).
Summary
Many Main Street businesses are now open more than 8 hours a day and more than 5 days a week. This can make it difficult to create a work schedule for the employees. The three biggest scheduling challenges are: (1) matching the coverage with a workload that varies throughout the day and the week, (2) juggling the mix of full-time and part-time employees, and (3) alternating the weekend work so it is more fairly distributed.
We showed how creating a coverage table becomes the basis for the schedule. This will help you decide the best mix of shift lengths and the number of people to put on each shift. You want to have the right number of people at work to handle the volume of work expected for that particular time period. You don't want to have a bunch of employees standing around with nothing to do either.
The staffing mix depends on the quality and availability of full-time and part-time employees. If good part-time employees are easy to find, the schedule design can start with the full-time people. Part-time people would be used to fill the gaps in the coverage, to work shifts shorter than 8 hours, and/or to cover a lot of the weekend shifts. If you can only find a few, key part-time workers, you may be forced to design the schedule around their availability.
Full-time employees prefer to have weekend days off. You may not be able to give them every weekend off, but you can alternate the weekend work. This requires a schedule with rotating days of work. Although employees tend to prefer fixed days of work (so their days off are predictable), you'll have to explain the need for rotating days of work so that everyone is treated equally in terms of weekends off.
We've written several articles about schedules for companies that operate on a less than 24/7 basis. You might want to check these out.
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=work-schedules-for-businesses-open-more-than-8-hours-day-or-5-days-week
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=employee-work-schedules-for-retail-and-service-businesses
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=schedules-in-the-hospitality-industry
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=restaurant-work-schedules
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=car-dealership-schedules
If you would like to get our help with the design of a schedule, please fill out this form:
Request a Quote
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It's amazing how many people contact me about 24/7 schedules with no overtime in them. I warn them that this will not necessarily lower their costs. I also explain that avoiding overtime in the schedule will not eliminate the need for overtime. OT will still be needed to cover absences or temporary increases in demand. Here are links to two articles I've previously written on this subject:
Overtime Issues
Why Eliminating OT Can Be Costly
It's best to think of overtime as a way to increase the size of your staff without adding to the headcount. A small amount of overtime in the schedule means you will need fewer employees to produce a specific amount of coverage. Overtime also can enable you to build relief coverage into the schedule to cover absences. In some cases, it's possible to reduce the total overtime by doing this (https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=you-can-t-eliminate-overtime-but-you-might-be-able-to-reduce-it).
The bottom line is: if you eliminate overtime from the schedule, you will increase the staffing requirements. In most cases, the increased headcount will be more expensive than the overtime was.
Despite these words of warning, I know that some of you still want to see schedules with only 40 hour work weeks. Let's take a look at an example using 8-hour rotating shifts. If you want a 12-hour schedule without overtime, I suggest you read this other blog post here.
This is a 5-crew schedule that follows a 5-week schedule. Crew A begins the schedule in Week 1, Crew B begins in Week 2, and so on. When the crews finish their first week, they move down to the next week of the schedule. When they finish Week 5, they start the cycle over again with Week 1. All five crews are working the same 5-week schedule. It's just that they are always in different weeks of that pattern.
You'll note that the 5th week of the schedule has only one required shift: the Tuesday night shift. The prior four shifts are relief shifts. These can be used to cover absences or for training, maintenance, or special projects. The only downside is that it doesn't cover every day of the week. Had we adopted a schedule that averaged 42 hours a week, we could have had relief coverage for every day of the week.
Is it worth eliminating the overtime? Let's look at the numbers.
We eliminated 2 hours of overtime a week for every employee. That will reduce the costs by 7.5%.
2 hours OT/week * 1.5 OT premium = 3 hours/week
3 hours/week saved / 40 hours/week = 7.5% savings
We also have gained 4 days of relief coverage each week. If the absence rate is 10% of the normal weekly hours of work, this will reduce costs another 8.6%.
4 / 7 days of coverage/week * 10% absence rate * 1.5 OT premium = 8.57%
This means that the total savings is 16.1% (7.5% + 8.6% = 16.1%). However, we have increased the headcount by 25% by adding a fifth crew, which is far more than the 16.1% we saved.
Want to read more about 8-hour shift schedules? Here are links to several articles I've written:
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=8-hour-shift-schedules-for-24-7-coverage
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=8-hour-rotating-shift-schedules
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=8-hour-fixed-shift-schedules
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=mixing-8-hour-and-12-hour-shifts
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I've written several articles about 12-hour shift schedules. 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=12-hour-shift-schedules-with-no-overtime
These 12-hr articles tend to focus on schedule effectiveness and efficiency, i.e. schedules that align the coverage with the workload and utilize the smallest number of employees. Other websites that offer free examples of different 12-hour patterns imply that these are good choices for anyone changing to longer shifts. Smaller groups with uneven workloads and staffing limitations should beware.
In this article, I'd like to address things that should be considered before making the change to 12-hour shifts.
Environment. Some jobs are simply too taxing to endure for more than 8 hours. Things like excessive heat, noise, toxins, or physical labor might preclude the use of longer shifts.
Productivity, quality and safety. Some tasks are too tedious or focused to continue for more than 8 hours. To accommodate 12-hr. shifts, these jobs would require extra breaks, job redesign, and/or periodic rotation to other positions to keep employees fresh.
Different patterns. With fixed 12-hr. shifts, there is no rule that says both shifts must work the same on-off pattern. In fact, some patterns that are great for the day shift (e.g., Pitman) are terrible for the night shift. We encourage clients to have each shift select its preferred shift independently.
Worker preferences. Although many employees are willing to work 12-hr. shifts in order to get more days off and more weekends off, not everyone is. Older workers, people with childcare or eldercare concerns, students, and those with 2nd jobs often prefer 8-hour shifts.
Business issues. If the business runs 24/7 and has a steady workload at all times, 12-hour shifts can be a good choice. If the company uses fixed shifts, 12-hour fixed shifts are a little more efficient than 8-hour fixed shifts, which may mean a smaller headcount. If the workload is not steady, it may be necessary to use a combination of 8 and 12-hour shifts.
Absence coverage. If the organization has a high absence rate, 12-hour shifts might not be a good choice. That's because absences must be covered by someone who is scheduled to be off. This can defeat the extra days-off advantage of the longer shifts.
Pay policies. Most pay polices (e.g., holiday pay, vacations, sick leave, etc.) were written for 8-hour shifts. These polices need to be revised to reflect the 12-hr shifts. For example, with 8-hour shifts new employees get 10 days of vacation per calendar year (80 hours). If this policy was not modified before changing to 12-hour shifts, the new employees might get 120 hours of vacation per year.
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When companies expand from working 5 days a week to 7 days a week, they start by having the current employees work overtime on the weekend. Over time, however, management faces a tough choice:
Continue to rely on weekend overtime. To avoid alienating the current workforce, management can continue relying on weekend overtime to meet demand. Unfortunately, the situation will eventually become worse with excessive costs, lower productivity, quality and safety issues, and personnel problems such as increased absenteeism and turnover. By the time management realizes this, employees will have become addicted to the overtime and it will be difficult to change anything.
Hire a weekend crew. The company can keep the current employees on their Monday through Friday schedule and hire new employees for a weekend crew. Because it's difficult to find and retain good part-time employees, companies usually hire a full-time weekend crew that works 12-hour shifts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Double coverage every Friday is expensive. So is the common practice of paying the weekend crew for 40 hours instead of the 36 hours they actually work. Less experience on the weekend crew results in lower productivity. Personnel that work weekends often do so to get their foot in the door. After a year or more of waiting to be hired, they may get frustrated, leading to increased turnover and absenteeism. You can read more here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=weekend-crews.
Adopt a 24/7 schedule. While the two options discussed above minimize the impact on the current workforce, they have some serious disadvantages. They might be safe from a labor relations perspective, but the cost can be considerable. The best way to avoid those costs is to adopt a 24/7 schedule. I've previously recommended a process to follow: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Selection_Process. I've also discussed incremental steps to take: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Expand_from_5_to_7_Days. For examples of different 24/7 schedules, please check this out: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Examples.
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The best schedule for any group that works 24/7 depends primarily on 2 things: (1) the workload distribution, and (2) employee preferences. The workload distribution and associated coverage requirements should be the starting point for all scheduling decisions. Starting with anything else will lead to ineffective or inefficient solutions. Read this article for a more complete explanation: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=the-real-purpose-of-a-shift-schedule.
Workload Distribution. If the workload is steady at all times, 8-hour or 12-hour shifts would be the best choice. If the workload varies by time-of-day, you will either need to allocate more staff to certain shifts or adopt a schedule with overlapping shifts (e.g., 10-hour shifts or combined 8 and 12-hour shifts). If the workload varies by day-of-the-week (or weekdays vs. weekends), you will need a custom-designed work pattern.
Employee Preferences. If you ask employees for their preferences, roughly 80% will say 8-hour shifts. However, if you show them examples of 8 and 12-hour schedules, 80% will prefer the 12-hour schedules. That's why it's important for them to see actual examples rather than just voicing an opinion on what they want.
There is more than just shift length to consider, of course. Should you have fixed shifts or rotating shifts (https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Fixed_Shifts)? What are the best shift start/end times (https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=fatigue-in-the-workplace-early-day-shift-start-times)? What's the best way to handle absence coverage (https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=how-to-cover-absences)?
If you would like to learn more, please fill out this form to get a quote for our schedule design services (Request Quote).
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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
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I've written numerous articles about 10-hour shifts for groups that work 24/7. If you'd like to see some of these 10-hour articles, here are the links:
https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/10-Hour_Shifts
10-Hour Shifts in 24/7 Operations (shift-schedule-design.com)
10-Hour Shifts for 24/7 Coverage (shift-schedule-design.com)
10-Hour Shift Schedules and Police Management (shift-schedule-design.com)
10-Hour Shift Schedules for Police Officers (shift-schedule-design.com)
For managers of 24/7 operations, 10-hour shifts have a number of shortcomings. The biggest, of course, is the fact that they require at least 25% more staff than 8 or 12-hour shift schedules. That's because you really are covering 30/7 instead of 24/7. There are several other issues, which you can see by reading the articles.
On the other hand, there are situations where 10-hour shifts are a good choice. If you have a busy period around the same time every day, you can take advantage of the double coverage achieved with the overlapping shifts. You can boost the coverage for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day. This may require odd shift start/end times or adding a 4th shift.
For employees in 24/7 operations, 10-hour shifts are attractive primarily for two reasons:
Working 2 extra hours each day in order to get one more day off each week is a reasonable trade-off. Getting that extra day off each week is worth the sacrifice. And 10-hours is seen as a lot more tolerable than 12 hours.
Most people think that a 10-hour shift schedule will feature 3 consecutive days off, ideally on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Who doesn't want a 3-day weekend off all the time?
Unfortunately, in 24/7 operations, these two results aren't always realized. Similar to 8-hour and 12-hour shift schedules that average 42 hours a week, many 10-hour schedules also have overtime built into them. This means that the employees won't always get 3 days off. The number of weeks with only 2 days off depends on the 10-hr schedule adopted. Usually it's once every 5 weeks.
10-hour schedules in smaller organizations (fewer than 21 people) won't have 3 consecutive days off either. Most of the breaks will be only one or two days long. This can be avoided by adopting a schedule with fixed days of work. The downside of this approach is that few employees will get a full weekend off, let alone a 3-day weekend. Only a few of the most senior employees will get a 3-day weekend off.
To summarize, 10-hour shift schedules for 24/7 operations rarely meet employee expectations for several reasons:
Most of these 10-hour schedules don't consistently offer 3 days off every week.
They rarely offer 3 consecutive days off.
Typical 10-hr schedules feature a maximum of one 3-day weekend off every 5 weeks or 2 every 7 weeks.
Naturally, all of this depends on the staff size, the coverage requirements, and when the overtime/pay week begins. If you want to know how 10-hour shifts might work for your group, please click the following link, fill out the form, and I'll let you know what's feasible for you: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/21.html
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During the coronavirus pandemic, organizations that employ first responders and critical workers want to minimize the risks associated with both public and employee interactions. Here are some scheduling strategies that can help:
Public Interactions
First responders and critical workers who are in close contact with the public, especially with people who might have virus, face a unique challenge. Their repeated exposures increase the chance of getting sick and not being able to perform their duties, or even worse, spreading it among their co-workers. How can managers of these frontline workers address this risk?
One approach would be to gradually rotate the staff through a 2-week furlough, so there's a reserve staff that hasn't been exposed to the virus. And, even if they have been exposed, keeping them away from work for that long will reduce the risk of spreading the virus to fellow workers.
In 24/7 operations, this can be done by adopting a 5-crew rotating shift schedule. If the organization is already on a 4-crew schedule, it would have to shrink the size of the crews by 20% to create 5 smaller crews. Here's an example of what this schedule would look like:
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
N12
N12
N12
N12
-
-
-
48
B / Week 2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
C / Week 3
-
-
-
-
N12
N12
N12
36
D / Week 4
-
D12
D12
D12
-
-
D12
48
E / Week 5
D12
-
-
-
D12
D12
-
36
Average
33.6
Key:
D12 = 12-hour day shift
N12 = 12-hour night shift
The way the schedule works is that each crew (A, B, C, D, and E) starts the schedule in the week shown next to them. After finishing the initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Crew A moves from Week 1 to Week 2, Crew B moves from Week 2 to Week 3, and so on. Crew E moves from Week 5 up to Week 1. All five crews continue rotating through this 5-week pattern for as long as needed.
Notice that there are 14 consecutive days off from Friday in Week 1 to Thursday in Week 3. This is the 2-week furlough mentioned above. If you only pay for the hours worked, the employees will average 35.2 hours a week when you factor in the overtime from the two 48-hour work weeks (Weeks 1 and 4). If you pay for an extra 40 hours of vacation time during Week 2 of the schedule, they will be paid an average of 43.2 hours a week over the 5-week period.
Employee Interactions
The secondary concern of these organizations is having sick or exposed employees spreading the virus to other employees. Here's an article I saw regarding this: https://shift-work.com/news/news/11-steps-you-can-take-today-to-keep-your-employees-safe-and-your-shift-work-operation-going/
As this article states, 24/7 operations can temporarily switch to using two 10-hour shifts that are separated by 2 hours each. This will minimize contact during shift turnovers/handoffs, and it frees up time that might be used for cleaning and sanitizing. This may not be practical for smaller groups, but the concept has merit and maybe can be modified to suit your unique circumstances.
How do you come up with a 10-hour schedule with only 2 shifts a day? Simple. You adopt any 12-hour pattern and replace the two 12-hour shifts with two 10-hour shifts. You could adopt the 5-week pattern shown above or any other popular 12-hour pattern that uses 4 crews.
If anyone comes up with other scheduling work-arounds during this pandemic, please let me know and I'll try to pass them on. Thanks.
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When people discuss shift schedules, they tend to focus on the key schedule features like the frequency of weekends off, the number of consecutive days off, how quickly you change shifts, and how many shifts in-a-row you have to work. These features may be important for the people working the schedule, but they overlook the reason for having a schedule in the first place. So much attention has been devoted to all these schedule features that the schedule's purpose has almost been forgotten.
Why do you need a schedule for your employees anyway? Is it to attract and retain good workers? Is it to keep the current workforce happy and motivated? Is it to minimize overtime? Although all of these things are important, they are not the fundamental reason for having a schedule.
The basic purpose of a schedule is to ensure that you have the right number of the right people at work at the right time, in other words, to match the coverage with the workload. This is sometimes called effective employee utilization. A secondary goal is to minimize costs for the organization, which is often called efficient resource utilization. In short, the schedule enables the organization to effectively and efficiently carry out its responsibilities.
A schedule pattern may be very appealing to employees, but if it doesn't fulfill the essential goals of optimizing coverage and doing it efficiently, it's not good for the organization and should not be considered. If you don't have enough people at work, the organization's mission will be compromised. If you have too many people at work, you're wasting its precious resources. Once the schedule's purpose is achieved, only then can you search for options that maxmize employee satisfaction.
You can read more about this here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies.
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