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  

“We work 24/7 and we want to change to 10-hour shifts. Can you help us?” How many times have I heard that? At least 2-3 times a week. Yeah, 8-hour shift schedules suck. You might want to read about them here: ·         8-Hour Rotating Shifts (shift-schedule-design.com) ·         8-Hour Fixed Shift Schedules (shift-schedule-design.com) The problem is that few companies have enough resources to make the change to 10-hour shifts. If you are simply replacing your three 8-hour shifts with three 10-hour shifts, your coverage will be reduced by 25%. For example, if your current 8-hour schedule produces 4-person coverage, a new 10-hour schedule would reduce that to 3-person coverage.  Why is that? Let’s look at a simple example with rotating shift schedules. Here’s a popular 8-hour pattern called the Continental. 8-Hour Shifts Crew / Week Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Hours A / Week 1 - - D8 D8 A8 A8 N8 40 B / Week 2 N8 N8 - - D8 D8 A8 40 C / Week 3 A8 A8 N8 N8 - - D8 40 D / Week 4 D8 D8 A8 A8 N8 N8 - 48               Average 42 Key: D8 = 8-hour day shift A8 = 8-hour afternoon shift N8 = 8-hour night shift   This is a 4-week, rotating schedule operated by 4 crews. 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 4th week, they rotate up to Week 1.    Yes, this is a terrible schedule to work. You work 7 shifts in a row and you have to change shifts every 2-3 days. Worst of all, you only get one weekend off every 4 weeks.    You'll notice that there is a D8, A8, and N8 under each of the days of the week. This means one crew is scheduled to work each shift, all week long. Maybe not the same crew, but there will always be one crew scheduled for each shift. If the total staff is 16 people, each crew would have 4 employees. That means there would be 4 people at work at all times on a 24/7 basis.   Now let's see what happens if you change to a 10-hour rotating shift schedule.     10-hour Shifts   Crew / Week Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Hours A / Week 1 - D10 D10 - - D10 D10 40 B / Week 2 D10 - - D10 D10 - A10 40 C / Week 3 A10 A10 - - A10 A10 - 40 D / Week 4 - - A10 A10 - N10 N10 40 E / Week 5 N10 N10 N10 N10 N10 - - 50               Average 42   Changing to 10-hour shifts requires creating a 5th crew and it doesn’t get rid of the overtime in the schedule. There are better patterns than this one that would give you 2 weekends off every 5 weeks. I can show you options that do this, but not for free. Since the staff size (16) hasn't changed, four of the crews will only have 3 people and one will have 4 people. This means the coverage will now be only 3 instead of the 4 you had with the 8-hour shifts.   The positives of the 10-hour schedule for employees are that you get more days off (3 days a week for 4 out of 5 weeks) and more weekends off (up to 2 weekends off every 5 weeks). Negatives are the smaller breaks and the change in absence coverage.   With 10-hour shifts, you can't hold people over to cover an absence like you did with 8s. Absences have to be covered by calling people into work who are scheduled to be off. As an employee, you could end up working 5 or more shifts a week depending on the absence rate and whether you had any extra capacity before making this change. The key question of course is whether it’s worth switching to 10-hour shifts. Increasing the average hours of work by 25% or hiring 25% more employees is hard to justify. Reducing the coverage by 25% is not a good choice either. Would the employees benefit that much? Maybe, maybe not. I find it pretty hard to justify.     Don’t get me wrong. I’ve written plenty of articles about how to use the 6 hours a day that 10-hour shifts overlap to match the coverage to a variable workload. 10-hour shifts do have a place, if you can afford it. It’s been my experience that few smaller organizations (less than 50 employees) can do it.   Here is another article about 10-hour shifts with links to several of the other articles I've written on this topic: 10-hour Shifts.      

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: Coverage Crews 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, producing double coverage. 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 really covering 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 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 often lack adequate resources to make the change. The simple fact that 10-hour shifts require at least 25% more staff than other approaches means that few departments can afford them. 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. 

Many larger companies have switched from 8-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts. Smaller organizations have been slower to make the change. A major reason is that the workload in smaller companies isn't constant all day long. For example, they may need 3-person coverage from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and only 1 or 2-person coverage from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Alternatively, they need 3-person coverage around-the-clock from Monday to Friday, but only 1-person coverage on the weekends.   All of the popular 12-hour patterns (Pitman, DuPont, 3-on-3-off, 4-on-4-off, etc.) have the same coverage levels all day and all week. If a company with an uneven workload adopts one of these templates, they would either have too much or too little coverage for part of the day (or part of the week). This, in turn, would incur unnecessary costs or adversely impact the service levels.   This doesn't mean 12-hour shifts won't work; it just means that the schedule has to be modified. Here are the two possible situations and the best approaches for each: If the workload varies by time of day, then you have to combine the 12-hour shifts with an overlay or "power" shift. You use the 12s to match the coverage for the lightest shift (usually the night shift). Let's say that's 2 people. You could use any common 12-hour pattern for 2-person coverage. Then you would overlay that with one or two shifts that boost the coverage during the busier hours of the day. This could consist of an 8-hour shift, 10-hour shift, another 12-hour shift, or two 8-hour shifts. If some of your employees are reluctant to work 12-hour shifts, this will allow a few of them to avoid changing.   If the workload varies by day of the week, then you have to modify the 12-hour pattern. This will require a custom-designed pattern, perhaps one that doesn't use crews. The solution depends on the coverage levels throughout the week and whether you want fixed or rotating shifts. I would modify popular patterns (Pitman, DuPont, etc) to reduce or increase the coverage so that it matches your workload distribution.  I believe this is a great solution for companies that want to make their work schedules more employee friendly, especially when the workers are grumbling about a lack of work-life balance. Contact us today to see how this might work for your group. You'll be glad you did. Contact us. 

Is your business open more than 8 hours a day or more than 5 days a week? If so, do you have a set schedule for your employees, or are you creating a new schedule every week based on individual employee availability and preferences? A set schedule will benefit both you and your employees. You won't have to spend so much time creating new schedules. You won't have to struggle with being short-handed because you couldn't fill a time slot (i.e. a shift). Employees will appreciate knowing far in advance when they have to work and, more importantly, when they will be off. Employees like getting occasional weekends off (as opposed to having to work every Saturday, for example). Unlike 24/7 schedules, free examples of schedules for your type of business are hard to find because there are too many possibilities:  Different hours of operation. Different coverage requirements. Different number of employees. Different mix of full-time and part-time employees. Different pay weeks. What do schedules for less than 24/7 coverage look like? Well, that depends on all of the above variables. Here are 2 simple examples:   Example #1. Open 10 hours a day all week. Need at least 2-person coverage at all times. Busiest day is Monday. 4 full-time staff. Pay week begins on Thursday.   Crew / Week   Thu      Fri     Sat      Sun      Mon     Tue    Wed   Hours A / Week 1      -            -     D10      D10        D10       -     D10      40 B / Week 2    D10      D10       -         -      D10      D10       -      40   Each crew (A and B) has 2 employees working a 10-hour day shift (D10). Crew A begins the schedule in Week 1; Crew B begins in Week 2. After finishing the initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Crew A rotates to Week 2, while Crew B rotates to Week 1. They continue this 2-week pattern indefinitely. Note that Monday is the only day of the week with two D10s underneath it. That means both crews are scheduled to work on this busiest day of the week. Note that the schedule begins on Thu. Had we started with a different day, the 2-day break in Week 2 might not have fallen on the weekend (Sat & Sun).   Example #2. Open 14 hours a day (7 a.m. to 9 p.m.) on Mon-Sat. Need at least 1-person coverage at all times. Need 2-person coverage from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. 2 full-time staff and 2 part-time staff. Pay week begins on Saturday.   Emp. / Week      Sat      Sun      Mon      Tue      Wed      Thu        Fri   Hours A / Week 1        -        -      D12      D12         -        -      D12        36 B / Week 2      D12        -         -        -       D12      D12        -        36                   C       a5        -        -        -         -        a5        a5        15                   D        -        -        a5        a5         a5         -         -        15   The two full-time employees (A & B) work a 2-week schedule on a 12-hour day shift (D12) that runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Employee A begins in Week 1, while Employee B begins in Week 2 of the schedule. After finishing the initial week, they rotate the the next week. Employee A rotates to Week 2 and Employee B rotates to Week 1. The two part-time employees (C & D) do not rotate. They work the same 3 days each week. C works a 5-hour afternoon shift (a5) from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thu, Fri, and Sat. D works the same shift Mon, Tue, and Wed. The 5-hour shift overlaps the 12-hour shift from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. giving the company the 2-person coverage they are looking for.   We could keep going, but unless you happen to have the same combination of hours, coverage requirements, staff size/composition, and pay week, additional examples aren't going to be much help. So what's the best approach for creating a schedule? You can contact us for help (Request Quote) or you can follow the steps that we do (Employee Work Schedules).  

A majority of the organizations that cover 24/7 use 8-hour fixed shifts. That would be fine if it weren't for the fact that employees hate the schedules. The universal complaint is that they don't get enough days or weekends off. They simply want a better work-life balance.   The employees think 10-hour shifts would be a good choice, but the increased staffing requirements prevent most organizations from adopting them. Most employees don't want 12-hour shifts, though when they see actual examples of 12-hour schedules, they often change their minds. But let's focus this article on 8-hour shifts.   There are a lot of different patterns with 8-hour fixed shifts. Unlike 12-hour schedules that normally use 4 crews, 8-hour schedules can use anywhere from 6 to 27 crews. The number depends on the coverage levels, as shown in the table below:   Coverage Staffing Total Average* Weekends Possible  Pattern Pattern Pattern Per Shift Per Shift Staff Hours/Week Off (max)** Patterns #1 #2 #3                   1 2 6 37.3 1/2 2 Max. 7 days Max. 4 days                     2 3 9 37.3 1/3 3 Max. 8 days Max. 7 days Max. 4 days                   3 4 12 42 1/4 5 Max. 7 days 6-on-2-off Max. 5 days 3 5 15 33.6 2/5 2 Max. 7 days Max. 5 days                     4 6 18 37.3 1/3 3 Max. 7-8 days Max. 5 days 4-on-2-off                   5 7 21 40 2/7 2 Max. 7 days Max. 5 days   5 8 24 35 3/8 1 5-on-3-off                       6 8 24 42 1/4 5 Max. 7-8 days 6-on-2-off Max. 5 days 6 9 27 37.3 3/9 1 Max. 7 days 6-on-3-off                     * Average Hours/Week often can be increased to 40 by requiring occasional extra coverage   ** Max. Weekends Off can only be achieved with certain patterns         Are you thoroughly confused? Sorry. There's a lot of information in this chart. Let me try to explain using 5-person coverage as an example. There are 2 rows with 5-person coverage. On the first row, 7 people are required if they work an average of 40 hours a week. On the second line, 8 people are required, but they only have to work an average of 35 hours a week.  Why would you adopt a schedule that only averages 35 hours a week? People do it all the time. Not because they want fewer hours. They chose a popular work pattern without realizing that it averages less than 40 hours. In this case, the pattern is 5 days of work followed by 3 days off, aka 5-on-3-off.   Continuing with the example, you'll next see the maximum weekends off. The maximum with 7 people per shift is 2 weekends off every 7 weeks whereas the max. with 8 people per shift is 3 weekends off every 8 weeks. After that is a tally of the number of possible schedules along with descriptions of those schedules. Max. 7 days means the schedule requires working 7 consecutive days at some point. In general, the more days worked, the more weekends off.   A significant portion of my clients contact me because they have adopted a popular 8-hour work pattern, and they're tired of the employee complaints and never having enough or consistent coverage. I try to show them both alternative approaches (i.e. different shift lengths) and other 8-hour options. This way they can compare the coverage, average hours of work, weekends off, and so on. This chart illustrates the possibilities for 8-hour fixed shifts only.   Are you ready to explore other work patterns or alternative scheduling approaches? Contact us today:   Contact Us  

One of the most popular pages on my website contains a discussion of the pros and cons of 12-hour shifts. Here's a link to that page if you haven't seen it:  www.shift-schedule-design.com/12-Hour_Shifts. This article will address a different aspect of 12-hour shifts, namely how the longer shifts fit with different 24/7 workload distributions. Constant Workloads When the volume of work is steady throughout the day, the best shift length is either 8-hours or 12-hours. That's because they divide evenly into a 24-hour day. With 8-hour shifts, there would be three shifts with the same coverage on each shift. With 12-hour shifts, there would be two shifts with the same coverage. Other shift lengths, e.g., 9-hour or 10-hour shifts, do not divide evenly into 24 hours. This means they will have overlapping shifts, with double coverage during the overlaps. 9-hour shifts will have 3 hours in which the shifts overlap. 10-hour shifts will have 6 hours in which the shifts overlap. Overlaps can be achieved with 8 or 12-hour shifts simply by including an unpaid meal break in each shift. These other shift lengths (9s or 10s) are not an efficient choice for organizations with a constant workload distribution. In addition to the producing double coverage for part of the day, they also require a larger staff because the organization has essentially extended the hours of operation to 27 or 30 hours a day. 9-hour shifts require 12.5% more personnel and 10-hour shifts require 25% more personnel than 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. Now that we've shown the best choice for a constant workload is 8 or 12-hour shifts, let's take a quick look at the staffing requirements. Here is a simple example. If you need 2-person coverage around-the-clock, you will need 336 hours of coverage per week (2 people * 24 hours/day * 7 days/week = 336 hours/week). If you divide this by 40 hours per week, you get 8.4 employees. If you divide this by 42 hours per week, you get 8 employees. 42 hours/week is commonly used in 24/7 schedules because it allows the use of 4 crews in the schedule. The only exception to this is 8-hour fixed shifts. With these, each shift's staffing requirements must be calculated separately. In the example with 2-person coverage on each shift, this will require 3 people on each shift working an average of 37.3 hours a week (2 people * 8 hours/day * 7 days/week = 112 hours/week / 3 employees = 37.3 hours/week). The total staffing with fixed 8s would be 9 employees. With the exception of 8-hour fixed shifts, 8s and 12s for steady coverage require the same number of employees working the same average hours per week. Since both shift lengths cost the same, this generally means that the choice between 8s and 12s can be left up to employees. When employees are asked if they want 8s or 12s, most will say 8s. However, when they are shown examples of schedules with both shift lengths, most will say 12s.   Variable Workloads Many smaller establishments do not have constant workloads. They are often slower at night and on the weekends. For example, on Monday-Friday, they may need 4-person coverage from 0700 to 2300 and 2-person coverage from 2300 to 0700. On Saturday and Sunday, they only need 2-person coverage all day. When the workload is lighter on weekends, this can be accommodated with either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. When the workload is lighter at certain times of the day, this can be more difficult to match with 12-hour shifts. That's because most groups find their busy hours correspond more closely with one or two 8-hour shifts, i.e. for 8 or 16 hours a day. Let's look at examples of each of these. Example #1. In this example, the organization needs 4-person coverage for 8 hours and 2-person coverage for 16 hours a day. This requires 11.2 employees working an average of 40 hours a week with 8-hour rotating shifts (12 people with 8-hour fixed shifts). If you use one 12-hour shift with 4-person coverage and one with 2-person coverage, you have 4-person coverage for 4 hours longer than necessary. It also would require 12 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. The best way to accommodate 12-hour shifts in this scenario is to use 12-hour shifts for the 2-person coverage around-the-clock and an 8-hour overlay shift that matches the busy period. This would require 11 employees. You could either combine the two shift lengths into a single schedule or make a separate schedule for each shift length. 8 people on 12s --> 2-person coverage for 24/7 3 people on 8s --> 2-person coverage for 8/7 Example #2. In this example, the organization needs 4-person coverage for 16 hours and 2-person coverage for 8 hours a day. This requires 14 employees working an average of 40 hours a week with 8-hour rotating shifts. (15 people with 8-hour fixed shifts). If you use one 12-hour shift with 4-person coverage and one with 2-person coverage, you have 4-person coverage for 4 hours less than necessary. If this is unacceptable, you would have to have 4-person coverage on both shifts. This would require at least 16 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. The best way to accommodate 12-hour shifts in this scenario is to use 12-hour shifts for the 2-person coverage around-the-clock and two 8-hour overlay shifts that match the busy period. This would require 14 employees. You could either combine the two shift lengths into a single schedule or make a separate schedule for each shift length. 8 people on 12s --> 2-person coverage for 24/7 6 people on 8s --> 2-person coverage for 16/7 Conclusions There are lots of other possibilities when it comes to variable workloads. If you want to include 12-hour shifts in the schedule, you can follow the generic approach desribed in this article: If the workload varies by day of the week, use two 12-hour shifts with a modified work pattern. Popular 12-hour patterns such as Pittman, Panama, DuPont, 3-on-3-off, etc. have the same coverage throughout the week. Therefore these patterns must be modified to match the daily variations. This is best handled by someone who is experienced in schedule design. They can ensure that the schedule: (1) matches the daily coverage variations, (2) averages close to 40 hours a week, and (3) maximizes weekends off for employees.   If the workload varies by hour of the day, you can use two 12-hour shifts for the base coverage. Then you will use one or more additional shifts that match the length of the busy period. I discussed 8-hour and 16-hour busy periods above. Your busy period might require something other than one or two 8-hour shifts. For example, if your busy period is longer than 18 hours, you might use an 8-hour and a 10-hour overlay shift. In some cases, you may want these shifts to overlap so that the coverage is increased further during the hours of overlap.