Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
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Restaurants have highly variable workloads, which makes it difficult to schedule the employees effectively. In this post, we're going to discuss the schedules for two positions (Hosts and Servers). Obviously, there are a lot more positions than these (e.g., bussers/food runners, line cooks, dishwashers, bartenders, managers, and so on), but this should be enough to illustrate the process. To simplify the examples, we will only use full-time employees.
The primary goal of any schedule is to match the coverage (the number of people working) with the workload. In other words, when you're busy, you want enough people at work so that customers get served quickly, and when you're not busy, you don't want a bunch of employees standing around with nothing to do.
Hosts
The table below shows the coverage requirements for the Hosts. They are needed from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or a total of 16 hours a day. They are busiest Saturday and Sunday mornings, and then again Friday and Saturday evenings. They need 2 Hosts during the busy periods and only 1 Host the rest of the time. The heavier workload lasts on Sunday until 4 p.m. It begins on Fridays at that same time.
Hosts - Coverage Requirements
Time Period
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am-4pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
4pm-10pm
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
Since the Hosts are needed for 16 hours a day, a simple solution would be to adopt two 8-hour shifts. Let's see what that might look like.
Hosts - Option #1
Host / Week
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Hours
A / Week 1
-
d8
d8
d8
-
d8
d8
40
B / Week 2
d8
d8
d8
-
-
-
-
24
C / Week 3
e8
e8
e8
e8
e8
-
-
40
D / Week 4
e8
e8
-
-
d8
e8
e8
40
Average
36
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am-2pm)
e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm-10pm)
Coverage:
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am to 2pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
2pm to 10pm
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
The way this schedule works is that the 4 Hosts (A, B, C, and D) start the schedule in the weeks shown for them. After finishing the initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Host A moves from Week 1 to Week 2, Host B moves from Week 2 to Week 3, Host C moves to Week 4, and Host D moves to Week 1. They are all working the same 4-week pattern; it's just that they are all in different weeks.
The resulting coverage is also shown above. It's similar to the requirements, but changes at 2 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. To avoid this, we'll have to change the shift length. If we split the 16-hour day into a 10-hour shift from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. and a 6-hour shift from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. we can better match the coverage requirements. Here's what this would look like.
Hosts - Option #2
Host / Week
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Hours
A / Week 1
-
D10
D10
-
-
D10
D10
40
B / Week 2
D10
D10
D10
D10
-
-
-
40
C / Week 3
e6
e6
e6
e6
e6
-
-
30
D / Week 4
e6
e6
-
-
D10
e6
e6
34
Average
36
Key:
D10 = 10-hour day shift (6am-4pm)
e6 = 6-hour evening shift (4pm-10pm)
Coverage:
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am to 4pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
4pm to 10pm
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
The schedule works the same way as Option #1. As you can see from the coverage, it is an exact match with the requirements. This approach requires the same number of employees and the same average weekly hours as Option #1. By changing the shift lengths, we were able to make more effective use of the staff.
Servers
The table below shows the coverage requirements for the Servers. They are also needed from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or a total of 16 hours a day. This position is busiest during lunches and dinners, especially Friday and Saturday evenings.
Servers - Coverage Requirements
Time Period
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am-12pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
12pm-2pm
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2pm-6pm
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
6pm-10pm
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
A simple solution would be to split the day into two 8-hour shifts. Let's see what that might look like.
Servers - Option #1
Server / Week
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
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
D / Week 4
e8
e8
e8
-
e8
e8
e8
48
E / Week 5
e8
e8
e8
e8
-
-
e8
40
F / Week 6
e8
e8
-
e8
e8
e8
-
40
Average
40
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am-2pm)
e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm-10pm)
Coverage:
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am to 2pm
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2pm to 10pm
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
This schedule has 6 Servers (A, B, C, D, E, and F). They start the schedule in the weeks shown for them. After finishing this initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Server A moves to Week 2, Server B moves to Week 3, and so on. Server F moves up to Week 1. They are all working the same 6-week pattern; it's just that they are all in different weeks.
The resulting coverage is shown above. Although dividing the day into two 8-hour shifts is simple, the coverage requirements are exceeded for most of the day. Only 1-person coverage is needed Mon-Fri from 6a-12p and again from 2p-6p, yet the schedule produces 2-person coverage during those periods. To avoid this, we could split the 16-hour day into four different shift lengths that overlap the busier meal times. Here's what this would look like.
Servers - Option #2
Server / Week
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Hours
A / Week 1
-
d8
d8
-
d8
d8
d8
40
B / Week 2
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
-
32
C / Week 3
E10
E10
E10
E10
-
-
-
40
D / Week 4
e4
e4
e8
-
E10
E10
E10
46
E / Week 5
e8
e8
-
e4
e4
e4
e4
32
Average
32
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am to 2pm)
e4 = 4-hour evening shift (6pm to 10pm)
e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm to 10pm)
E10 = 10-hour evening shift (12pm to 10pm)
Coverage:
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
6am to 12pm
1
2
2
1
1
1
1
12pm to 2pm
2
3
3
2
2
2
2
2pm to 6pm
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
6pm to 10pm
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
Not only does this match the coverage requirements closer, it only requires 5 full-time employees (one less than the simplified 8-hour shift approach).
Conclusions
It's tempting to look at the hours of operation (16 hours a day) and jump to the conclusion that this requires two 8-hour shifts. As we've shown, it's possible to develop schedules using two 8-hour shifts that come close to or exceed the coverage requirements. This certainly simplifies the scheduling process, so many restaurants will probably follow this path. However, we also demonstrated that this approach will result in higher costs along with periods of under and over-staffing.
If you want a schedule that is both effective and efficient, this is going to require more time and effort. Here are steps you will have to take:
Track customer volumes by hour of the day for each day of the week.
Create a table showing the coverage requirements (based on the customer volume history).
Decide the most appropriate shift lengths that match the hourly workload variations.
Develop a weekly work pattern that matches the daily variations.
If you want to get professional help with the shift length selection and work pattern design, please contact us to help: Request Quote.
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When managers decide to change their group's work schedule, they often begin by searching the internet for: (1) schedules using a specific shift length such as 10 or 12-hour shifts, or (2) popular work patterns such as 4-on-2-off or the Pitman. Unfortunately, doing this will rarely result in the best choice for their unique situation. Here are a few examples of the pitfalls:
Picking 10-hour or 12-hour shifts when the workload varies in 8-hour increments.
Using a schedule with constant coverage when their workload varies from shift-to-shift.
Selecting a schedule pattern (e.g., 4-on-2-off) that requires 6 people per shift, when they have something else.
Picking a schedule that requires 18 people when other options only require 16.
Adopting a schedule that is great for day shift, but terrible for night shift.
I'm sure there are plenty of other possibilities, but you get the idea. Many people forget that the primary purpose of the schedule is to match the coverage with the workload. To achieve that goal, you need to start with the number of people needed at different times of the day throughout the week. In many cases, this will limit which shift lengths are feasible. You can read more about that here (Shift Length Selection (shift-schedule-design.com).
Once you have the shift length(s) established, you need to find or create a pattern that will produce the desired coverage with minimal resources and with maximum weekends off. There is no way that an internet search will ever help with that.
What do most people do? They find a schedule or create one that they think looks good, adopt it, and live with a mediocre solution, never aware that other approaches or work patterns would have been far superior. They avoid hiring a scheduling expert to save a few hundred dollars and end up costing the organization more than that every week because they got a solution for free.
Wouldn't it be better to have someone with scheduing expertise go over your situation, show you alternative approaches (e.g., 8-hour fixed shifts vs. combined 8 and 12-hour fixed shifts), and lay out a few different work patterns for each approach? Since the options would all be in the same format, they would be easy to compare and evaluate. You could show them to your workers and let them debate the pros and cons of each option. This is way scheduling should be done.
Click on this link and fill out the form to get started today: (Request a quote for custom schedule design (shift-schedule-design.com)
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In surveys of more than 20K shiftworkers, we asked them about their shift length preferences for 24/7 coverage. We did it in a way to avoid directly mentioning specific shift lengths as shown in the graph below:
We found that asking specific shift lengths did not give reliable answers since it was based on perceptions rather than actual schedules. When we showed the shiftworkers actual schedule examples using different shift lengths, here is how they responded:
Ratings definitions:
5 = I like it a lot
4 = It has potential to be good
3 = neutral or not sure
2 = It doesn't look promising
1 = I don't like it
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I just got an email from someone searching for a 10-hour rotating shift schedule for a company that worked 18/7. He needed 2-person coverage on the day shift and 1-person coverage on the evening shift. I gave him a quote of $150 for two different options. His reply was: "I’m sorry Bruce, I'm not paying $150 for the schedules. Is there anywhere you can point me to find something similar online. Had a hard time finding anything until I came across your ad."
I'm sure this happens all the time. This guy was brave enough to say what all the others were probably thinking: "Why pay, when you can find schedules online for free." They just don't see the value in paying for professional scheduling assistance. They think they can either figure it out themselves or find schedule examples on the internet.
While it's possible to find schedules on the internet, rarely are they matched to the staff size, coverage requirements, scheduling approach, or pay week. That means the schedules won't work properly and the users will have to live with sub-standard results. Worst of all, they'll never realize that they could've had something far better.
So how do I communicate the value of professional scheduling help? I can't compare my recommended schedules with whatever they came up with. If people are willing to live with a schedule that doesn't produce the right coverage or doesn't provide something attractive for the workers, how can I convince them that spending $150 or $300 would have avoided these problems.
I've been charging the same prices for over 20 years now. And my clients tell me they love what they got. They especially like the fact that they got multiple options and approaches to compare them and weigh the pros and cons. If you want to see the best possible schedule with more than one pattern, and you're willing to pay a small fee, please contact me. Here's a link to a form that has all the questions I'll need answered.
CONTACT US
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Here are links to articles I've written about 8-hour shift schedules:
1. 8-hour fixed shift schedules
2. 8-hour rotating shift schedules
3. 8-hour shift schedules with no built-in overtime
4. 8-hour shift schedules for 24/7 coverage
5. Mixing 8-hour shifts and 12-hour shifts
If you are looking for examples of 8-hour schedules for 24/7 coverage:
1. Package of ten different 8-hour rotating shift schedules
2. Package of five different 8-hour fixed shift schedules with coverage in 3-person increments
If you have any of these conditions, you will need a custom-designed schedule:
1. Your company's hours of operation are less than 24/7
2. Your coverage varies by day of the day, e.g., 4-person coverage on weekdays and 2-person coverage on weekends
3. Your coverage is not a multiple of 3, e.g., you need 2-person coverage
Request help with a custom-designed schedule
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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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Here are links to articles I've written about 12-hour shift schedules:
1. 12-hour shifts
2. 12-hour shifts in smaller organizations
3. Are 12-hour shifts too long?
4. 12-hour shift schedule considerations
5. Matching 12-hour shifts to your workload distribution
6. Mixing 8-hour and 12-hour shifts
7. 12-hour shift schedules with no overtime
8. Covering absences with 12-hour shifts
If you are looking for examples of 12-hour schedules for 24/7 coverage:
1. Package of ten different 12-hour rotating shift schedules
2. Package of ten different 12-hour fixed shift schedules
If you have any of these conditions, you will need a custom-designed schedule:
1. Your company's hours of operation are less than 24/7
2. Your coverage varies by day of the day, e.g., 4-person coverage on weekdays and 2-person coverage on weekends
3. Your coverage doesn't vary in 12-hour increments, e.g., you need 4-person coverage from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and 2-person coverage from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Request help with a custom-designed schedule
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In the U.S., most non-salaried employees are eligible for overtime after working more than 40 hours in a week. Usually this is based on the hours worked during the pay week.
Some pay weeks are better than others when it comes to 7-day work schedules. For example, with 8-hour shifts, the best days to start the pay week are Sat, Sun, or Mon. That's because employees can occasionally get a 3 or 4-day weekend off. If the pay week begins any other day of the week, employees can never get more than a 2-day weekend off since they would be working less than 40 hours in that week.
Some schedule patterns work fine with a pay period that begins any day of the week. Others only work if they start on a certain day. Trying to make one of those patterns start on a different day would compromise weekends off or create highly uneven work weeks such as 60 hours one week and 24 hours the next.
Pay weeks that begin at Midnight can create overtime unnecessarily. For instance, on a 12-hour shift schedule with shifts that begin at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., the night shift at the end of the pay week will have 5 hours in one pay week and 7 hours in the next pay week. Or, on an 8-hour shift schedule with a night shift that begins at 11 p.m., the last night shift of the pay week will have 1 hour in the first pay week and 7 hours in the next. Employees could end up working 33 hours the first week and 47 hours the next.
Pay weeks are often set by payroll personnel who aren't familiar with groups that work more than just Monday to Friday. And they are highly reluctant to change the pay week once it has been established. That means you'll have to avoid certain schedules (despite their attractiveness) or simply live with the negative consequences.
There are so many different pay weeks and schedule patterns that it's hard to say in advance whether there will be problems or not. Just be aware that pay weeks beginning on Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, or at Midnight could impact weekends off or cause additional overtime.
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What time do most day shift workers want to start work? Surprisingly, few want to start at 8:00 a.m. or later. Most want to start before 7:00 a.m., as shown in the diagram below.
Why do so many people want to start work early? Workers tell us there are two reasons.
First, they want to get home earlier. It may be possible to arrive at home around the same time their children get out of school. There is more time in the evening to run personal errands or spend time with the family and friends. And, of course, there are more hours of daylight available for recreation, house repairs, or anything else best done while the sun is out.
Shiftworker Preferred Start Times
Median for 8-hour shifts = 6:30 a.m.
Median for 12-hour shifts = 6:00 a.m.
The second reason is they want to avoid traffic congestion during the commute to and from work. Nobody enjoys sitting in stalled traffic or poking along at a fraction of the posted speed limit. By starting work a little earlier, workers can avoid the rush hour and spend less time on the road. More than one shift worker has told us that by starting 15 minutes earlier they saved up to 45 minutes on their commute.
In addition, preferred work start times are heavily influenced by what people are familiar with. The graph below shows the preferred start times from two companies whose actual start times are significantly different. In both cases, the employees would like to have earlier start times. But the average preferences at the two plants are more than an hour apart. Clearly, the preferred start times are tempered by what the workers are used to. Once a start time is changed, preferences will gradually evolve, making acceptance of any change in start times a long-term process.
Preferred Start Times at Two Different Companies
A Company A
Company B
Current start time
6:30 a.m.
8:00 a.m.
Preferred start time (average)
6:27 a.m.
7:37 a.m.
What most people don't realize, however, is that early start times often result in less sleep. Why? Because most people won't go to bed earlier to adjust for an early work start time. They would rather sacrifice their sleep than their normal evening activities.
Here is an example from a major auto parts manufacturing plant. The plant operates on two different schedules that are an hour apart. Three-quarters of the workers on day shift start work at 6:30 a.m. The rest start an hour later at 7:30 a.m.
When surveyed, employees with the later starting time said they got an average of 34 minutes more sleep on the days they worked than the employees with the early start time did. The later start time simply allowed them to sleep longer. On their days off, both groups got about the same amount of sleep.
Asked how often they had problems with safety or performance due to sleepiness, the group with the later starting time reported they had frequent problems 31% less often than the employees on the earlier day shift. In addition, the “later starters” accounted for only 14% of the accidents over a one-year period, despite representing 24% of the total workers.
The later start times had mixed results with the afternoon and night shifts at the plant. As seen in the table below, the second shift with late start times got a little more sleep and the third shift with late start times got a little less sleep. The day shift was the only shift that experienced a significant change.
Shift
Average Hours of Sleep
Difference
Early Start
Late Start
Day shift
5.78 hours/day
6.34 hours/day
+34 minutes
Afternoon shift
6.46 hours/day
6.59 hours/day
+8 minutes
Night shift
5.98 hours/day
5.80 hours/day
-11 minutes
This is not an isolated case. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health found that a one-hour delay in morning shift start times at a steel mill increased worker sleep and improved waking alertness during the shift. They believe that sleep is often truncated when workers have early start times. The reason? Social limitations on retiring early in the evening. They also found that the evening and night shifts were affected negatively by starting work later, however, the results were not consistent.
The evidence seems to be consistent in supporting the conclusion that later start times increase the hours of sleep, at least for people working the morning shift. The question is whether the workers would choose later start times when given the choice. Does the advantage of extra sleep outweigh the disadvantages of longer commute times and less free time after work? And what about people working the other shifts? They didn't gain the same benefits, so why should they support a change?
In the NIOSH/Finnish study, the workers were allowed to vote on changing the schedule after a four-month trial of later start times. 75% of the workers voted against the later start times. The workers explained that this choice was unpopular because it interfered with social and other personal activities. How do you think your workforce would vote? Don't you think it's worth giving them the opportunity to decide? Before you do, make sure they are familiar with the studies described in this article.
Sources
1. Roger R Rosa, Mikko Harma, Katriina Pulli, Mirjam Mulder, Ove Nasman, “Rescheduling a three shift system at a steel rolling mill: effects of a one hour delay of shift starting times on sleep and alertness in younger and older workers,” Occupational andEnvironmental Medicine, Oct. 1996, Volume 53, No. 10, pp.677-685.
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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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