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Here's my last 10-hour shift schedule post for awhile. This is another forum comment at 911Dispatch:
"I have 9 Full Time (1 position open for total of 10) Dispatcher's and I'm trying my hardest to get us converted to 10 hour shifts. I would prefer 12 hours shifts but management is against it still at this time. I only have 3 working consoles so I would need no more than 3 on at a time and I have 3 supervisor's to account for. Any examples or ideas are VERY WELCOME!! You can email me or respond on here. My email is xxxxx! Thanks in advance!"
1. Justification. A variable workload is the only way to justify a change to 10-hour shifts to management. There is no mention of a variable workload here; just a desire to get 10-hour shifts. If you want 10-hour shifts, you have to find a way to justify the change to management. The only viable argument is that it will help us to better match our coverage with the workload.
2. Coverage. Coverage requirements are the starting point for all schedule design. All this person mentions is the maximum coverage, not the minimum. With 10 employees and a little bit of built-in overtime, this group could have 2-person coverage for 18 hours a day and 4-person coverage (when the shifts overlap) for 6 hours a day.
3. Physical capacity limitations. But wait! They can't have more than 3 people working at the same time. Now they're up a creek. When 4 people show up for 6 hours every day of the week, they'll have one person doing nothing. That's a waste. I'm not sure about the 3 supervisors. Are they in addition to the 10 dispatchers? They could have up to 6 people working during the 6 hours of overlapping shifts, but only have 3 consoles. This would be a mess.
4. Supervision. Should I repeat all the problems that 10-hour shifts create for supervision? Like crewless schedules and the need for at least 5 supervisors?
5. Schedule format. This person never mentioned whether they had fixed shifts or rotating shifts. If they changed to 10-hour shifts, this might make a difference. To achieve 2-person coverage with 10-hour rotating shifts takes 10 people working an average of 42 hours a week. To achieve 2-person coverage with 10-hour fixed shifts takes 12 people working only 40 hours a week. This is one additional area they might have to make a sacrifice just to get 10-hour shifts.
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There are always two different perspectives when it comes to shift schedules. One is that of the employees who have to work the schedule. The other is that of management who represent the organization and its business requirements. Most people seem to only think about themselves, and ignore the other side's point of view. If you want to change your group's schedule, it is important to be familiar with both perspectives.
Employee Perspective
Employees tend to focus on time off. They want to maximize time off, especially the weekends. This explains the popularity of longer shifts, like 10-hour and 12-hour shifts. Having more time off from work allows them to have a life outside of work, i.e. the ability to balance their lives at work with their lives away from work (work-life balance).
Employees also are concerned with fairness. They understand that seniority may be used to assign employees to the different shifts. But they are intolerant of favoritism and unequal treatment when it comes to things like overtime distribution, vacation time off, or the days people are scheduled to work.
Employees prefer schedules that are consistent. If they are constantly being called in from a day off, they will resent this. If they don't know until the last minute whether they have to work on the weekend, morale will suffer. Employees want a predictable schedule so they know they can count on their scheduled days off. That way they can make plans for things outside of work.
What employees don't recognize is that a new schedule using longer shifts must produce some benefits for the organization too. If they want a new schedule, it's not enough to simply talk about how they will benefit. That's not adequate justification for management. Instead, they need to identify how the new schedule will help the organization. Let's take a look at the things management is concerned with.
Management Perspective
Managers tend to focus on three things: coverage, cost, and supervision. Let's look at each of these in more detail.
Ideally the coverage is closely matched to the workload. If the work volumes are constant throughout the day (as in an assembly line), the coverage should be the same on all shifts. Employees seeking 10-hour shifts fail to recognize that the shifts overlap for 6 hours a day, which would double the coverage during those hours. With a steady workload, it is wasteful to have all that extra coverage for 6 hours every day.
On the other hand, if the workload varies by time of day, as it often does in law enforcement and communication centers/dispatch units, the extra coverage might be beneficial. This may require some clever scheduling tricks such as two separate schedules that start 6 hours apart or a 4-shift schedule. If the workload has three distinct levels (e.g., moderate during daylight hours, heavy during evening hours, and light during nighttime hours), neither 10-hour or 12-hour shifts would be a good fit. The top priority is to achieve the best possible match of coverage with the workload.
A related factor is the organization's absence rate. If the employees are given generous amounts of paid time off, the organization has three alternatives to maintain adequate coverage: (1) use overtime to cover any absences, (2) build relief time into the schedule itself, or (3) boost the coverage on each shift . This is such a big topic, I'll save it for another post.
The second concern of management is cost. There are two major components: (1) staff size, and (2) average hours of work. Many public organizations believe that any hours over 40 are evil and must be avoided because of the overtime premiums. This is another big topic that I will save for a future post. So let's talk about staff size.
Most 12-hour schedules require the same number or fewer employees than 8-hour schedules. Most 10-hour schedules require 25% more personnel than 8-hour shifts. Most fixed shift schedules require a few more personnel than rotating shift schedules. These are broad generalizations, so don't take them as gospel. It's usually best to discuss your requirements with a professional before making a schedule change.
The third management concern is supervision. Changing to a new schedule may require a different crew configuration. If you had a 4-crew schedule with 8-hour rotating shifts, you might neeed 12 crews with 8-hour fixed shifts. Or you might need 21 crews with a 10-hour shift schedule. Or you might end up with a schedule that has no crews. How do you handle the supervisory situation in these cases?
Every situation is unique, so it's difficult to lay out a set of rules or conclusions. The point is that a schedule change will affect employees differently than it will affect management. If you are a shiftworker seeking a new schedule, you will have to figure out how the change will benefit the organization. If you are manager seeking a new schedule, you will have to determine how the change will benefit the employees. With large organizations, the use of a neutral facilitator is often the best approach. With smaller organizations, the use of a professional schedule designer may be all that is needed.
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Almost every week I'm contacted by police officers, sheriff's deputies, and patrolmen about 10-hour shifts. They believe that 10-hour shifts would benefit themselves and their fellow officers. I believe there are two reasons they think 10s would be an improvement over their current 8-hour schedule. I will take a closer look at each of these in an attempt to sort out the reality from the myth.
Time Off
In 24/7 operations, typical schedules using 8, 10 or 12-hour shifts provide the following number of days and weekends off:
Shift Length Days Off Per Year Max. Weekends Off
8-hour 91 25%
10-hour 146 40%
12-hour 182 50%
It is clear that 10-hour shifts offer more days off and more weekends off than 8s, but not as many as 12s. I believe that 10s are the most popular shift length because they offer more time off than 8s and they are seen as more tolerable than 12s. If the only objective was to maximize time off, 12-hour shifts would be the clear winner.
The key point that is often overlooked is absence coverage. With 8-hour shifts, absences are covered either by holding someone over from the previous shift or by splitting the vacant shift into two 4-hour components that can be covered by the preceding and following shifts. With 10-hour and 12-hour shifts, absences must be covered by calling someone in from a scheduled day off. Many law enforcement agenices have built additional coverage into their schedules to compensate for their high absence rates. But what happens if that extra coverage isn't available? Since 10-hour shifts will reduce the available coverage by at least 25%, there won't be any extra capacity to cover absences. So, instead of getting the expected 3 days off every week, the officers might only get 1 or 2 days off.
On/Off Work Patterns
The common perception of 10-hour work patterns is 4 days of work followed by 3 days off. In 24/7 operations, however, this pattern only works if you use 6 crews and fixed days of work. This requires a lot more staff, a backwards rotation, and fixed days of work. You can read more about this approach and its shortcomings here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=problems-with-free-schedule-examples
The best 10-hour schedule for 24/7 operations uses 7 crews per shift or 21 total crews. There is no built-in overtime with this schedule. It also has the most attractive work pattern (4 or 5 consecutive days of work followed by 3 or 4-day breaks). The pattern can easily be adapted for use with either fixed or rotating shifts.
If you don't have 7 officers or a multiple of 7 (14, 21, 28, etc.) per shift, your 10-hour schedule will have shorter blocks of work (two to four days) and shorter breaks (one to three days). Many officers are disappointed when they see these patterns because there are so many one and two-day breaks. These patterns are especially unattractive to anyone who is expecting to consistently get 3 consecutive days off by changing to 10-hour shifts.
Organization and Supervision
Many 8-hour and 12-hour schedules use 4 squads. Squad members work the same shift(s) and the same days of the week. 10-hour shift schedules for small organizations (less than 50 people), rarely use squads. Some days, Officer A might be working with officers C and E. On other days, he or she might be working with officers B and D, or maybe with officers G and J.
With 8 or 12-hour shift schedules, each squad usually has a sergeant or corporal who acts as the team leader/supervisor. With 10-hour shifts, in order to ensure that a supervisor is always on duty, it's necessary to put them on their own, separate schedule. This means the officers will not always be working with the same supervisor after changing to a 10-hour shift schedule.
Conclusions
10-hour shifts provide more time off than 8-hour shifts, but not as much as 12-hour shifts. The extra days off may not be realized since some of them will probably be used to cover absences. Although the schedule will provide 3 days off for most weeks, they won't always occur on consecutive days. 10-hour shifts also will change the way the group is organized and supervised. Although 10-hour shifts are clearly more attractive than 8-hour shifts, they may not live up to the high expectations that many police officers have of them. I think the shift length debate among officers should not be 8s vs. 10s, but 10s vs. 12s.
Please check out my other 10-hour blog posts, especially 10-hour shifts and Police Management. Go to the search box and type in 10 hour shifts. You really need to educate yourself about this before making a choice you might regret.
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“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.
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As a general rule employees prefer fixed shifts and employers prefer rotating shifts. You can read more about the pros and cons of each approach here: Fixed Shifts vs. Rotating Shifts.
WIth fixed shifts, you can adopt a schedule that has fixed days of work or rotating days of work. A fixed-fixed schedule means you work the same days every week on the same shift. A fixed-rotating schedule means you always work the same shift, but the days change from week-to-week, usually following a set pattern.
Employees like the predictability of a fixed-fixed schedule. It's easy to plan the rest of your life around it. Surveys of shiftworkers found that predictability is the most important schedule feature, higher than weekends off, coverage for vacations, ability to get overtime, maximum time off, and others. You can read more about this here: Schedule Predictability.
Fixed day schedules are frequently used in police departments and companies that operate less than 24/7, especially those that have a lot of part-time employees. With police, the officers bid on both the shift and the set of days worked. This is usually done once a year. They do this to reward seniority, since the most senior officers get the "best" schedules.
I've run into a number of medical facilities that create a new schedule every week. The most senior people have a fixed set of days they work. The scheduler then contacts everyone else to fill in the gaps. This is the absolute worst way to schedule. Not only is it a lot of work for the scheduler, but the junior employees never know when they will be working until just before the week begins.
With companies using part-time employees, fixed days makes it easier to find and schedule the part-time workers. They can work around their school schedules or other part-time jobs. They are often forced to build the entire schedule around the availability of a few key, part-time people.
The biggest problem with schedules using fixed days of work is that the employees are not treated the equally. Some people get both the shift they prefer AND every weekend off. Others (usually the newest, least-senior folks) get the worst shift and have to work every weekend. Double ouch! You can read more about this here: Fairness.
Most of the schedules I design feature rotating days of work. The schedule follows a multi-week pattern. If you look at the 24/7 schedules examples that I sell (Schedule Examples), you'll find various options with 8 or 12-hour shifts that follow a pattern that lasts anywhere from 2 weeks to 20 weeks. When I custom design schedules, I usually match the length of the pattern to the number of employees on a shift. For example, if there are 5 people on a shift, I would create a 5-week pattern.
With rotating days of work, every employee on a shift is treated exactly the same. For example, with 5 people on an 8-hour shift, all 5 will get the same number of weekends off (maybe 1 or 2 weekends off every 5 weeks). They are all working the same pattern. It's just that they are in different weeks of that 5-week pattern. You are still rewarding seniority by allowing the most senior employees to bid on the shift they prefer. To me, this is best for everyone.
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Higher-ranking law enforcement personnel (e.g., Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, Captains, and Lieutenants) tend to look at 10-hour shifts in a different way than their subordinates do. They are well aware of the popularity of 10-hour shifts among the officers/deputies, but often are unable to adopt them due to resource constraints. Let's look at the major considerations in the change to 10-hour shifts from the management perspective.
Overtime
Since four 10-hour shifts add up to 40 hours a week, some people believe 10-hour shifts will eliminate overtime from the work schedule. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as shown below:
24/7 Coverage
Crews Needed
Schedule Format
Average Workweek
1 crew
5
Rotating shifts
42
1 crew
6
Fixed shifts
40
2 crews
5
Rotating shifts
42
3 crews
15
Either
42
4 crews
21
Either
40
A crew can consist of one to hundreds of officers. Unlike many 8 or 12-hour shift schedules that require 4 crews, 10-hour schedules require 5 or more crews. For example, to have 1-person coverage around-the-clock, you need 5 people if you use rotating shifts and 6 people if you use fixed shifts. To have 2-person coverage, you would need 10 people (5 crews of 2 each) with rotating shifts and 12 people (6 crews of 2 each) with fixed shifts.
The most common 10-hour schedules rely on 5 or 15 crews. These schedules average 42 hours a week, the same as most 8-hour and 12-hour schedules that use 4 crews. I occasionally get calls from Police Captains and Lieutenants who have tried to create a schedule on their own, but can't make it work. They didn't realize that the schedule needed an occasional 50-hour work week or that it required more crews. Overtime is unnecessary only when the schedule is comprised of 6 crews or 21 crews (and sometimes with a crewless schedule).
Overlapping Shifts
A schedule that uses three 10-hour shifts will have 6 hours a day in which the shifts overlap one another. There are two common ways to use the overlaps:
Overlap each shift by two hours. Officers on the out-going shift can do their paperwork while officers on the in-coming shift are out on the street. This ensures continued coverage throughout the day. This approach tends to be preferred by the officers.
Align the overlapping shifts with the busiest period of the day. Coverage can be boosted for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day depending on how the shifts are scheduled. I recommend this approach because the primary reason for having a schedule is to allocate the resources to match the workload. The downside is that it often requires unusual shift start/end times. This approach tends to be preferred by management.
Coverage Reduction
The biggest problem with 10-hour shifts is that they require more resources than 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. A 10-hour schedule requires more staff because the officers are working 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts). This will either require 25% more personnel or a 25% reduction in the coverage levels. In most cases, headcounts are frozen, so the impact is reduced coverage on each shift.
Even if sufficient staff is available, they are usually needed for other purposes such as absence coverage. Since the absence rates in most police departments are rather high, most Chiefs opt to use any “extra” staff in one of two ways:
Increase coverage levels above the minimum. For example, a department needs a minimum of 3 officers on each shift. This requires at least 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week. They use their staff of 16 officers to provide 4-person coverage. This allows for up to one absence on each shift.
Build relief coverage into the schedule. This is often more efficient than increasing the coverage on each shift. For example, the same department only has 14 officers, so they adopt a 14-week rotating shift schedule in which 2 of the 14 weeks are devoted to relief coverage. This requires fewer staff and provides more flexible absence coverage.
When the "extra" coverage is lost, absences (like vacations, sick time, training, court time, etc.) will have to be covered using overtime. This is the most common reason for rejecting the switch to 10-hour shifts. This is such an important point that I have to repeat it. Adopting 10-hour shifts will reduce the coverage on each shift (except for the periods of overlapping shifts). Since part of this coverage provides a cushion for absences, the 10-hour shifts will result in much higher levels of overtime.
Absences
Some people believe that 10-hour shifts will reduce absences. Since the longer shifts provide one additional day off each week, this time can be used for doctor's appointments or other personal business. I am not aware of any studies that confirm this, but it seems possible. The Shift Length Experiment prepared by the Police Foundation did not report any significant reductions in sick leave when switching to 10s (http://www.policefoundation.org/publication/shift-length-experiment/). If there is an impact, it is undoubtedly small.
Conclusions
10-hour shifts are universally popular with the officers. Chiefs or Sheriffs are aware of this, but lack of resources to make the change. From what I've seen, it's primarily the larger departments that have adequate resources to adopt 10s. Smaller departments (less than 30 officers) rarely have enough personnel.
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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.
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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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Many companies that operate 24/7 have their employees work an 8-hour fixed shift schedule. With this type of schedule, employees never change shifts, but may work different days each week following a multi-week work pattern. This is called a fixed shift schedule with rotating days of work. Unlike a schedule with fixed shifts and fixed days of work, this approach treats everyone equally in terms of weekends off, so it tends to be the preferred approach.
When these companies first started covering 24/7, they may have adopted a work pattern that was popular for their line of business or the managers had some experience with. The schedule may have worked fine initially, but as the company grew and added more employees, management didn’t update the schedule. They may not have realized that the pattern only works properly for a specific coverage level.
Let’s take a closer look at two popular 8-hour work patterns to understand why they only work under certain conditions. We will only show one shift (the 8-hour day shift = d8) since the pattern will be the same for all 3 shifts. Each crew should have the same number of people, so that the coverage is consistent from day-to-day.
4-on-2-off
Crew / Week
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
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
d8
40
D / Week 4
d8
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
E / Week 5
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
32
F / Week 6
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
32
Average
37.3
The way this pattern works is there are 6 crews for each shift, labeled A, B, C, D, E and F. Each crew begins the schedule in the week they are shown. Crew A begins on Week 1, Crew B begins on Week 2, Crew C begins on Week 3, and so on. After finishing that initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Crew A moves to Week 2, Crew B moves to Week 3, and Crew F moves to Week 1. They continue this rotation until after Week 6, in which they rotate back up to Week 1.
If you start at the top, you’ll see that you would work 4 days (Thu-Sun) and have the next two days off (Mon-Tue). Then you would work 4 more days (Wed-Sat) and have the next two days off (Sun-Mon). This pattern of working 4 days in a row and then taking the next 2 days off continues indefinitely.
You’ll see that there are four d8s shown under each day of the week. This means that 4 crews are always scheduled to work. If you need 4-person coverage, you would simply have one person in each of the 6 crews. If you need 8-person coverage, you would have two people in each of the crews.
But what if you need 3-person coverage or 5-person coverage or something else that isn’t a multiple of 4? That’s where this pattern stops working correctly. Yes, people use it for the wrong coverage levels or with the wrong number of crews and wonder why the coverage isn’t consistent. It only works properly for coverage that is a multiple of 4 people. And it only works if you use 6 crews on each shift.
Employees like this pattern because they only have to work 4 consecutive days and they always get 2 days off. They don’t like that they only get one full weekend off every 6 weeks. In addition, there are 2 weeks in which they only get 32 hours of pay. You could add more days to make 40 hours, but that would disrupt the 4-on-2-off pattern.
Here's another pattern:
6-on-3-off
Crew / Week
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Hours
A / Week 1
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
48
B / Week 2
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
40
C / Week 3
d8
-
-
-
d8
d8
d8
32
D / Week 4
d8
d8
d8
-
-
-
d8
32
E / Week 5
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
40
F / Week 6
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
48
G / Week 7
-
-
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
32
H / Week 8
d8
d8
-
-
-
d8
d8
32
I / Week 9
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
-
-
32
Average
37.3
This pattern uses 9 crews on a 9-week pattern. It works the same way as the previous schedule. The crews begin the schedule in the week they are shown next to: Crew A begins in Week 1, Crew B begins in Week 2, and so on. After finishing that initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. After completing Week 9, they rotate up to Week 1 and start the pattern over again.
You’ll see that there are six d8s listed under each day of the week. This means that 6 crews are always scheduled to work. If you need 6-person coverage, you would simply have one person in each of the 9 crews. If you need 12-person coverage, you would have two people in each of the crews.
Using this pattern with anything other than 9 crews throws everything off. Likewise, trying to achieve any coverage level that isn’t evenly divisible by 6 won’t consistently produce the coverage you want.
Recommended Approach
So, if these popular 8-hour patterns only work for a limited number of situations, how are you supposed to pick a schedule? You should always begin with the desired coverage level. In this article, I will discuss 3 coverage levels:
1-person
2-person and multiples of 2 people such as 4, 6, 8, etc.
3-person and multiples of 3 people such as 6, 9, 12, etc.
I won’t address odd coverage levels (such as 5, 7 or 11) as these would require a custom-designed schedule, often without any crews.
I will show one pattern for each level of coverage, even though there are many others that are superior. Sorry, you have to pay for the good stuff. The patterns shown here simply illustrate the point that schedule selection should never begin with a preferred pattern. Instead, coverage levels should always be the starting point for schedule creation. Coverage levels dictate the number of crews or employees needed for each shift. Once that has been established, you can compare different work patterns using that number of crews/employees.
1-Person Coverage
Crew/Week
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Hours
A / Week 1
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
40
B / Week 2
d8
d8
-
-
d8
d8
d8
40
Average
40
With 2 crews working 40 hours a week, there will always be 3 days a week with double coverage on each shift. In the pattern above, this occurs every Friday, Monday and Tuesday. If you eliminate the extra coverage, employees would only average 28 hours a week. Full-time employees won’t tolerate this, which is why it’s not shown.
This inefficiency is why 8-hour fixed shifts are rarely used when you need 1-person coverage. Other approaches such as 8-hour rotating shifts or any type of 12-hour shift schedule would only require 4 people, though they do make employees work an average of 42 hours a week.
Employees like this sort of schedule because they get every other weekend off. But it requires a lot more employees than other approaches, so few organizations can afford to adopt it. If you have unlimited resources and can tolerate the double coverage three days a week, go for it! Better yet, why not adopt a 12-hour fixed shift schedule that requires 33% fewer employees and gives them almost twice as many days off.
2-Person Coverage (and multiples of 2 people)
Crew/Week
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
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
d8
40
Average
40
Unlike the pattern for 1-person coverage, this is more efficient because it only has 1 day of extra coverage every week. In the above example, there are 3 d8’s every Tuesday. This schedule can be used coverage that is any multiple of 2 people such as 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.
The pattern shown here is not very good for employees, however, since they would never get a full weekend off. Don’t be discouraged. There are other patterns that provide one full weekend off every 3 weeks, some that are up to 4 days long. Like I said, you have to pay to see the good ones.
You could drop the Tuesday shift in either Week 1 or Week 2 of the above pattern, but then the employees would only get 32 hours that week. Over a 3-week period, they would average 37.3 hours/week, the same as the 4-on-2-off and 6-on-3-off patterns shown earlier. In some cases, depending on the pay week, dropping the unnecessary coverage might extend the weekend off so that employees wouldn’t mind getting fewer hours of work/pay.
3-Person Coverage (and multiples of 3 people)
Crew/Week
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
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
d8
d8
48
D / Week 4
d8
-
d8
d8
d8
d8
-
40
Average
42.0
8-hour fixed shift schedules for 3-person coverage (or multiples of 3) are the most efficient of all, since there is no unnecessary extra coverage. They do require a small amount of overtime, however.
For employees, the above pattern wouldn’t be very attractive since they would never get a full weekend off. There are other patterns using 4 crews per shift that provide weekends off. A pattern that is based on working 5 shifts in a row will provide 5 weekends off each year. A pattern based on working 6 shifts in a row will provide 6 weekends off each year. A pattern based on working 7 shifts in a row will provide 13 weekends off each year.
For work-life balance, many employees will say that working 7 consecutive days to get 1 weekend off every 4 weeks isn’t worth it. But the prospect of only getting 5 or 6 weekends of a year is even worse. That is exactly why so many companies have switched to 12-hour shifts. They found that both the company and the workers benefitted from the longer shifts. Yes, workers hated working for 12 hours, but they accepted the long hours to get twice as many days off and up to half the weekends off (12 Hour Shifts | Shift Schedule Design (shift-schedule-design.com)).
Summary
When choosing an 8-hour fixed shift schedule, adopting a well-known or familiar work pattern, such as the two discussed in this article, will only work properly if your coverage and number of crews match the pattern’s requirements. If your coverage or staff size doesn't match, you may have to overstaff to reach your desired coverage level and the coverage will vary from day-to-day.
Many of these well-known patterns average less than 40 hours a week - not the most effective way to utilize your employees. For employees, although the pattern may be easy to remember or explain, they rarely provide as many weekends off as other 8-hour options.
The best way to select an 8-hour fixed shift schedule is to start with the desired coverage level. That, in turn, will dictate how many crews are necessary. Three of the most common approaches were discussed in this article:
One-person coverage using 2 crews per shift, or 6 total crews.
Two-person coverage (or multiples of 2) using 3 crews per shift, or 9 total crews.
Three-person coverage (or multiples of 3) using 4 crews per shift, or 12 total crews.
Once the number of crews is decided, the company can search for compatible work patterns. That way, employees can discuss and compare the different patterns, and then vote for the one they prefer. I recommend that you also include a few options using 12-hour shifts, just so the employees are aware of what else is possible. Naturally, I hope you'll consider our company to show you these different options. Please click on this link below and fill out the form. I'll respond with a proposal that outlines the best solutions and what I would charge to create them for you.
Request a quote for custom schedule design)
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Several years ago, I visited the forum at 911Dispatch.Unfortunately, that website has closed as the person who ran it has retired. Too bad because the site had a lot of useful information on it and I would often reply to people on the forum who asked scheduling questions. Here's one of the posts I came across:
"We just hired a 5th dispatcher and I am trying to come up with 10-hour shifts that are agreeable to all. We are currently on 12's, where we get 4 hours OT built in each pay period (two weeks). We work one dispatcher per shift. Our schedule is 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off. Does anyone work 10's with just 5 people?"
This woman apparently assumed that 10-hour shifts were a good idea because they would avoid the built-in overtime. The only concern was finding an on-off work pattern using the 10s. She didn't mention other factors that should be considered when making decisions about a new schedule, for example:
1. Workload. I believe that the workload is the most important consideration in the selection of a new schedule. The ideal schedule matches the coverage with the workload. If the workload is fairly constant throughout the day, 10-hour shifts are not a good choice since they overlap for 6 hours a day. Why would she want double coverage for 6 hours a day if it wasn't needed? It might even exceed the number of work stations the group has. If she can use the extra coverage, that's great, but there was no mention of that in her forum posting.
2. Absence rate. If her organization had a high absence rate, she probably should use the 5th employee for relief coverage, not to enable 10-hour shifts.
3. Training. If she needed to build training time into the schedule, I would use the extra capacity for that purpose rather than changing to 10-hour shifts.
4. Cost. Many people think that changing from 12-hour shifts to 10-hour shifts will eliminate overtime. To have 1-person coverage with rotating 10-hour shifts, the organization will need 5 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. The only difference from the 12s is that the 10s require one additional employee.
5. Employee preferences. Even though most employees say they prefer 10-hour shifts over 12-hour shifts, when they compare the actual schedules for each shift length, roughly 90% will favor the 12-hour schedules. The 12s offer more days off and more weekends off. Also the on-off patterns and crew configurations are easier to understand.
6. Fixed shifts. With the 12-hour shifts, her group could either use fixed or rotating shifts. If they change to 10-hour shifts, the only option is rotating shifts. Fixed 10-hour shifts would require 6 employees for the coverage she wants. And with the fixed 10s, there would be one day of overlap every week. They could end up with 4 people working for the 6 hours that the shifts overlap on the overlapping day of the week.
Many people think that the selection of a new schedule starts by picking the shift length and then finding an on-off pattern that works. They reach out to others in their industry for ideas and suggestions. Unfortunately, this ignores other important considerations that can create a negative work environment (e.g., insufficient coverage during busy periods, mandatory overtime to cover absences, lack of time for training, loss of fixed shifts, and undesirable schedules).
Schedule selection should always start with the workload and associated coverage requirements. Is there sufficient staff to achieve the coverage requirements or will it be necessary to build overtime into the schedule? What shift length(s) would work best at matching the coverage with the workload? Are there other issues, such as a high absence rate or a strong preference for fixed shifts, that should be considered? The next step would be to create a couple of different options that allow the employees to compare features such as shift length, consecutive days of work, nature of the breaks (i.e. days off), and the number of weekends off. That way they can make an informed decision based on the good and bad points of each option.
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