Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
8:00am - 5:00pm (Pacific Time Zone), Mon-Fri
Search Results
Many retail and service businesses have found it necessary to stay open longer than 8 hours a day and more than 5 days a week. Examples of retailers include apparel, sporting goods, building supplies, household items, jewelers, stationers, and variety stores. Examples of service businesses include dry cleaners, pharmacies, auto repair, dentists, optometrists, and barbers/hair salons.
Reasons for expanding the hours of operation include the following:
Competition. Once a competitor changes its hours of operation, other local companies in that same line of business are pressured to do the same.
Customers. Longer hours expose a business to more prospects, which can increase sales. It also makes it more convenient for existing customers, which means more repeat business
Facilities. When the space or equipment is fully utilized, it's cheaper to increase the hours of operation than it is to rent a larger office/shop or to purchase more/larger machinery.
There are three factors that the business owners should consider when creating work schedules for the employees:
Coverage. What is the most effective way to match the number of people at work with the workload variations?
Cost. What is the most efficient way to staff and schedule the employees?
Satisfaction. Which approach will the employees prefer?
I've discussed these criteria previously, but only in the context of continuous 24/7 operations. Here's a link to the original article: http://www.shift-schedule design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies. In this post, we will take a closer look at each factor from the perspective of businesses that are less than 24/7.
Coverage
Once a company selects its new hours of operation, it should estimate the workload by hour of the day and by day of the week. The best way to do this is to gather historical data using measures such as:
Number of jobs or appointments
Number of in-bound phone calls
Number of customer visits
Number of out-bound service calls
Since some calls or visits require more time and effort than others, it might be necessary to classify them into 2 or 3 categories. Each category can be weighted differently to adjust for the time required by employees. A table of the weighted data can help in the selection of shift lengths and coverage on each shift. An example is shown below. Note that Category 2 work takes twice as long at Category 1 work so it counts double in the total work volume.
Days Time Category 1 Category 2 Total
Mon-Fri 0800 to 1200 50 4 58
Mon-Fri 1200 to 1600 70 8 86
Mon-Fri 1600 to 2000 85 10 105
Sat 0800 to 1200 70 9 88
Sat 1200 to 1400 81 7 95
Sat 1400 to 1700 92 5 102
As you can see, the volume of work is not constant throughout the hours of operation. It varies by time of day and day of the week. Let's take a closer look at each of these two types of workload fluctuations.
Hourly Variations. With this type of fluctuation, the volume of work changes by time of day. For example, the evenings are often busier than the rest of the day in many retail stores. The three typical ways to address these hourly workload variations are:
Staggered start times
Part-time employees that work shifts shorter than 8 hours
Multiple shifts that overlap one another
Since there are so many different situations, I'll try to give a simple example of each approach.
Example #1. An independent auto repair shop is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. It opens early because the owner wants to avoid commuter traffic. Most customers don't drop off their cars until 8 or 9 a.m., so he starts one mechanic at 8 a.m. and another at 9 a.m. The first mechanic leaves at 4:30 p.m. and the second leaves at 5:30 p.m. The owner stays until 6:00 p.m. to accommodate customers picking up their vehicles after work. The staggered work hours not only extend the coverage to 11 hours a day, but they also match the coverage with the workload.
Example #2. A store that sells bicycles is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. They are busiest from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. To match the coverage with this workload distribution, they have a 10-hour shift staffed by full-time employees plus a 3-hour shift (from 1600 to 1900) staffed by part-time employees (mostly students).
Example #3. A beauty salon is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Their busiest time of day is in the afternoon from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. They match this workload distribution by using two 8-hour shifts (0900 to 1700 and 1300 to 2100). The shifts overlap from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. This overlap is a little longer than necessary, but it allows the company to only use full-time employees who want to work 8-hour shifts.
Daily Variations. With this type of fluctuation, the volume of work changes throughout the week. For example, many businesses that deal with the public are busier on the weekends than they are on weekdays when people are at work. The two typical ways to address daily work variations are:
Weekend crews
Custom-designed work patterns
As with the hourly variations, there are too many possibilities to cover them all, so I'll just give one example of each approach.
Example #4. A stationery store is open every day of the week. The workload is fairly light on weekdays and busier on the weekends. The owner works by himself Mon-Fri. He employs several part-time people to work the weekend shifts. It's easier for him to find people to work weekends since this is usually a second job for them. Plus it gives him the weekends off. The downside, of course, is that the manager is unavailable to supervise the part-time employees. He or she is also unavailable when the store is busiest.
Example #5. A pharmacy is open every day of the week. They tracked the volume of prescriptions filled by day of the week. Wed, Thu and Fri have almost 50% more prescriptions than other days of the week. Weekends are the lightest, whereas Mon and Tue are average. The pharmacy employs 3 full-time pharmacists. All 3 pharmacists work the 3 busy days. Only one pharmacist works on Saturday and Sunday. Two pharmacists work on Mon and Tue.
Cost
Small business owners are especially concerned with keeping costs at a minimum. That's why it's important to compare the cost of different staffing/scheduling approaches before picking one. I'll try to illustrate how to do this.
This example is a retail store that is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mon – Sun. Using data on the number of customer visits by hour of the day over the past year, the manager established the following coverage requirements:
Mon-Sun 1000 to 1500 2 people per hour
Mon-Sun 1500 to 1800 3 people per hour
Approach #1. This approach emphasizes the use of full-time employees supplemented by part-timers. There are 3 full-time employees that provide 2-person coverage throughout the week using 8-hour shifts. There are 3 part-time employees that are used to boost the coverage from 3 – 6 p.m. The total cost is calculated below:
3 FT employees * 40 hours/week * $12/hour wages * 1.4 cost of benefits = $2,520 per week
PT employees * 21 hours/week (average) * $10/hour wages = $210 per week (note that it doesn't matter how many part-time employees are used; it's only the total hours per week that's important)
The total cost is $2,730 per week.
Approach #2. This approach emphasizes the use of part-time employees with two full-time employees who will supervise the part-timers. The total cost is calculated below:
2 supervisors* 40 hours/week * $15/hour wages * 1.5 cost of benefits = $1,800 (note that the supervisors' time counts toward the coverage requirements)
PT employees * 53 hours/week * $10/hour wages = $530 per week (note that it doesn't matter how many part-time employees are used; it's only the total hours per week that's important)
The total cost is $2,330 per week.
Based on cost alone, Approach #2 (supervisors + part-time workers) is the best. The owner has to balance the cost savings with the time the manager will spend hiring and training the constant turnover of part-time employees. Although using part-time employees often is the least expensive approach, other considerations may override this.
Employee Satisfaction
Although employee satisfaction is important, it should never be the starting point in the search for a new schedule. I can't count the number of times I've been contacted by managers who selected the hours of operation to justify a shift length that he or she thought employees would like better than 8-hour shifts. They often forget that longer shifts will either increase the staffing requirements or reduce the available coverage.
For example, I had a manager of a business that ran 16 hours a day (two fixed 8-hour shifts) for 7 days a week. They needed 2-person coverage. They used 6 employees working an average of 37.33 hours/week. The manager said the employees were unhappy with the schedule, so he was thinking about changing to two 10-hour shifts.
The problem with two fixed 10-hour shifts with 2-person coverage is that it would require 8 employees or the coverage would drop to 1 person for 2 days a week on each shift. The manager forgot that the extra 2 hours a day for the 10-hour shifts would increase the hours of coverage by 25%.
In most cases, shift length is not left up to employees since this is more or less defined by the hours of operation or the hours in which overlapping shifts are needed. So the choice for employees usually boils down to the preferred work pattern. Here are a couple of examples.
Example #6. A hardware store needs 4 sales people on a 10-hour shift every day of the week. This requires 7 employees working 40 hours a week. To reward the most senior employees, the manager lets them bid on the days they work. He creates two schedule options:
Option #1. This schedule has 4 consecutive days of work followed by 3 consecutive days off. The downside to this schedule is that only 2 of the 7 will get both Sat and Sun off.
Option #2. This schedule allows 3 of the 7 to get both Sat and Sun off. However, not all of the schedules feature consecutive days of work.
Example #7. An appliance repair center needs 5 people on an 8-hour shift every day of the week. This requires 7 employees working 40 hours a week. The manager creates two schedule options:
Option #1. This schedule requires employees to work 7 days in a row. The employees get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks. One weekend off is 3 days and the other is 5 days. All the other breaks at 2 days.
Option #2. This schedule requires employees to work 2 to 4 days in a row. The employees get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks. Both are only 2 days off. The other breaks are only 1 or 2 days.
In both examples, the employees are shown the two schedules. They discuss the options, particularly the pros and cons. They then vote on the option they prefer. This forces them to make tradeoffs. In Example #6, they must choose the increased likelihood of getting a weekend off. In Example #7, they must choose between more consecutive days of work with longer breaks vs. fewer consecutive days of work with shorter breaks.
|
|
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.
|
|
In my last post, I recommended using the following criteria to ensure a comprehensive approach to the schedule selection process: (1) effectiveness, (2) efficiency, (3) sleep, and (4) employee satisfaction. This post will cover the first criterion - effectiveness.
Effectiveness indicates how well a schedule satisfies the business needs. For most organizations, the primary concern is adequate coverage. Secondary issues include absence coverage, training time, cleaning and maintenance time, shift changes, equipment start-ups and shut-downs, and others. The following questions should help in the evaluation of schedule effectiveness:
Do the coverage requirements match the workload by hour of the day? By day of the week?
Does the coverage meet or exceed the minimum requirements?
Is the coverage consistent?
How well are the organization's other business issues addressed?
Let's look at an example. A police department needs at least 2 officers working at all times. The department also has two busy periods each day in which it needs 4 officers on duty: (1) evenings from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and (2) from Midnight to 4 a.m. when the bars close. It also wants the 4 sergeants to work with the same crews at all times, and it wants rotating shifts. Here are three options they are considering:
Option #1: 8-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week to provide 3-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. This steady coverage does not address the two busy periods, so it falls short on this important consideration. The schedule uses 4 crews which would allow the sergeants to work with the same officers at all times.
Option #2: 10-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 15 officers working an average of 42 hours a week on two separate 10-hour schedules. Each schedule would align its overlapping shifts with one of the busy periods. This will provide 3-person coverage around the clock, plus 4 and 5-person coverage during the two busy periods. Unfortunately, these schedules do not use crews, so the sergeants would not be working with the same officers at all times.
Option #3: 12-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week. The shifts would start at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. to match the two busy periods. Coverage on the night shift would be 4 people. Coverage on the day shift would be 2 people. The schedule uses 6 crews. This means two crews would not have a sergeant.
|
|
[Please note that a similar version of this appeared in Industry Week. It was written by Bruce Oliver and Dan Capshaw]
If you ask a group of shiftworkers to describe their ideal shift schedule, you'll probably hear statements like these:
“Monday through Friday with 8-hour day shifts.”
“Monday through Thursday with 10-hour day shifts.”
“Thursdays only -- so I can pick up my check.”
“I’ll just stay home, and you can mail me the check!”
These statements illustrate how much value shiftworkers place on their time-off. In fact, if compensation is unaffected, time-off is the shift worker’s primary consideration when comparing alternative shift schedules. Having adequate time-off 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.
There are four types of time-off that employees consider when evaluating a shift schedule:
Weekends off
Total days off
Daily time off
Consecutive days off
We will examine the schedule attributes that drive these four different types of time-off, supplementing this discussion with statistics from our surveys of over 20,000 shiftworkers working 24/7 schedules.
Weekends Off
Of the four types of time off, the number of weekends off is the usually the most important. The desire to increase the number of weekends off is a common reason for adopting longer shifts. The graph below shows the maximum number of full weekends off (Saturday and Sunday together) per year that are possible with 8-hour and 12-hour shifts (13 versus 26 weekends off).
Of course, the actual number of full weekends off depends on more than just shift length. Other factors include the number of consecutive days worked, the pattern of on-off work days, the amount of overtime, and the day the pay week begins. But, as a general rule, longer shifts will enable workers to get more full weekends off.
A key consideration with weekends off is predictability. Most shift workers (82% in the survey database) are willing to work their fair share of weekends. They simply want sufficient advance notice and no last-minute changes. This allows them to make plans for the weekend and not have to worry about getting an unexpected weekend assignment.
Total Days Off
Many shift workers also favor schedules that offer more total days off overall. As shown in the chart below, 12-hour shifts provide twice as many days off each year (compared to 8-hour shifts) for the same number of hours worked each week (182 days off versus 91 days off).
The substantial increase in days off is one of the reasons three-quarters of all shift workers prefer to work longer shifts. This is shown in the chart below:
Daily Time-Off
The third type of time-off is the number of hours off on the days of work. As seen in figure above, a quarter of the shift workers prefer shorter work days even though they would have to work more days a week. Shiftworkers who are older, have childcare concerns, are going to school, have second jobs, or participate in other non-work activities on workdays often prefer 8-hour or 8&12-hour shift schedules so they can have more “free” time each day.
Consecutive Days Off
The fourth type of time-off is the number of consecutive days off in the schedule. In the figure below, you can see that most shift workers prefer to work several days and then take a long break, i.e. get more consecutive days off. In general, there are two ways to get more consecutive days off. One way is to work 12-hour shifts. The other is to work longer stretches of days in a row.
With 8-hour shifts, a schedule that is based on working 7 shifts in-a-row can offer up to one 4-day break every month. With 12-hour shifts, a schedule that is based on working 3 and 4 shifts in-a-row can offer up to a 7 or 8-day break every month.
Discussion
It is clear that shift workers place a high value on their time-off. This is what enables them to reach a balance between work and their personal lives. What is not clear, however, is which type of time-off the schedule should emphasize. Should the schedule have 12-hour shifts to provide more weekends off and more total days off? Should the schedule mix 8-hour and 12-hour shifts to satisfy both those who want more weekends off and those who want more time off each day of work? Should it have longer stretches of days worked in a row to provide more consecutive days off?
While recognizing that each work site will have its own unique set of preferences, our surveys offer some additional insight into this dilemma. With each of our clients, we show the workers several different schedule options that satisfy the client’s business coverage requirements. By educating employees about the various possibilities, we enable them to make more informed choices from the schedule alternatives.
The options we show employees typically include one or more 8-hour, 10-hour (infrequently because they are not a good match with most 24/7 operations), 8&12-hour, and 12-hour schedules. Although the schedules for each shift length may differ from site to site, the results indicate a much stronger preference for schedules that incorporate 12-hour shifts.
Summary
When managers face the possibility of changing shift schedules, it is beneficial to be familiar with the schedule features that offer employees the best opportunities for work/life balance. This doesn’t replace the need to survey the workforce to determine their unique schedule preferences, but it does provide insights that will be valuable during the change process.
Although 75% of the shift workers would rather work longer shifts in order to get more days off, this does not always mean that 12-hour shifts are best. Some workers place a greater value on the hours off each day instead of the number of days off each week. Other schedule features such as the number of consecutive days of work are equally important in helping some individuals realize the type of time-off they prefer. Despite these qualifications, 12-hour shifts are clearly a favorite, gaining the highest ratings at nearly every organization we’ve worked with.
|
|
In my last blog, I started a discussion of schedule predictability and its impact on employee morale. In that first of a series of five articles, I addressed chronic understaffing. In this blog, I will talk about a second cause of schedule unpredictability: lax absenteeism policies.
The worst example I've seen is a manufacturer that allowed employees to call in a vacation day 30 minutes after the shift had started with no penalty. They also allowed employees to take their vacation in 15 minute increments. The result was chaos. Your problem may not be as bad as that, but if your employees are frequently called-in on short notice to cover for other absent employees, you have a problem with your time-off policies.
The best solution is to require employees to sign up in advance for most vacation. Assign a limit to the number of employees on vacation or other paid time off at the same time and stick to that limit. If absenteeism due to illness is a problem, ask for a doctor's note after the 2nd or 3rd occurrence of sickness in a year. Employees tire of covering for others on short notice and often want lax policies fixed even more than management does.
|
|
This is the 5th and last post regarding unpredictable shift schedules and how they impact employee morale. This post will address unpredictable product demand.
This is one of the hardest issues to correct. Not knowing your production needs from day to day can sometimes cause idle time and overtime within the same week. The best solution is to graph your production levels on a weekly basis over a couple of years. What appears to be unpredictable will often have a seasonal pattern. Schedule vacations or major maintenance during slow periods and limit vacations during busy times.
If production really is unpredictable, you can practice planned overtime periods where one or two crews are designated for overtime coverage, if needed, during a specified period of time. This allows the other crews to know their time off is really going to be off, until it's their turn for overtime duty.
Don't let an unpredictable schedule affect your employee morale. Using the solutions I've discussed in the last five blogs will give you a happier workforce.
|
|
When organizations need a new shift schedule, their managers often begin by searching for either:
A specific work pattern, e.g., Pitman, DuPont, 6-on-3-off, or 4-on-2-off
A desired schedule format, e.g., 10 or 12-hour fixed shifts
This approach often will produce inferior results for three reasons: (1) workload variations, (2) crew requirements, and (3) overlapping shifts. Let's take a look at each of these reasons in more detail.
Workload Variations
Most smaller organizations don't have a steady volume of work. Some have a workload that varies by time of day. For example, police and communications centers are often busier during the evening hours. Customer service centers may have more calls during the daylight hours, such as 4-person coverage from 0800 to 1700 and 2-person coverage from 1700 to 0800. Some organizations don't have a steady work volume throughout the week. For example, they may have lighter workloads on the weekends, such as 4-person coverage Monday to Friday and only 2-person coverage on Saturday and Sunday.
Most 24/7 schedule patterns are designed to provide the same coverage around-the-clock, e.g., 3-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. This are inappropriate for organizations whose workload varies by shift or day of the week. It's important to keep in mind that the primary reason for having a schedule is to match the coverage with the workload. Managers tend to forget this key point when they search for a schedule pattern they hope will improve morale or reduce turnover.
Crew Requirements
Work patterns are designed for a specific number of employees or crews. For example, the Pittman 12- hour shift pattern (also known as an Every Other Weekend Off schedule) is designed for 2 crews per shift. The 6-on-3-off pattern using 8-hour shifts is designed for 9 crews (or employees) on each shift. Yet organizations use these patterns with the wrong number of crews all the time.
I just finished a job for a client that was using the 6-on-3-off pattern with only 5 employees on each shift. As a result, their coverage varied from day to day in a haphazard fashion. Employees liked the schedule pattern, but it was not an effective solution for the organization. Starting the search for a new schedule with a specific pattern in mind will rarely result in the most effective choice for the organization.
Overlapping Shifts
When organizations choose a desired shift length in an attempt to satisfy employees, they fail to consider the impact on coverage. This usually occurs with 10-hour shifts. Employees want to get an extra day off each week and they dread the idea of 12-hour shifts. So 10-hour shifts seem to be an ideal choice. The problem is that they come at a high price for the organization.
Since the organization is now working 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts), this requires 25% more personnel or 25% less coverage. For example, a group of 16 employees on 8-hour shifts had 4-person coverage around-the-clock. After changing to 10s, the coverage dropped to 3 people. In addition, there are six hours every day in which the shifts overlapped. They now had 6 people working for this six-hour period every day when they only needed 4 people.
Summary and Recommendations
Have you ever reflected on why you have a schedule? Yes, satisfying the employees is important. But that's not the reason for the schedule. The schedule is there to ensure the organization deploys its resources as effectively as possible. Many managers seem to forget this critical point. They hear about a popular pattern or they think 10-hour shifts will make everyone happy. They don't think about the impact on the organization.
I'm not saying that we ignore employee preferences. I'm simply saying that they're not the starting point in the search for a better schedule. Here is the approach I recommend:
Determine the hours of operation. Does the organization operate 24/7 or something less than that? If the hours are less than 24/7, make sure they are based on business requirements, not on shift length preferences. For example, a recent client was looking for 20/7 schedule. He didn't have enough staff to achieve the desired coverage levels, so I questioned him about the hours. He said he chose them in order to justify using two 10-hour shifts. He forgot that working an extra 4 hours a day would require 25% more personnel.
Determine whether the workload is constant or variable. If it's variable, two general approaches can be followed. One way is to establish base coverage using either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts and then add an overlay shift (sometimes called a Power shift) to boost coverage during the busy period. The other way is to combine different shift lengths or use 10-hour shifts and match the overlapping shifts with the busy period(s).
Identify the coverage requirements (i.e. the number of employees you need to show up for work - by hour of the day and day of the week). Many managers mistakenly specify the coverage requirements using the current shift length. This simplifies the task, but it may not be the best match for the workload. If you can identify the work volumes and coverage requirements by hour of the day, that is ideal.
Decide which shift lengths are the best fit with the coverage requirements. If the workload is constant, 8-hour or 12-hour shifts would be best. If the workload varies, which shift length(s) are the best fit? If more than one shift length would work, which is preferred? Notice that shift length selection is the 4th step in the process, not the first.
Calculate whether the staff size is adequate to produce this coverage. If not, overtime may have to be built into the schedule or more employees hired. The free staffing calculator on my website can help with this step. Go to: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. If there is more staff than necessary, can these "extra" resources be used to build relief time into the schedule to cover absences?
If the resources are adequate, it's time to start the actual shift schedule design. Often you can apply common schedule patterns as a starting point, and modify them to fit your unique circumstances. Suppose you have 5 employees on a 12-hour day shift. This will require a 5-week schedule. You could start with a common 2-week pattern, double it to 4 weeks, and add a new pattern for the 5th week. An important consideration is to use a pattern that matches your organization's pay week. If the original pattern was intended for a different pay week, you could end up with unnecessary overtime and you could lose some of the weekends off. Again, please note that pattern selection is the 6th step in the process - not the first step.
We always try to create several different shift schedule options to show a range of possibilities, such as the number of consecutive days worked, different shift lengths, different work patterns, with or without relief coverage, and so on. The goal is to both satisfy client specifications and explore possibilities the client may not have considered.
The bottom line is that the search for a new schedule begins with the business requirements, not with employee preferences. If you reverse this by searching for a schedule that you think employees will be happier with, the organization will suffer the consequences. My recommended approach does not ignore employee preferences; it just doesn't start with them.
|
|
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.
|
|
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
|
|
This the the fourth of five articles on the subject of schedule predictability. This article will address one additional cause: lack of skill balance or cross training. This is often a hidden source of schedule unpredictability.
If you are moving employees from shift-to-shift and day-to-day because you need their specific skills, you probably don't have enough cross training or skill balance (the right amount of skills on each shift). Lack of cross training can be a vicious cycle. If employees see a highly-skilled employee work a schedule worse than their own, they may avoid learning the new skill so they are not forced onto that schedule.
The best solution is to train more employees on the same schedule or crew, and provide an incentive to learn new skills. This is much less expensive than hiring more staff with the special skills.
|
|
Copyright © All Rights Reserved 2023 by Shift Schedule Design