Custom-Designed Employee Work Schedules
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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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Higher-ranking law enforcement personnel (e.g., Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, Captains, and Lieutenants) tend to look at 10-hour shifts in a different way than their subordinates do. They are well aware of the popularity of 10-hour shifts among the officers/deputies, but often are unable to adopt them due to resource constraints. Let's look at the major considerations in the change to 10-hour shifts from the management perspective.
Overtime
Since four 10-hour shifts add up to 40 hours a week, some people believe 10-hour shifts will eliminate overtime from the work schedule. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as shown below:
Coverage
Crews
Schedule Format
Average Workweek
1 crew
5
Rotating shifts
42
1 crew
6
Fixed shifts
40
2 crews
5
Rotating shifts
42
3 crews
15
Either
42
4 crews
21
Either
40
A crew can consist of one to hundreds of officers. Unlike many 8 or 12-hour shift schedules that require 4 crews, 10-hour schedules require 5 or more crews. For example, to have 1-person coverage around-the-clock, you need 5 people if you use rotating shifts and 6 people if you use fixed shifts. To have 2-person coverage, you would need 10 people (5 crews of 2 each) with rotating shifts and 12 people (6 crews of 2 each) with fixed shifts.
The most common 10-hour schedules rely on 5 or 15 crews. These schedules average 42 hours a week, the same as most 8-hour and 12-hour schedules that use 4 crews. I occasionally get calls from Police Captains and Lieutenants who have tried to create a schedule on their own, but can't make it work. They didn't realize that the schedule needed an occasional 50-hour work week or that it required more crews. Overtime is unnecessary only when the schedule is comprised of 6 crews or 21 crews (and sometimes with a crewless schedule).
Overlapping Shifts
A schedule that uses three 10-hour shifts will have 6 hours a day in which the shifts overlap one another, producing double coverage. There are two common ways to use the overlaps:
Overlap each shift by two hours. Officers on the out-going shift can do their paperwork while officers on the in-coming shift are out on the street. This ensures continued coverage throughout the day. This approach tends to be preferred by the officers.
Align the overlapping shifts with the busiest period of the day. Coverage can be boosted for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day depending on how the shifts are scheduled. I recommend this approach because the primary reason for having a schedule is to allocate the resources to match the workload. The downside is that it often requires unusual shift start/end times. This approach tends to be preferred by management.
Coverage Reduction
The biggest problem with 10-hour shifts is that they require more resources than 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. A 10-hour schedule requires more staff because the officers are really covering 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts). This will either require 25% more personnel or a 25% reduction in the coverage levels. In most cases, headcounts are frozen, so the impact is reduced coverage on each shift.
Even if sufficient staff is available, they are usually needed for other purposes such as absence coverage. Since the absence rates in most police departments are rather high, most Chiefs opt to use any “extra” staff in one of two ways:
Increase coverage levels above the minimum. For example, a department needs 3 officers on each shift. This requires at least 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week. They use their staff of 16 officers to provide 4-person coverage. This allows for up to one absence on each shift.
Build relief coverage into the schedule. This is often more efficient than increasing the coverage on each shift. For example, the same department only has 14 officers, so they adopt a 14-week rotating shift schedule in which 2 of the 14 weeks are devoted to relief coverage. This requires fewer staff and provides more flexible absence coverage.
When the "extra" coverage is lost, absences (like vacations, sick time, training, court time, etc.) will have to be covered using overtime. This is the most common reason for rejecting the switch to 10-hour shifts. This is such an important point that I have to repeat it. Adopting 10-hour shifts will reduce the coverage on each shift (except for the periods of overlapping shifts). Since part of this coverage provides a cushion for absences, the 10-hour shifts will result in much higher levels of overtime.
Absences
Some people believe that 10-hour shifts will reduce absences. Since the longer shifts provide one additional day off each week, this time can be used for doctor's appointments or other personal business. I am not aware of any studies that confirm this, but it seems possible. The Shift Length Experiment prepared by the Police Foundation did not report any significant reductions in sick leave when switching to 10s (http://www.policefoundation.org/publication/shift-length-experiment/). If there is an impact, it is undoubtedly small.
Conclusions
10-hour shifts are universally popular with the officers. Chiefs or Sheriffs are aware of this, but often lack adequate resources to make the change. The simple fact that 10-hour shifts require at least 25% more staff than other approaches means that few departments can afford them. From what I've seen, it's primarily the larger departments that have adequate resources to adopt 10s. Smaller departments (less than 30 officers) rarely have enough personnel.
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This is the 5th in a series of posts regarding scheduling considerations that affect employee alertness and fatigue.
In this post, we're going to take a brief look at the impact of the schedule format, i.e. fixed vs. rotating shifts. This is an important scheduling decision all organizations must make. Should the employees only work a single shift or should they periodically rotate through all the shifts?
You can read the pros and cons from the employee and management perspectives elsewhere on my website (http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Fixed_Shifts). As you can see, this is a pretty complex decision. For the single issue of alertness, however, the answer is simple: Fixed shifts are the best, period. There is substantial research showing that rotating shifts have higher health risks and lower overall alertness than fixed shifts.
I would never base the decision on fixed vs. rotating shifts (what I commonly call the schedule format) on alertness alone. But since this series of blog posts is focused on fatigue in the workplace, skipping this scheduling variable would be inexcusable.
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This is the 7th an final post in a series on Fatigue in the Workplace. Previous posts on this topic have covered the impact of: (1) education, (2) start times, (3) shift length, (4 consecutive days of work, (5) rotating shifts, and (6) employee preferences. Today's post will address the role of overtime in employee alertness and fatigue.
Let's face it, overtime disrupts people's lives. They have plans that get changed at the last minute. They are forced to work when they had other plans. How do they respond? Forfeiting sleep is one of the most common ways employees try to recover time off lost to overtime.
How much overtime is too much is a difficult question to answer. Most companies feel that an annual average of between 5% and 15% is about right. However, there are a lot of considerations other than alertness that go into finding the perfect amount for any operation. You may wish to read a more complete article on the impact of high overtime (http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/preview/uploaded/files/Overtime%).
Here is a quick summary from the above referenced article. "Our surveys of shiftworkers show that, on average, they get 21% less sleep time on the days they work than the days they are off. When employees work lots of overtime, they don't get time off to recover or catch up on their sleep. This, in turn, can lead to fatigue and reduced alertness. Managers simply cannot ignore the possibility of increased safety and quality incidents under these conditions."
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If you manage a business that is considering the idea of expanding to 24/7, you may be wondering how your employees will react to the change. You can expect most employees to focus on the loss of weekends off and the loss of overtime. This is despite the fact that they are already working every Saturday and some Sundays, and even though most 24/7 schedules have some overtime built into them.
Employee responses often depend on how the question is asked. If you simply ask whether they would mind working the weekends, you can expect the answer will be, "No way!" If the question is reframed to whether they would like 10% more pay and 78 more days off annually, you would probably get a completely different response. Responses also will be based on their specific concerns, such as the following:
Employees may not understand or appreciate the economic and competitive reasons for running the business 7 days a week. Larger organizations often prepare a business case that discusses reasons for the change. You may not need to be this formal, but you must clearly explain and justify the need for a 24/7 schedule. Lacking a compelling reason for making this change, employees will assume the worst. Management is doing this to get rid of people they don't like. Management doesn't care about the workers or their families. Management is doing this to bust the union. Management is doing this for their convenience, etc., etc.
Employees may be concerned about the unknowns of a new schedule. It's important to give them as much information as possible: days off, weekends off, maximum consecutive days of work, maximum consecutive days off, minimum consecutive days off, pay impact, paid time-off (vacations, holidays, bereavement leave, etc.) impact, and so on. They may need time to digest this information, so don't rush it. While there is no way to eliminate all the unknowns in advance, you should tell the workforce as much as you can. If you can know the absence rates and can estimate the overtime requirements, show them. If you are planning to change the vacation or holiday policies, let them know.
Employees may misunderstand 24/7 schedules. When told the company will operate 7 days a week, they mistakenly think they will have to work every day of the week. They may have friends who are shift workers who have told them horror stories about 24/7 schedules. You will need to show them several different schedule examples and compare the number of days off, weekends off, and pay vs. the current schedule.
I highly recommend following a strategic schedule selection process. I have described this process elsewhere on my website. Here's a link: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Selection_Process.
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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.
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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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Catchy title, don't you think? Maybe I should write a book...
Anyway, I just finished adding a new page to the website with this same title. I don't want to repeat the article here, but I'll give you a little teaser from the article itself:
"If your group needs a new shift schedule, you naturally want to find the best possible schedule. But how do you know what's best? And how do you come with options for the group to consider? Let's start by exploring three things a good schedule must do: (1) optimize the coverage, (2) minimize the labor costs, and (3) maximize employee satisfaction."
Here's a link to the article: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies.
The article also lists a process for designing schedules, but it's the 3 things a good schedule must do that is most important. So many people think a good schedule merely has the shift length they want or an on-off work pattern they heard about (e.g., Panama, DuPont, or Southern Swing). They end up with schedules that produce ineffective or inconsistent coverage, cost more than necessary, and don't maximize weekends off for the employees.
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I hope you've had a chance to try out our new staffing calculator. If not, here's a link: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. You can use this set of calculators for several purposes:
1. Staff size. You can see how many employees are required to achieve the basic coverage requirements. This does not factor in other considerations such as absences, maintenance, or training. But it will quickly tell you if you have enough staff.
2. Coverage. If you don't have enough staff for the required coverage, you can determine what coverage levels are possible. If you have more than enough staff, you can also determine how much coverage is possible.
3. Shift length. You can explore the staffing and coverage implications of different shift lengths. For example, suppose you want your group to adopt 10-hour shifts. You can use the calculator to determine whether they are feasible for your minimum coverage requirements. Alternatively, you can see how much coverage is possible for a given staff size.
4. Weekly hours. With 8 and 10-hour shifts, the calculators show the staffing requirements using 40 hours per week and 42 hours per week. The reason for the 42 hours is that many 24/7 schedules require this much time to avoid gaps in the coverage.
5. Schedule format. You can also see whether changing to fixed shifts is feasible for your group. Each shift length except 12s has separate calculators for fixed shifts and rotating shifts. The reason is that fixed shifts (with 8s and 10s) often require a few more staff than rotating shifts for the same shift lengths.
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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.
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