8-Hour Fixed Shifts vs. 8-Hour Rotating Shifts

February 17th, 2025 at 2:27 pm

Everyone wants to know why 8-hour fixed shifts often require more staff than 8-hour rotating shifts. Rather than show you hundreds of examples, I'm going to compare the staffing requirements in a table.

	Rotating	Average	Fixed	Average
Coverage	Shifts	Hours	Shifts	Hours
1 per shift	4	42	6	28
2 per shift	8	42	9	37.3
3 per shift	12	42	12	42
4 per shift	16	42	18	37.3
5 per shift	20	42	21	40
6 per shift	24	42	24	42

I will show one example for 1-person coverage. Here's a common pattern for rotating shifts:

Emp / Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Hours
A / Week 1	-	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	40
B / Week 2	d8	d8	-	a8	a8	a8	a8	48
C / Week 3	a8	a8	a8	-	-	n8	n8	40
D / Week 4	n8	n8	n8	n8	n8	-	-	40
							Average	42

This pattern requires 4 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. Now here's one example

of a fixed shift pattern with 8-hour fixed shifts:

Emp / Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Hours
A / Week 1	d8	d8	d8	-	-	d8	d8	40
B / Week 2	d8*	d8*	d8*	d8	d8	-	-	40

C / Week 1	a8	a8	a8	-	-	a8	a8	40
D / Week 2	a8*	a8*	a8*	a8	a8	-	-	40

E / Week 1	n8	n8	n8	-	-	n8	n8	40
F / Week 2	n8*	n8*	n8*	n8	n8	-	-	40
							Average	40

This pattern requires 6 people (2 per shift). Every Mon, Tue, and Wed two people are scheduled to work.

That's why I showed some of them with asterisks. They aren't needed for the 1-person coverage, but they

are needed to ensure everyone gets 40 hours of work each week.

8-hour fixed shifts don't always require more staff. When the coverage is a multiple of 3 (e.g., 3, 6, 9 etc.)

they require the same as 8-hour rotating shift schedules. For everything else, they require more staff. Not a lot,

but always a few more.

Posted in Staffing, 8-hour shifts by Bruce Oliver

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