When people search for a new shift schedule, they often cite one of these two goals: (1) better work-life balance, or (2) better staff utilization.

Work-life balance is an employee-oriented goal associated with more or better time-off. And that usually means 10 or 12-hour shifts and/or work patterns that feature fewer consecutive days of work or longer stretches of consecutive days off, e.g., the Pittman or DuPont schedules.

Staff utilization is a management-oriented goal associated with making the most cost-effective use of the employees. If the workload varies by time of day or by day of the week, that can mean matching the coverage with the workload. If the workload or available resources have changed, that can mean squeezing out more coverage. If the absence rate is high, it means trying to maintain coverage that's more than the minimum necessary, while keeping costs minimized.

When work-life balance is the top priority of the search, the resulting schedule will likely be great for employees but less-than-ideal for the organization. There are three reasons:

1.       Effectiveness. Work patterns that are most popular with employees produce constant coverage on a 24/7 basis. If the organization's workload isn't constant, the schedule will not be the best match. 

2.       Efficiency. Most of these popular work patterns use four crews. If the staff size is not an exact multiple of 4, the organization will be wasting some of its resources. 

3.       Cost. 10-hour shifts tend to require at least 25% more staff than 12-hour shifts because they add six hours to the work day (three 10-hour shifts = 30 hours/day). Popular work patterns do not consider absences. The organization either uses overtime to cover those absences or it schedules extra coverage to exceed the minimum necessary. A less-costly approach would be to build relief coverage into the schedule.

So does that mean work-life balance should not be considered when searching for a new schedule? Of course not. But it should never be the starting point for the search. The needs of the organization must always come first. Once those are satisfied, then (and only then) can alternatives that offer more or better time-off be considered.