If you've searched my website for articles about 10-hour shifts, you'll see that I have a pretty negative opinion toward them in 24/7 operations. Here are links to some of those articles:

1. 10-Hour Shifts in 24/7 Operations (shift-schedule-design.com)
    
2. 10-Hour Shifts for 24/7 Coverage (shift-schedule-design.com)
    
3. 10-Hour Shift Schedules and Police Management (shift-schedule-design.com)
    
4. 10-Hour Shift Schedules for Police Officers (shift-schedule-design.com)

Most of the issues I raise are management concerns, like the fact that 10-hour shifts require at least 25% more staff than 8 or 12-hour shifts. Nevertheless, employees tend to believe that 10-hour shifts are the ideal shift length. They would do anything (maybe including a pay cut) to get them. Since employees love them so much, maybe it's worth the extra cost. After all, wouldn't it be great to have a happy, enthusiastic workforce? 

The table below shows the staff needed to different levels of coverage:

Coverage levels greater than 5 would either be a multiple of one of the levels shown or it would require a custom-designed schedule. For example, 6-person coverage would use a schedule for 3-person coverage, whereas 7-person coverage would require a custom-designed schedule.

With some of these coverage levels, the schedule would have one or two overlapping days. This will produce more coverage than needed. This is necessary to ensure 40-hour work weeks. You can only avoid this by having an occasional 30-hour work week, which few employees would tolerate.

3-person coverage is the only level that would require some overtime in the schedule (a 50-hour work week once every 5 weeks). If you want to avoid the OT, you'd have to employ 6 people per shift or 18 total employees. I don't think it's worth it, but that's your call.

Want to see a few templates for your coverage requirements? You won't find these elsewhere on the Internet. They have to be custom-designed. Please fill out this form to get an idea of what we would provide and how much we would charge:

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