WIth fixed shifts, you can adopt a schedule that has fixed days of work or rotating days of work. A fixed-fixed schedule means you work the same days every week on the same shift. A fixed-rotating schedule means you always work the same shift, but the days change from week-to-week, usually following a set pattern.

Employees like the predictability of a fixed-fixed schedule. It's easy to plan the rest of your life around it. Surveys of shiftworkers found that predictability is the most important schedule feature, higher than weekends off, coverage for vacations, ability to get overtime, maximum time off, and others. You can read more about this here:  Schedule Predictability.

Fixed day schedules are frequently used in police departments and companies that operate less than 24/7, especially those that have a lot of part-time employees. With police, the officers bid on both the shift and the set of days worked. This is usually done once a year. They do this to reward seniority, since the most senior officers get the "best" schedules.

I've run into a number of medical facilities that create a new schedule every week. The most senior people have a fixed set of days they work. The scheduler then contacts everyone else to fill in the gaps. This is the absolute worst way to schedule. Not only is it a lot of work for the scheduler, but the junior employees never know when they will be working until just before the week begins.

With companies using part-time employees, fixed days makes it easier to find and schedule the part-time workers. They can work around their school schedules or other part-time jobs. They are often forced to build the entire schedule around the availability of a few key, part-time people.

The biggest problem with schedules using fixed days of work is that the employees are not treated the equally. Some people get both the shift they prefer AND every weekend off. Others (usually the newest, least-senior folks) get the worst shift and have to work every weekend. Double ouch! You can read more about this here:  Fairness.

Most of the schedules I design feature rotating days of work. The schedule follows a multi-week pattern. If you look at the 24/7 schedules examples that I sell (Schedule Examples), you'll find various options with 8 or 12-hour shifts that follow a pattern that lasts anywhere from 2 weeks to 20 weeks. When I custom design schedules, I usually match the length of the pattern to the number of employees on a shift. For example, if there are 5 people on a shift, I would create a 5-week pattern.

With rotating days of work, every employee on a shift is treated exactly the same. For example, with 5 people on an 8-hour shift, all 5 will get the same number of weekends off (maybe 1 or 2 weekends off every 5 weeks). They are all working the same pattern. It's just that they are in different weeks of that 5-week pattern. You are still rewarding seniority by allowing the most senior employees to bid on the shift they prefer. To me, this is best for everyone.

The primary goal of any schedule is to match the coverage (the number of people working) with the workload. In other words, when you're busy, you want enough people at work so that customers get served quickly, and when you're not busy, you don't want a bunch of employees standing around with nothing to do. 

Hosts

The table below shows the coverage requirements for the Hosts. They are needed from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or a total of 16 hours a day. They are busiest Saturday and Sunday mornings, and then again Friday and Saturday evenings. They need 2 Hosts during the busy periods and only 1 Host the rest of the time. The heavier workload lasts on Sunday until 4 p.m. It begins on Fridays at that same time.

Since the Hosts are needed for 16 hours a day, a simple solution would be to adopt two 8-hour shifts. Let's see what that might look like.

The way this schedule works is that the 4 Hosts (A, B, C, and D) start the schedule in the weeks shown for them. After finishing the initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Host A moves from Week 1 to Week 2, Host B moves from Week 2 to Week 3, Host C moves to Week 4, and Host D moves to Week 1.  They are all working the same 4-week pattern; it's just that they are all in different weeks.

The resulting coverage is also shown above. It's similar to the requirements, but changes at 2 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. To avoid this, we'll have to change the shift length. If we split the 16-hour day into a 10-hour shift from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. and a 6-hour shift from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. we can better match the coverage requirements. Here's what this would look like.

The schedule works the same way as Option #1. As you can see from the coverage, it is an exact match with the requirements. This approach requires the same number of employees and the same average weekly hours as Option #1. By changing the shift lengths, we were able to make more effective use of the staff.

Servers

The table below shows the coverage requirements for the Servers. They are also needed from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or a total of 16 hours a day. This position is busiest during lunches and dinners, especially Friday and Saturday evenings. 

A simple solution would be to split the day into two 8-hour shifts. Let's see what that might look like.

This schedule has 6 Servers (A, B, C, D, E, and F). They start the schedule in the weeks shown for them. After finishing this initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Server A moves to Week 2, Server B moves to Week 3, and so on. Server F moves up to Week 1. They are all working the same 6-week pattern; it's just that they are all in different weeks.

The resulting coverage is shown above. Although dividing the day into two 8-hour shifts is simple, the coverage requirements are exceeded for most of the day. Only 1-person coverage is needed Mon-Fri from 6a-12p and again from 2p-6p, yet the schedule produces 2-person coverage during those periods. To avoid this, we could split the 16-hour day into four different shift lengths that overlap the busier meal times. Here's what this would look like.

Not only does this match the coverage requirements closer, it only requires 5 full-time employees (one less than the simplified 8-hour shift approach). 

Conclusions

It's tempting to look at the hours of operation (16 hours a day) and jump to the conclusion that this requires two 8-hour shifts. As we've shown, it's possible to develop schedules using two 8-hour shifts that come close to or exceed the coverage requirements. This certainly simplifies the scheduling process, so many restaurants will probably follow this path. However, we also demonstrated that this approach will result in higher costs along with periods of under and over-staffing.

If you want a schedule that is both effective and efficient, this is going to require more time and effort. Here are steps you will have to take:

• Track customer volumes by hour of the day for each day of the week.
• Create a table showing the coverage requirements (based on the customer volume history).
• Decide the most appropriate shift lengths that match the hourly workload variations.
• Develop a weekly work pattern that matches the daily variations.

If you want to get professional help with the shift length selection and work pattern design, please contact us to help: Request Quote.

• You won't have to spend so much time creating new schedules.
• You won't have to struggle with being short-handed because you couldn't fill a time slot (i.e. a shift).
• Employees will appreciate knowing far in advance when they have to work and, more importantly, when they will be off.
• Employees like getting occasional weekends off (as opposed to having to work every Saturday, for example).

Unlike 24/7 schedules, free examples of schedules for your type of business are hard to find because there are too many possibilities: 

• Different hours of operation.
• Different coverage requirements.
• Different number of employees.
• Different mix of full-time and part-time employees.
• Different pay weeks.

What do schedules for less than 24/7 coverage look like? Well, that depends on all of the above variables. Here are 2 simple examples:

Example #1. Open 10 hours a day all week. Need at least 2-person coverage at all times. Busiest day is Monday. 4 full-time staff. Pay week begins on Thursday.

Each crew (A and B) has 2 employees working a 10-hour day shift (D10). Crew A begins the schedule in Week 1; Crew B begins in Week 2. After finishing the initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Crew A rotates to Week 2, while Crew B rotates to Week 1. They continue this 2-week pattern indefinitely. Note that Monday is the only day of the week with two D10s underneath it. That means both crews are scheduled to work on this busiest day of the week. Note that the schedule begins on Thu. Had we started with a different day, the 2-day break in Week 2 might not have fallen on the weekend (Sat & Sun).

Example #2. Open 14 hours a day (7 a.m. to 9 p.m.) on Mon-Sat. Need at least 1-person coverage at all times. Need 2-person coverage from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. 2 full-time staff and 2 part-time staff. Pay week begins on Saturday.
 

The two full-time employees (A & B) work a 2-week schedule on a 12-hour day shift (D12) that runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Employee A begins in Week 1, while Employee B begins in Week 2 of the schedule. After finishing the initial week, they rotate the the next week. Employee A rotates to Week 2 and Employee B rotates to Week 1. The two part-time employees (C & D) do not rotate. They work the same 3 days each week. C works a 5-hour afternoon shift (a5) from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thu, Fri, and Sat. D works the same shift Mon, Tue, and Wed. The 5-hour shift overlaps the 12-hour shift from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. giving the company the 2-person coverage they are looking for.
 

We could keep going, but unless you happen to have the same combination of hours, coverage requirements, staff size/composition, and pay week, additional examples aren't going to be much help. So what's the best approach for creating a schedule? You can contact us for help (Request Quote) or you can follow the steps that we do (Employee Work Schedules).

Resource Changes

Either the staff size or the group's budget is changing. If the group is getting bigger, there may be opportunities to use the extra capacity to reduce the average weekly hours, boost coverage on one or more shifts, or build relief coverage into the schedule to cover some of the absences. If the group is getting smaller, the average weekly hours of work may have to be increased to maintain the minimum coverage requirements.

Sometimes upper management wants to cut costs but not change the headcount. The group will have to do a cost analysis of overtime in the schedule vs. overtime outside the schedule to determine the best approach. You can read about this here:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Overtime_Issues. The group may also be forced to consider other schedule changes that will lower costs as discussed here:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Cost_Reduction.

New Business Requirements

When the demand for an organization's products or services changes (usually by increasing), this may require them to hire more employees or make more effective use of their current employees. In either case, it's a good time to align the coverage with the workload. We start the schedule design process by evaluating work volumes and the associated coverage requirements by time of day and day of the week. We also consider absence coverage if the resources are adequate.

Employee Satisfaction

When employees search for a new schedule, they are primarily looking for ways to increase the days off and weekends off. When managers cite employee satisfaction as a reason for changing schedules, they hope that the change will reduce absenteeism and employee turnover, or improve productivity and morale issues. Once business requirements are satisfied, we will evaluate solutions that maximize days off and weekends off and, if possible, reduce the need for mandatory overtime.

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.

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.

Any time you have to change employees' schedules regularly for any reason other than absence coverage, your current schedule isn't working effectively. For example, if your current schedule is Monday through Friday, and you're constantly working employees on the weekend, you probably need a new 6-day or 7-day schedule. Yes, employees enjoy the extra overtime from the weekend work. But they hate not knowing until the last minute whether they have to work it or not. It's difficult to plan your time off if the weekend work is unpredictable. Another section of my website addresses the expansion from a 5-day operation to a 7-day operation. You can read it here.

If your coverage does not consistently match your workload, it's probably time to start looking for a new schedule. The best solution is to plot your actual workload over the course of a week by hour of the day. You'll want to develop a schedule that matches that shape by changing the shift start times, using longer shifts, part-time employees, or the strategic use of overtime. I've written more extensively about variable workloads here.

What are the most common causes of schedule unpredictability?

1. Chronic understaffing
2. Lax absenteeism policies
3. Incorrect schedule
4. Lack of skill balance/cross training
5. Unpredictable product demand

For each cause of unpredictability there is a solution. I will discuss each of these separately in the next few blogs. We'll start today with the first cause: chronic understaffing.

Chronic Understaffing
Three common indicators of understanding are:

1. If your overtime hours are consistently higher than 15% of straight-time hours
2. If you have a 5-day work schedule, but end up working a lot of the weekends
3. If you are frequently using employees to cover open positions that have yet to be filled

The solution is to hire more employees or fill the open positions faster. If you are frequently working employees on the weekends, consider changing schedules. You might find the discussion of expanding to a 7-day operation on my website at: 5 to 7 Days informative about the multiple ways to expand your 5-day schedule to accomodate higher work volumes.

If you have the work (which you've proven through high overtime), the new employees will pay for themselves. To avoid overstaffing, aim for a goal of between 5% to 15% overtime. Going below 5% is not advisable as it suggests overstaffing and the likelihood of unproductive, idle time.