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:

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. 

When changing to a 24/7 schedule, companies often face a number of issues they didn't anticipate. They knew they'd need a new day-on-day-off pattern. And they probably knew they'd have to hire more staff. However, they may not have known about issues related to skill distribution or the need to revise pay policies to match the new schedule.

• Supervisors are managers AND shiftworkers. They must straddle the wall between the needs of the company and the needs of the people they supervise. When the company needs to get something done, it is the supervisor who sees to its accomplishment on the shop floor. If the workforce has an issue with something, the supervisor is seen as their advocate to get them the help they need. This is a complicated dance, and it takes a special talent to pull it off well.
  
  
• If a supervisor is weak, his or her crew will under-perform. This sounds obvious but it's often quite difficult to detect. A poor supervisor will do at least one of the following: (a) blame upper management for difficult decisions instead of taking on the responsibility himself, (b) direct the workforce with an authoritarian fist rather than leading them through coaching and encouragement. The result will be a workforce that is anti-company. This will show up in small ways such as higher than expected absenteeism, periodic quality issues and safety problems. An employee who feels he or she is not part of the company will perform at a level below that which they are capable of. A good supervisor will bring out the best in his people while a poor supervisor will bring out the worst.
  
  
• Supervisors need to be on the same schedule as the people they supervise. This will cause a two-way ownership that is important to the smooth operation of your facility. This perfect matching of schedules will enable a supervisor to say “those are my people”. At the same time, the employees will be able to say, “that is my supervisor.” Each knows the other. The supervisor understands his workers' abilities and weaknesses. The workers understand expectations. Communications between the two are consistent. Feedback, both ways, is more readily understood and accepted. When we go to plants where supervisors are on a different schedule from the people they supervise, we know there will be big problems. There will be a lack of accountability, poor communications, duplication of efforts and important projects left unattended because “someone else was supposed to do it.”
  
  
• The more supervision is included in the decision process, the more they will support it. All too often, I'll ask a supervisor, “Why is this being done this way?” only to get the response, “I don't know. No one tells me anything.” Do not miss any opportunity to empower your supervisors. Keep them informed and when possible, let them help to make the decision. If they are left out of this loop, expect them to become more “hourly” oriented and less management focused.