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August 19th, 2013 at 1:14 pm

Did you know that your shift schedule actually determines how the organization will use its two key labor resources: employees and overtime? Many people don't. They think the schedule simply determines when employees come to work and when they get time off. That's why they focus on specific work patterns (e.g., 5-on-2-off or the DuPont rotating shift pattern) or shift lengths (e.g., 10-hour shifts) when searching for a new schedule. As a result, they end up with schedules that have attractive patterns or a preferred shift length, but make poor use of the resources. Here are two examples.

Example 1

A group works 24/7. It needs 2-person coverage for 16 hours and 1-person coverage for the remaining 8 hours when the work volumes are lightest. They have 7 employees working 8-hour rotating shifts. One of the employees spends a weekend searching for free schedule examples on the Internet. He comes up with a 12-hour rotating shift pattern that provides every other weekend off. This pattern is sometimes called a Panama schedule. The other employees think it would be great to get that many weekends off, and whole-heartedly support the change. The problem is that the pattern uses 4 crews. Because of the group's size, it would have 3 crews of 2 people each and 1 crew with just one person. The coverage would fluctuate between 1 and 2 people on each shift. Adopting this pattern would create a complete mismatch between the coverage and the workload.

Example 2

A police department with 18 officers needs 4-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. They are working an 8-hour fixed shift schedule that follows a 4-on-2-off pattern. Due to budget cuts, the department will be losing 2 officers. They decide to keep the current work pattern because the officers are familiar with it and seem to like it. The problem is that the pattern only works properly with 6 people per shift. Using that same pattern with only 5 people per shift will cause the coverage to fluctuate between 3 and 4 people. The worst part is that the reduced coverage occurs on Wednesday through Saturday (when workloads are the heaviest). Once again, the chosen schedule is not an effective use of the department's resources.

You increase the likelihood of an inappropriate, ineffective, or costly solution if you ignore the resources and business requirements during the schedule search. We recommend the following process to make optimal use of your labor resources:

Step 1

Compare the staff size with the coverage requirements. Our free staffing calculators can help: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. If the desired coverage can be achieved with the existing staff, you can proceed to the next step. Otherwise, determine whether adding overtime to the schedule will allow you to consistently achieve the coverage requirements. If you're still short, you'll either need to hire more staff or reduce the coverage.

Step 2

Compare different shift lengths with the coverage requirements to identify the best fit. Our free schedule evaluation can point you in the right direction: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Free_Schedule_Evaluation. If the workload is steady throughout the day, you could use either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. Anything else will have overlapping shifts and will require extra resources. Using 10-hour shifts, for example, would result in 6 hours of overlap (and double coverage) every day of the week. Plus it would require 25% more staff. That would be wasteful. What if the workload varies by hour of the day? For instance, if it changes at 8 hour intervals, using 12-hour shifts probably would not be a good match. In situations with highly variable workloads (e.g., communication centers or airline security operations), you may need to adopt multiple shift lengths with staggered start times. These situations often require professional assistance.

Step 3

Find a work pattern that fits or can be adapted. In Example 1 above, the group's size (7 employees) does not match standard 4-crew patterns, so the schedule might have to be created from scratch. It might be possible to modify a standard 4-crew pattern, but this requires some experience in schedule design. In Example 2 above, the group's size (16 employees) would allow them to use any popular 4-crew pattern with 12-hour shifts. If they decide to stay on 8-hour fixed shifts, they would need to modify patterns that use 4 crews per shift.

Step 4

The last step of the process is to tweak the pattern to maximize the weekends off. At this point, it's important to take the overtime pay week into account. You don't want the changes to create unnecessary overtime or compromise the coverage. A professional schedule designer can help with this step.

Conclusion

Shift schedules determine how you will utilize your labor resources. If you want to make optimal use of these resources, we recommend a 4-step process. Yes, choosing a shift length and work pattern are steps in the process, but they are not the best places to start. If you don't feel comfortable following this process and want the best possible schedule, contact us today.

Posted in Miscellaneous, Staffing, Schedule Selection, Overtime by Bruce Oliver
Views: 5351

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12-Hour Shift Schedules with No Overtime

July 3rd, 2013 at 10:37 am

I've written several articles about 12-hour shift schedules in 24/7 operations. Here are links to the most popular ones:

I also sell 2 packages with 10 different options: one with only 12-hour fixed shifts and another with only 12-hour rotating shifts. You can read more about this here: Schedule Examples

Most 12-hour shift schedules for 24/7 coverage use 4 crews. When you divide the hours in a week (168) by 4 crews, you get a average of 42 hours/week. With 12-hour shifts, this will require half the work weeks to be 36 hours (three 12-hour shifts) and half to be 48 hours (four 12-hour shifts).

In many organizations, especially public agencies, avoiding overtime is a high priority. They view overtime as evil or an unnecessary expense. I have repeatedly tried to argue the fallacy of this belief, yet I continue to get requests for 12-hour schedules with no overtime in them. Here are 2 articles on this topic:

Reducing the hours of work to 40 or less a week will result in gaps in the coverage and will require additional personnel to fill the gaps. In most cases, this is more expensive than simply keeping overtime in the schedule. In addition to higher costs, this will also require other sacrifices as seen in the following four approaches to eliminating overtime in 12-hour schedules for 24/7 coverage.

Here is a key to the symbols used in the schedules below:

D12 = 12-hour day shift

N12 = 12-hour night shift

d8 = 8-hour day shift

n8 = 8-hour night shift

d4 = 4-hour day shift

a4 = 4-hour afternoon shift

e4 = 4-hour evening shift

n4 = 4-hour night shift

Here is how the schedules work. When the schedule first starts, the crews are assigned to specific weeks in the cycle. Crew A is assigned to start in Week 1, Crew B is assigned to start in Week 2, and so on. At the end of each week, the crews rotate down to the next week in the cycle. Crew A moves to Week 2, Crew B moves to Week 3, etc. When a crew completes the last week, they rotate up to Week 1.

1. Eliminate the 48-hour work weeks. This sounds simple enough. Just change all the 48-hour work weeks to 36 hours by eliminating one of the shifts. To maintain the same coverage, this will require 5 crews (a 25% increase in headcount), rotating shifts, and a 4-hour pay cut for all employees. (Note that with fixed shifts, this would require 6 crews). There will also be one shift with double coverage (in the example below, it's the Friday day shift). Here's one example of a 5-crew schedule:

Crew / Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Hours
A / Week 1	-	-	-	-	D12	D12	D12	36
B / Week 2	D12	-	-	D12	D12	-	-	36
C / Week 3	-	D12	D12	-	-	-	N12	36
D / Week 4	N12	-	-	-	N12	N12	-	36
E / Week 5	-	N12	N12	N12	-	-	-	36
							Average	36

2. Include an 8-hour shift. If you devote one day a week to 8-hour shifts and give one of the three 8-hour shifts to employees who are outside the group (e.g., part-time employees), the remaining four crews would average 40 hours a week. You would have to use a 12-hour work pattern in which the 36-hour weeks and 48-hour weeks are staggered and you would have to be able to average the work hours over a 2-week period (most companies can't do this because of overtime laws). In the sample shown below, the 8-hour afternoon shift on Wednesday would have to be given to employees who are not part of the four crews. That uncovered shift is not shown in the table below.

Crew / Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Hours
A / Week 1	-	D12	d8	-	-	D12	D12	44
B / Week 2	D12	-	-	D12	D12	-	-	36
C / Week 3	-	N12	n8	-	-	N12	N12	44
D / Week 4	N12	-	-	N12	N12	-	-	36
							Average	40

3. Include a 4-hour shift. If you devote one day a week to 4-hour shifts and give two 4-hour shifts (or one 8-hour shift) to employees who are outside the group, the remaining four crews would average 40 hours a week. This does not require the averaging of pay over a 2-week period or a pattern with staggered 36 and 48-hour weeks. In the sample shown below, there is an 8-hour gap in coverage on Wednesday that would have to be given to part-time employees or someone outside the four crews. That uncovered shift is not shown in the table below.

Crew / Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Hours
A / Week 1	-	D12	d4	-	-	D12	D12	40
B / Week 2	D12	-	a4	D12	D12	-	-	40
C / Week 3	-	N12	n4	-	-	N12	N12	40
D / Week 4	N12	-	e4	N12	N12	-	-	40
							Average	40

4. Reduce the work days to 11.5 hours. If you include a 30-minute unpaid meal break in the 12-hour shift, you only have to pay employees for 11.5 hours. You would have to adopt a 12-hour shift pattern in which the 48-hour weeks and 36-hour weeks were staggered. This won't completely eliminate the overtime, and you would have to be able to average the work hours over a 2-week period. An example is shown below:

Crew / Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Hours
A / Week 1	-	D11.5	D11.5	-	-	D11.5	D11.5	46
B / Week 2	D11.5	-	-	D11.5	D11.5	-	-	34.5
C / Week 3	-	N11.5	N11.5	-	-	N11.5	N11.5	46
D / Week 4	N11.5	-	-	N11.5	N11.5	-	-	34.5
							Average	40.25

If you are subject to Federal law that requires overtime after 40 hours a week, you won't be able to use Options #2 or #4. These can only be used by organizations such as police departments that are allowed to average the work hours over a 2-week period.

If you don't have enough part-time employees or you don't have employees from another department to cover the 8-hour gap in coverage every week, you'll won't be able to use Options #2 or #3. You'll either need a 5-crew schedule (see Option #1), a schedule with 11.5-hour shifts (see Option #4), or a crewless schedule that is custom-designed around your staff size.

Let's do a quick cost comparison of 4-crew schedules vs. 5-crew schedules:

4 crews * 40 hours/week * 1.4 benefit loading cost + 4 crews * 4 hours of OT pay/week = 240 hours of pay/week
5 crews * 36-hours/week * 1.4 benefit loading cost = 252 hours of pay/week

If you already have enough staff to create a 5-crew schedule, here's a way to save money. Keep the OT in the schedule and use your extra capacity to build relief coverage into the schedule to cover absences. Similar to Option #1, you would have a 5-week schedule that averages 42 hours a week. The difference is that the 5th week of the schedule would be devoted to relief coverage.

Doing this would shift the OT from outside the schedule to inside the schedule. When the overtime is outside the schedule, it requires volunteers or forced / mandated overtime. When it's inside the schedule, it is shared equally by the entire staff. In many cases, the total overtime is less. You can read more about this here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=you-can-t-eliminate-overtime-but-you-might-be-able-to-reduce-it .

We sell packages of 12-hour shifts for $199 apiece. One packages has 10 options with only fixed shifts and the other has 10 options with only rotating shifts. These all average 42 hours a week. You can read more about it here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Examples.

If you need help designing a 12-hour schedule with no overtime (e.g., to match your pay week or to accommodate a few part-time employees), please fill out this form: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/21.html

Posted in 12-Hour Shifts, Overtime by Bruce Oliver
Views: 213020

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High Overtime Schedules

June 12th, 2013 at 1:34 pm

For 24/7 operations, the easiest way to create a high-overtime schedule is to reduce the number of crews. That's because there is an inverse relationship between the number of crews and the average weekly hours the employees have to work as shown below:

Crews Hours

3 56

3.5 48

4 42

5 33.6

I don't recommend using schedules with that much overtime. People that do this claim it's temporary or it's a common practice in their industry. I explain that high overtime schedules cause problems in the following areas: safety, quality, and employee health. There is also the risk of liability for an employee who crashed his or her car on the commute home after five or six consecutive night shifts.

Every month or so I get a call from someone who wants to run a schedule that would normally take 16 people, but they only want to use 12 or 14 employees. They ask me to give them a pattern (like 4-on-2-off) that would work. Instead of focusing on the pattern, they should start by deciding the number crews – either 3 or 3.5 crews.

I see this a lot with fire departments and paramedics. They work 24-hour shifts, and want to know if a 2-on-4-off pattern or a combination of 10 and 14-hour shifts would reduce the overtime. I explain that they need to start with the desired weekly hours of work and select the number of crews that comes closest to that target. Then and only then can they start searching for a work pattern (or different shift lengths) that provides the desired coverage.

I ran into the opposite situation recently with a major airport. Their screening officers were assigned to 5 crews on an 8-hour rotating shift schedule with a 3-on-2-off pattern. Management wanted to get more coverage without hiring more employees. I suggested 4 crew patterns that averaged 42 hours a week. By increasing the average weekly hours from 33.6 to 42, they were able to increase the coverage from 56 to 70.

Posted in Overtime by Bruce Oliver
Views: 4812

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8-Hour Shift Schedules with No Built-in Overtime

January 31st, 2013 at 12:21 pm

It's amazing how many people contact me about 24/7 schedules with no overtime in them. I warn them that this will not necessarily lower their costs. I also explain that avoiding overtime in the schedule will not eliminate the need for overtime. OT will still be needed to cover absences or temporary increases in demand. Here are links to two articles I've previously written on this subject:

It's best to think of overtime as a way to increase the size of your staff without adding to the headcount. A small amount of overtime in the schedule means you will need fewer employees to produce a specific amount of coverage. Overtime also can enable you to build relief coverage into the schedule to cover absences. In some cases, it's possible to reduce the total overtime by doing this (https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=you-can-t-eliminate-overtime-but-you-might-be-able-to-reduce-it).

The bottom line is: if you eliminate overtime from the schedule, you will increase the staffing requirements. In most cases, the increased headcount will be more expensive than the overtime was.

Despite these words of warning, I know that some of you still want to see schedules with only 40 hour work weeks. Let's take a look at an example using 8-hour rotating shifts. If you want a 12-hour schedule without overtime, I suggest you read this other blog post here.

This is a 5-crew schedule that follows a 5-week schedule. Crew A begins the schedule in Week 1, Crew B begins in Week 2, and so on. When the crews finish their first week, they move down to the next week of the schedule. When they finish Week 5, they start the cycle over again with Week 1. All five crews are working the same 5-week schedule. It's just that they are always in different weeks of that pattern.

You'll note that the 5th week of the schedule has only one required shift: the Tuesday night shift. The prior four shifts are relief shifts. These can be used to cover absences or for training, maintenance, or special projects. The only downside is that it doesn't cover every day of the week. Had we adopted a schedule that averaged 42 hours a week, we could have had relief coverage for every day of the week.

Is it worth eliminating the overtime? Let's look at the numbers.

We eliminated 2 hours of overtime a week for every employee. That will reduce the costs by 7.5%.

2 hours OT/week * 1.5 OT premium = 3 hours/week

3 hours/week saved / 40 hours/week = 7.5% savings

We also have gained 4 days of relief coverage each week. If the absence rate is 10% of the normal weekly hours of work, this will reduce costs another 8.6%.

4 / 7 days of coverage/week * 10% absence rate * 1.5 OT premium = 8.57%

This means that the total savings is 16.1% (7.5% + 8.6% = 16.1%). However, we have increased the headcount by 25% by adding a fifth crew, which is far more than the 16.1% we saved.

Want to read more about 8-hour shift schedules? Here are links to several articles I've written:

Posted in Staffing, Overtime by Bruce Oliver
Views: 94495

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Optimal Resource Deployment

12-Hour Shift Schedules with No Overtime

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8-Hour Shift Schedules with No Built-in Overtime