One of the most popular pages on my website contains a discussion of the pros and cons of 12-hour shifts. Here's a link to that page if you haven't seen it:  www.shift-schedule-design.com/12-Hour_Shifts.

This article will address a different aspect of 12-hour shifts, namely how the longer shifts fit with different 24/7 workload distributions.

Constant Workloads
When the volume of work is steady throughout the day, the best shift length is either 8-hours or 12-hours. That's because they divide evenly into a 24-hour day. With 8-hour shifts, there would be three shifts with the same coverage on each shift. With 12-hour shifts, there would be two shifts with the same coverage.

Other shift lengths, e.g., 9-hour or 10-hour shifts, do not divide evenly into 24 hours. This means they will have overlapping shifts, with double coverage during the overlaps. 9-hour shifts will have 3 hours in which the shifts overlap. 10-hour shifts will have 6 hours in which the shifts overlap. Overlaps can be achieved with 8 or 12-hour shifts simply by including an unpaid meal break in each shift.

These other shift lengths (9s or 10s) are not an efficient choice for organizations with a constant workload distribution. In addition to the producing double coverage for part of the day, they also require a larger staff because the organization has essentially extended the hours of operation to 27 or 30 hours a day. 9-hour shifts require 12.5% more personnel and 10-hour shifts require 25% more personnel than 8-hour or 12-hour shifts.

Now that we've shown the best choice for a constant workload is 8 or 12-hour shifts, let's take a quick look at the staffing requirements. Here is a simple example. If you need 2-person coverage around-the-clock, you will need 336 hours of coverage per week (2 people * 24 hours/day * 7 days/week = 336 hours/week). If you divide this by 40 hours per week, you get 8.4 employees. If you divide this by 42 hours per week, you get 8 employees. 42 hours/week is commonly used in 24/7 schedules because it allows the use of 4 crews in the schedule.

The only exception to this is 8-hour fixed shifts. With these, each shift's staffing requirements must be calculated separately. In the example with 2-person coverage on each shift, this will require 3 people on each shift working an average of 37.3 hours a week (2 people * 8 hours/day * 7 days/week = 112 hours/week / 3 employees = 37.3 hours/week). The total staffing with fixed 8s would be 9 employees.

With the exception of 8-hour fixed shifts, 8s and 12s for steady coverage require the same number of employees working the same average hours per week. Since both shift lengths cost the same, this generally means that the choice between 8s and 12s can be left up to employees. When employees are asked if they want 8s or 12s, most will say 8s. However, when they are shown examples of schedules with both shift lengths, most will say 12s.

 

Variable Workloads
Many smaller establishments do not have constant workloads. They are often slower at night and on the weekends. For example, on Monday-Friday, they may need 4-person coverage from 0700 to 2300 and 2-person coverage from 2300 to 0700. On Saturday and Sunday, they only need 2-person coverage all day.

When the workload is lighter on weekends, this can be accommodated with either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. When the workload is lighter at certain times of the day, this can be more difficult to match with 12-hour shifts. That's because most groups find their busy hours correspond more closely with one or two 8-hour shifts, i.e. for 8 or 16 hours a day. Let's look at examples of each of these.

Example #1. In this example, the organization needs 4-person coverage for 8 hours and 2-person coverage for 16 hours a day. This requires 11.2 employees working an average of 40 hours a week with 8-hour rotating shifts (12 people with 8-hour fixed shifts). If you use one 12-hour shift with 4-person coverage and one with 2-person coverage, you have 4-person coverage for 4 hours longer than necessary. It also would require 12 employees working an average of 42 hours a week.

The best way to accommodate 12-hour shifts in this scenario is to use 12-hour shifts for the 2-person coverage around-the-clock and an 8-hour overlay shift that matches the busy period. This would require 11 employees. You could either combine the two shift lengths into a single schedule or make a separate schedule for each shift length.

• 8 people on 12s --> 2-person coverage for 24/7
• 3 people on 8s --> 2-person coverage for 8/7
  

Example #2. In this example, the organization needs 4-person coverage for 16 hours and 2-person coverage for 8 hours a day. This requires 14 employees working an average of 40 hours a week with 8-hour rotating shifts. (15 people with 8-hour fixed shifts). If you use one 12-hour shift with 4-person coverage and one with 2-person coverage, you have 4-person coverage for 4 hours less than necessary. If this is unacceptable, you would have to have 4-person coverage on both shifts. This would require at least 16 employees working an average of 42 hours a week.

The best way to accommodate 12-hour shifts in this scenario is to use 12-hour shifts for the 2-person coverage around-the-clock and two 8-hour overlay shifts that match the busy period. This would require 14 employees. You could either combine the two shift lengths into a single schedule or make a separate schedule for each shift length.

• 8 people on 12s --> 2-person coverage for 24/7
• 6 people on 8s --> 2-person coverage for 16/7

Conclusions
There are lots of other possibilities when it comes to variable workloads. If you want to include 12-hour shifts in the schedule, you can follow the generic approach desribed in this article:

• If the workload varies by day of the week, use two 12-hour shifts with a modified work pattern. Popular 12-hour patterns such as Pittman, Panama, DuPont, 3-on-3-off, etc. have the same coverage throughout the week. Therefore these patterns must be modified to match the daily variations. This is best handled by someone who is experienced in schedule design. They can ensure that the schedule: (1) matches the daily coverage variations, (2) averages close to 40 hours a week, and (3) maximizes weekends off for employees.
   
• If the workload varies by hour of the day, you can use two 12-hour shifts for the base coverage. Then you will use one or more additional shifts that match the length of the busy period. I discussed 8-hour and 16-hour busy periods above. Your busy period might require something other than one or two 8-hour shifts. For example, if your busy period is longer than 18 hours, you might use an 8-hour and a 10-hour overlay shift. In some cases, you may want these shifts to overlap so that the coverage is increased further during the hours of overlap.

Even when employees understand the need for the employer to change from operating 5 days a week to 7 days a week, they aren't very receptive. Yes they are fed up with regularly working 6 days a week and sometimes all 7 days. Even though they will get more days off (and more full weekends off) on a 24/7 schedule, they resist the change.

I thought you might like to read some of the typical comments from employees facing this major change:

• If we choose to go to 12-hour shifts, will everything over 8 per day still be overtime or will it change to only being over 40 hours a week?
  
  
• Seniority and how the people working those new shifts will be selected. Vacation/personal days (how they work). Holiday pay. Coverage of shifts for call-outs, sick days and vacation. Do we still get paid for not taking a lunch break? If we work 12-hours, how does that work?
  
  
• How will working a 24/7 work week will affect the wear and tear on the equipment used on a daily basis?
  
  
• Can this be done with an 8-hour shift? Does everyone have to work 12 hours?
  
  
• What about those of us who need all the OT we can get because our bills can't be paid without it? Do we get a second job?
  
  
• If I would have to work the overnight shift, everything in my life will be affected. I would also hope my pay to stay the same or get better.
  
  
• Overtime is very important to ALL of us because a lot of us are under-paid and need it to make ends meet. So please keep that in mind as well.
  
  
• The fact that we are being forced to make a decision that increases the company's profit, and in turn we have to bend over backwards to do it and get no sort of compensation to do it. It's bullshit and greedy.
  
  
• How does seniority relate to any of this?
  
  
• I understand the reason for 24/7 operation. However, this process to me is just another way management confronts challenges/issues. In short, the management team does not address the core problem. Rather they address the symptoms of the core problem.
  
  

I had a call from a California company earlier this week that was operating on a 24/5 basis. They expected to go to 24/7 in the next year or two and wanted to take steps now to prepare for the eventual change to a continuous operation. Their current schedule used three 8-hour shifts that rotated every 6 weeks. The shifts started at 5:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 9:00 p.m. They were paying shift differentials for the 2^nd and 3^rd shifts. They were not represented by a union.

Here is what I recommended:

• Shift length. Most companies that change to 24/7 end up adopting 12-hour shifts. Not all, but a substantial majority. However, since this company was located in California and not represented by a union, it would have to pay overtime after 8 hours a day. This would make 12-hour shifts too expensive, leaving them with no choice other than 8-hour shifts.
  
  
• Schedule format. In general, employees prefer fixed shifts while management prefers rotating shifts. Since this company would be using 8-hour shifts, the choice was obvious. 8-hour fixed shifts often require a few more employees than rotating 8-hour shifts, making them a much more expensive choice. Because of this, I recommended that they stay with the rotating shifts. I also warned them that with 24/7 schedules, the employees would change shifts every week rather than every 6 weeks like the are doing now.
  
  
• Shift differentials. The purpose of the shift differential is to attract employees to the less desirable shifts. Since the company was using rotating shifts, everyone was working those shifts. There was no need for an incentive. Shift differentials are only appropriate for fixed shifts. With rotating shifts, they are nothing more than a wage increase. To keep the employees' pay the same, the company should replace the differential with an across-the-board pay increase.
  
  
• Shift start times. Early start times for the day shift will result in fewer hours of sleep. When you combine this with the rotating shifts, it's a double whammy. I recommended changing the day shift to start no earlier than 6 a.m.
  
  

I've run into other companies preparing for continuous operations that were considering transitional changes that would have made the final step to 24/7 much more difficult or that would have locked them into a more costly position. That's why it's important to visualize the key features of the 24/7 schedule in advance, so that the preparatory steps are in alignment.

You can't believe how many people search for the terms "12-hour shift schedule examples" or "24/7 shift schedule examples." They apparently assume that any attractive schedule example will work. They also believe that they can "sell" their co-workers or upper management on this new schedule.

These are dangerous assumptions. In groups of less than 50 employees, work patterns you find searching the Internet won't necessarily be the best choice. That's because they are designed for 24/7 coverage using 4 crews. They also may have different overtime weeks. And pushing a single scheduling option is rarely going to gain widespread support or buy-in.

When I design schedules, creating the work pattern is the very LAST STEP in the process. I start by asking how the workload varies by hour of the day and by day of the week. Most organizations don't track this, but they can tell you the coverage requirements at different times of the day. Usually this is expressed in 8-hour blocks because the organization was using 8-hour shifts and they know the coverage needed on each shift. In many cases, this approximates but doesn't accurately match the work volumes.

Many smaller organizations have either a heavier or a lighter workload on weekends. Police departments and dispatch units are often busiest on Friday and Saturday, especially in the evenings or when the bars close. Other industries often have less work on the weekends and can reduce the coverage to just one or two people all day Saturday and Sunday.

Once you know the coverage requirements, you can determine whether the available resources are adequate. The resources are the staff size, absence rate, and average hours of work each week. I use a staffing calculator similar to the one on my website. You can access it here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator.

Then I decide which shift lengths would best match the coverage requirements. In most cases, this is either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. 10-hour shifts are only considered if the workload increases for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day. That's because the 10-hour shifts overlap for that many hours, depending on how you use them. For most 24/7 organizations, 10-hour shifts just have too many limitations.

The next step is to look at the preferred schedule format, i.e. fixed or rotating shifts. Although employees tend to prefer fixed shifts, they present several challenges for management. With 8-hour shifts, using fixed shifts also may require a few more employees.

The final step is to develop different work patterns. Sometimes, popular patterns such as the Panama, Pittman, DuPont, 4-on-2-off, 6-on-3-off, etc. can be used. Sometimes these patterns can be tweaked to fit the organization's overtime week. Sometimes a pattern must be created from scratch. The key point is that you should never start with a pattern. It will not ensure the most effective or efficient use of your staff. It can cause over-staffing. It can cause unnecessary overtime or sacrifice the maximum possible number of weekends off. It should always be the last step in the design process.

During this final step, other considerations may come into play. For example, the group may be able to build relief coverage or training time into the schedule. They may have a bargained requirements for no less than 2 consecutive days off. Or they may want a slow shift rotation. These often require custom-designed patterns.

One last point. I always encourage clients to choose from multiple options. This allows you to compare the pros and cons, and make the necessary tradeoffs. I also recommend that clients use a strategic schedule selection process, as described here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Selection_Process. This will lead to superior choices that are supported by a majority of the employees who must work the schedule plus managers who oversee the operation.

I just finished designing a set of 8-hour shift schedules for a client. They wanted 8-hour shifts because their HR Department is requiring them to abandon their current 12-hour shift schedule and start working 8-hour shifts. I assumed that this was to avoid the overtime in the 12-hour schedule. Was I surprised when I learned that wasn't the case!

HR decided to convert the company's paid time-off policies to days instead of hours. The handful of employees working 12-hour shifts used to get 120 hours of vacation each year. With the policy change, they were now getting 15 days off. It was simply costing the organization too much money.

Rather than change the policy back to hours or reduce the number of days for people on 12s, HR said no more 12-hour shifts. So now the employees are facing some really ugly schedules with a limited number of weekends off. They still get 15 days of vacation, but they are 8-hour days.

The company will save money by offering less paid time-off, but they likely will have higher costs:

Increased employee turnover.

Increased absences.

Lower productivity.

More complaints and grievances.

Usually I see this in reverse. A company has 8-hour shifts and wants to adopt 12-hour shifts. If they fail to change the paid time-off policies to be stated in hours off instead of days off, they will spend a lot more money needlessly. Changing schedules should always be accompanied by a review of the policies. In this case, a change in the policies forced the organization to change schedules. What a shame!

Most shift length comparisons look at 8-hour shifts vs.12-hour shifts. They also focus on the advantages or disadvantages from the employee perspective. This post will address 10-hour shifts vs. 12-hour shifts from a management perspective.

10-Hour Shifts

The primary advantage of 10-hour shifts (and only justifiable reason for considering them) is that they enable organizations to match their coverage with a variable workload. They are able to do this because the shifts overlap one another for 6 hours a day. There are three workload patterns that can be accommodated with 10s:

1. The workload is higher for a single 6-hour period every day.

2. The workload is higher for 12 hours every day.

3. The workload is higher for 16 hours every day.

Many police and dispatch centers have workload patterns like these, which is why you will find 10-hour shifts used so often in these organizations. Companies with steady workloads should never adopt 10-hour shifts. For them, the overlapping shifts are a waste of manpower.

The primary disadvantage of 10-hour shifts is that they require more staff than 8s or 12s since they require the employees to work 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts) instead of the usual 24 hours. As a result, the organization would have to employ 25% more people with 10s than with 8s or 12s. Other problems with 10-hour shifts are covered in more detail here: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/10-Hour_Shifts.

12-Hour Shifts

The key advantage of 12-hour shifts is that they will produce maximum coverage from a given set of workers. Sometimes organizations can use this "extra" output to cover absences without resorting to mandatory hold-overs or call-ins:

1. They can produce coverage that exceeds the minimum requirements.

2. They can build relief coverage into the schedule.

The biggest downside of 12s is that they require overtime in the schedule. Half the work weeks are 36 hours (three 12-hour shifts) and half are 48 hours (four 12-hour shifts). There are ways to eliminate or minimize this, but they are rarely worth the effort, e.g., see http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=12-hour-shift-schedules-with-no-overtime.

 

Alternative Scenarios
If the organization has a variable workload, 10-hour shifts might be the best choice. The three situations in which 10s work best were listed above.

If the organization has a steady workload, 12-hour shifts are the obvious choice. 10-hour shifts would be too wasteful since they would require more staff than 12-hour shifts. For example, if the organization needs 4-person coverage on a 24/7 basis, this would require 21 employees with 10-hour shifts and only 16 employees with 12-hour shifts. That's 31.25% more personnel.

 

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

1. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/12-Hour_Shifts
    
2. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=12-hour-shifts-in-smaller-companies
    
3. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=matching-12-hour-shifts-to-your-workload-distribution
    
4. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=covering-absences-on-a-12-hour-shift-schedule
   
   
5. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=are-12-hour-shifts-too-long
    

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:

1. http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Overtime_Issues
2. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=why-eliminating-overtime-in-24-7-schedules-can-be-costly, 
   

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

This case study is about a guy who had 7 employees and needed to cover 24/7 using 12-hour fixed shifts. So far, everything's fine. But then he said he wanted no overtime and didn't care about the coverage. He just wanted to see a work pattern. When I asked him for more information about his workload and absence rate in an email, he never replied. Too bad.

I'll begin my comments with the coverage. I believe coverage requirements are the starting point for all schedule design efforts. If you don't care what the coverage is, why have a schedule? Somewhere along the line, people seem to have forgotten that the purpose of a schedule is to deploy your staff as effectively as possible. I think people have gotten so wrapped up in comparing different on-off work patterns that they lost sight of the fundamental objective of the schedule.

If all you care about is the shift length and schedule format (fixed or rotating shifts), you're going to use your staff ineffectively. You won't match coverage with the workload. You may be overstaffed and incurring costs unnecessarily. If I knew more about  this group's situation, I might recommend something else. For example, if they had a busy period every day from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., I might recommend 10-hour shifts. If they had a high absence rate, I might recommend rotating shifts and devoting some time in the schedule to relief coverage. Unfortunately, he never mentioned any of those things.

Let's turn to the overtime. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, "We don't want any overtime in our schedule!" I try to explain that they will save money and get a better schedule, but they won't listen. Look, overtime is merely a substitute for staff. And a little bit of OT in the schedule goes a long way. Most 24/7 schedules average 42 hours a week. To avoid those 2 hours of overtime, the group will have to hire more staff. The amount depends on the size of the group, the number of job titles, and the type of schedule. In every situation I've seen, the cost of the extra staff is way more than cost of the built-in overtime, especially when you factor in the cost of benefits (holidays, vacations, 401Ks, insurance, pensions, etc.). You can read the page on my website regarding this topic at http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Overtime_Issues.

If all you care about is the work pattern, check the Internet for free schedule examples or templates. But if you want a schedule that makes the most effective and efficient use of your staff, you need to focus on your group's workload distribution and the associated coverage requirements. Once you've figured out what that requires, you can then look for alternative work patterns and ways to increase weekends off.