In my last post, I recommended using the following criteria to ensure a comprehensive approach to the schedule selection process:  (1) effectiveness, (2) efficiency, (3) sleep, and (4) employee satisfaction. This post will cover the first criterion - effectiveness.

Effectiveness indicates how well a schedule satisfies the business needs. For most organizations, the primary concern is adequate coverage. Secondary issues include absence coverage, training time, cleaning and maintenance time, shift changes, equipment start-ups and shut-downs, and others. The following questions should help in the evaluation of schedule effectiveness:

• Do the coverage requirements match the workload by hour of the day? By day of the week?
• Does the coverage meet or exceed the minimum requirements?
• Is the coverage consistent?
• How well are the organization's other business issues addressed?

• Option #1:  8-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week to provide 3-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. This steady coverage does not address the two busy periods, so it falls short on this important consideration. The schedule uses 4 crews which would allow the sergeants to work with the same officers at all times.
• Option #2:  10-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 15 officers working an average of 42 hours a week on two separate 10-hour schedules. Each schedule would align its overlapping shifts with one of the busy periods. This will provide 3-person coverage around the clock, plus 4 and 5-person coverage during the two busy periods. Unfortunately, these schedules do not use crews, so the sergeants would not be working with the same officers at all times.
• Option #3: 12-hour rotating shifts. This option uses 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week. The shifts would start at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. to match the two busy periods. Coverage on the night shift would be 4 people. Coverage on the day shift would be 2 people. The schedule uses 6 crews. This means two crews would not have a sergeant.

Everyone seems to have a different opinion as to what constitutes a good shift schedule. For many people, the judgment is based solely on whether the schedule satisfies a single concern or preference, such as:  (1) the desired shift length, (2) more weekends off, (3) a specific on-off work pattern, (4) no built-in overtime, or (5) coverage that meets or exceeds the minimum requirements.

The problem with such a narrow focus is that it often requires sacrifices in other areas of the business. These tend to be ignored or never acknowledged, as illustrated by the following examples:

• Employees want management to adopt a 10-hour shift schedule because it will give them another day off each week. They don't realize that the organization would have to either increase the staff by 25% or reduce the coverage by 25%. The organization also would have to add one more supervisor, and the supervisors no longer would be working with the same crew at all times. In addition, the facility isn't large enough to accommodate the double coverage that would occur during the 6 hours a day that the shifts overlap.

• The city council insists on a 24/7 schedule with no built-in overtime as a way to reduce expenses in the police department. They don't realize that this will require a larger staff. If the cost of the additional officers and their benefits is disregarded, the council members will think they made a wise financial decision. In reality, they increased the department's overall expenses as a result of the increased headcount.

Ideally, the search for a new schedule should consider the interests of all of the schedule's stakeholders (management, the union and employees). Establishing formal selection criteria to evaluate alternative schedules will force the organization to do this. It also will encourage them to set priorities and weigh the consequences. We recommend using the following criteria to ensure a comprehensive approach to the schedule selection process:  (1) effectiveness, (2) efficiency, (3) sleep, and (4) employee satisfaction.

The next few blog posts will cover these four criteria and will show how they can be used to evaluate different scheduling options.

Everyone wants to find free examples of shift schedules, especially with 10-hour shifts. The problem is you can't trust what you get. Here's one I found today. I won't say where I found it, because I don't want to embarass anyone. I'm merely showing it to you to illustrate a point about the risks of adopting a schedule example or template you found on the Internet.

When I first saw this schedule I thought, "Wow, they figured out a way to make a 10-hour shift schedule using a 4-on-3-off pattern. That's awesome!" But then I started looking closer at how it worked. Here are the things you'd have to live with:

1. Rotating shifts. Sometimes rotating shifts are necessary for various business reasons. I'm not saying rotating shifts are bad, but these rotate backwards from nights to evenings to days. That's bad.

2. Fixed days. This schedule has fixed days of work for each team. Some teams have to work every weekend while others have every weekend off. That's just not fair. All employees should be treated equally when it comes to the days of work.

3. Overlapping day. One day a week, all six teams are scheduled to work. That's not an efficient way to use your personnel. And will the organization using the schedule have adequate capacity for that many employees working at the same time? How about when the shifts overlap for 6 hours that day? This will increase the coverage by 4 times. So if the normal coverage is 3 people, you would have 12 people at work for that six hour period. Not only is it wasteful, but I doubt that many places could accommodate that.

4. Staffing requirements. With rotating 10-hour shifts, you could achieve the same coverage with 5 teams working an average of 42 hours a week. Let's say the teams were comprised of 3 people each. The 6-team schedule shown above would require 18 employees working 40 hours a week or 720 hours a week. A 5-team schedule would require 15 employees working 42 hours a week or 630 hours a week. When you account for the overtime in the 5-team schedule, the total hours of pay would be 645 hours / week. Even with low average wages of $8/hour, the free schedule example would cost $600 a week more than the other schedule.

So you tell me, is this free schedule example really worth it? I know it's hard to believe, but there are organizations that will implement this schedule. And they'll brag about how great their new 10-hour schedule is. They haven't a clue what they're missing. I hope you aren't seduced by the lure of free schedule templates like this one.

There are always two different perspectives when it comes to shift schedules. One is that of the employees who have to work the schedule. The other is that of management who represent the organization and its business requirements. Most people seem to only think about themselves, and ignore the other side's point of view. If you want to change your group's schedule, it is important to be familiar with both perspectives.

Employee Perspective
Employees tend to focus on time off. They want to maximize time off, especially the weekends. This explains the popularity of longer shifts, like 10-hour and 12-hour shifts. Having more time off from work allows them to have a life outside of work, i.e. the ability to balance their lives at work with their lives away from work (work-life balance).

Employees also are concerned with fairness. They understand that seniority may be used to assign employees to the different shifts. But they are intolerant of favoritism and unequal treatment when it comes to things like overtime distribution, vacation time off, or the days people are scheduled to work.

Employees prefer schedules that are consistent. If they are constantly being called in from a day off, they will resent this. If they don't know until the last minute whether they have to work on the weekend, morale will suffer. Employees want a predictable schedule so they know they can count on their scheduled days off. That way they can make plans for things outside of work.

What employees don't recognize is that a new schedule using longer shifts must produce some benefits for the organization too. If they want a new schedule, it's not enough to simply talk about how they will benefit. That's not adequate justification for management. Instead, they need to identify how the new schedule will help the organization. Let's take a look at the things management is concerned with.

Management Perspective
Managers tend to focus on three things: coverage, cost, and supervision. Let's look at each of these in more detail.

Ideally the coverage is closely matched to the workload. If the work volumes are constant throughout the day (as in an assembly line), the coverage should be the same on all shifts. Employees seeking 10-hour shifts fail to recognize that the shifts overlap for 6 hours a day, which would double the coverage during those hours. With a steady workload, it is wasteful to have all that extra coverage for 6 hours every day.

On the other hand, if the workload varies by time of day, as it often does in law enforcement and communication centers/dispatch units, the extra coverage might be beneficial. This may require some clever scheduling tricks such as two separate schedules that start 6 hours apart or a 4-shift schedule. If the workload has three distinct levels (e.g., moderate during daylight hours, heavy during evening hours, and light during nighttime hours), neither 10-hour or 12-hour shifts would be a good fit. The top priority is to achieve the best possible match of coverage with the workload.

A related factor is the organization's absence rate. If the employees are given generous amounts of paid time off, the organization has three alternatives to maintain adequate coverage: (1) use overtime to cover any absences, (2) build relief time into the schedule itself, or (3) boost the coverage on each shift . This is such a big topic, I'll save it for another post.

The second concern of management is cost. There are two major components: (1) staff size, and (2) average hours of work. Many public organizations believe that any hours over 40 are evil and must be avoided because of the overtime premiums. This is another big topic that I will save for a future post. So let's talk about staff size. 

Most 12-hour schedules require the same number or fewer employees than 8-hour schedules. Most 10-hour schedules require 25% more personnel than 8-hour shifts. Most fixed shift schedules require a few more personnel than rotating shift schedules. These are broad generalizations, so don't take them as gospel. It's usually best to discuss your requirements with a professional before making a schedule change.

The third management concern is supervision. Changing to a new schedule may require a different crew configuration. If you had a 4-crew schedule with 8-hour rotating shifts, you might neeed 12 crews with 8-hour fixed shifts. Or you might need 21 crews with a 10-hour shift schedule. Or you might end up with a schedule that has no crews. How do you handle the supervisory situation in these cases?

Every situation is unique, so it's difficult to lay out a set of rules or conclusions. The point is that a schedule change will affect employees differently than it will affect management. If you are a shiftworker seeking a new schedule, you will have to figure out how the change will benefit the organization. If you are manager seeking a new schedule, you will have to determine how the change will benefit the employees. With large organizations, the use of a neutral facilitator is often the best approach. With smaller organizations, the use of a professional schedule designer may be all that is needed.