Main Street businesses face three major challenges when it comes to scheduling their employees:

• Coverage, i.e. matching the number of people at work with a workload that varies by time of day and day of the week.
  
  
• Staffing, i.e. figuring out the best mix of full-time and part-time employees.
   
• Weekends, i.e. alternating the weekend work, so that employees don't have to work every weekend (unless they want to, of course).

Managers don't have time to devote much attention to these challenges. They're too busy running the business and handling all the daily problems. They don't realize they're: (1) spending more than necessary for staffing, (2) irritating customers with slow response times, and (3) frustrating employees who want more weekends off.

 

Let's take a closer look at each of these challenges.

Variable Workloads

The primary purpose of the employee work schedule is to align the coverage with the workload. In other words, to match the number of people at work with the volume of work at that particular time. During busy periods, more employees should be scheduled to work; when it's slow; fewer people should be scheduled.

Some businesses can control the workload by making appointments with customers (e.g., doctors, dentists, and vets). Most businesses can't do that. They have workloads that vary by time of day and/or by day of the week, often in a fairly predictable manner. For many companies, late afternoons and early evenings (when their customers get off work) are busy times. For others, it's the weekends. The ideal schedule will reflect these changes in demand.

Few businesses keep data on customer volumes on an hourly basis, so they have to rely on more subjective feelings about the workload over broad periods of time. Here's an example. A local hardware store thinks the busy times are first thing in the morning (contractors), evenings, and weekends. They created a table showing the coverage requirements throughout the week as shown below:

Time	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue
8a - 9a	3	3	3	3	3	3	3
9a - 3p	2	2	2	6	6	2	2
3p - 7p	4	4	4	4	4	4	4

 

Any business with a variable workload should put together a coverage table like this one. This table then becomes the target for the schedule. You can read more about the steps to create an effective work schedule for a variable workload here:  https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/81.html.

Staffing

Small businesses often employ both full-time and part-time employees. Full-time employees will want benefits like paid holidays, vacations, sick time, health insurance, and maybe 401Ks. They also want 40 hours of pay every week, which can be difficult to achieve if the shifts are shorter than 8 hours. Part-time employees are less expensive and sometimes more flexible. They are open to working short shifts and odd shifts throughout the week. However, finding and maintaining good, dependable part-time workers can be a tough, time-consuming job.

Many years ago, I owned an independent video store. We had 3 full-time people and a number of part-time people who were mostly students. The full-time employees worked a fairly permanent schedule, usually an 8-hour shift (9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.). The part-time people did the closing shift (4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.) and most of the weekend work. We scheduled them around their availability due to class schedules and other commitments. We overlapped the shifts in the evening because that was the busiest time of day. Friday and Saturday were the busiest days of the week, so we would schedule the most staff to work on those days, especially during the evenings.

Many part-time employees can only work weekends or certain days of the week because they are students or it's their second job. If these part-time employees are highly valued and/or hard to replace, the business must plan around their availability. This can make the schedule design for the full-time employees much more difficult.

Weekends

Most businesses schedule their full-time employees to a single shift on the same 5 days every week. If the business is open on weekends, some of the employees may have to work every weekend as shown below:

Emp	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Hours
A	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	-	40
B	-	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	40
C	d8	d8	-	-	-	d8	d8	32

 

In this example, Employee A works Wed-Sun every week, Employee B works every Fri-Tue, and Employee C works every Mon-Thu. Employees A and B work every weekend, while Employee C gets every weekend off.

Most full-time employees want to avoid or minimize the number of weekend days they have to work. When a business is open one or more weekend days, they should consider schedules that provide occasional weekends off. This is done by creating a schedule with rotating days of work. Let's revise the schedule above to rotate the days of work and the weekends off.

 

Emp/Week	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Hours
A / Week 1	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	-	40
B / Week 2	-	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	40
C / Week 3	d8	d8	-	-	-	d8	d8	32

 

This is a 3-week schedule. Employee A begins the schedule in Week 1, Employee B begins in Week 2, and Employee C begins in Week 3. After finishing the initial week, they all rotate to the next week of the schedule. Emp. A moves to Week 2, Emp. B moves to Week 3, and Emp. C moves to Week 1. With this pattern, all 3 employees get a 3-day weekend off once every 3 weeks. Unlike the previous schedule with fixed days of work, they would share equally in the number of weekends worked (and the number of weekends off).

 

Summary

Many Main Street businesses are now open more than 8 hours a day and more than 5 days a week. This can make it difficult to create a work schedule for the employees. The three biggest scheduling challenges are: (1) matching the coverage with a workload that varies throughout the day and the week, (2) juggling the mix of full-time and part-time employees, and (3) alternating the weekend work so it is more fairly distributed.

We showed how creating a coverage table becomes the basis for the schedule. This will help you decide the best mix of shift lengths and the number of people to put on each shift. You want to have the right number of people at work to handle the volume of work expected for that particular time period. You don't want to have a bunch of employees standing around with nothing to do either.

The staffing mix depends on the quality and availability of full-time and part-time employees. If good part-time employees are easy to find, the schedule design can start with the full-time people. Part-time people would be used to fill the gaps in the coverage, to work shifts shorter than 8 hours, and/or to cover a lot of the weekend shifts. If you can only find a few, key part-time workers, you may be forced to design the schedule around their availability.

Full-time employees prefer to have weekend days off. You may not be able to give them every weekend off, but you can alternate the weekend work. This requires a schedule with rotating days of work. Although employees tend to prefer fixed days of work (so their days off are predictable), you'll have to explain the need for rotating days of work so that everyone is treated equally in terms of weekends off.

We've written several articles about schedules for companies that operate on a less than 24/7 basis. You might want to check these out.

• https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=work-schedules-for-businesses-open-more-than-8-hours-day-or-5-days-week
  
  
• https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=employee-work-schedules-for-retail-and-service-businesses
  
  
• https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=schedules-in-the-hospitality-industry 
  
  
• https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=restaurant-work-schedules
  
  
• https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=car-dealership-schedules

If you would like to get our help with the design of a schedule, please fill out this form:

 

Request a Quote

 

 

 

 

 

Restaurants have highly variable workloads, which makes it difficult to schedule the employees effectively. In this post, we're going to discuss the schedules for two positions (Hosts and Servers). Obviously, there are a lot more positions than these (e.g., bussers/food runners, line cooks, dishwashers, bartenders, managers, and so on), but this should be enough to illustrate the process. To simplify the examples, we will only use full-time employees.
 

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.

 

Hosts - Coverage Requirements
Time Period	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu
6am-4pm	1	2	2	1	1	1	1
4pm-10pm	2	2	1	1	1	1	1

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Hosts - Option #1

Host / Week

Fri

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Hours

A / Week 1

-

d8

d8

d8

-

d8

d8

40

B / Week 2

d8

d8

d8

-

-

-

-

24

C / Week 3

e8

e8

e8

e8

e8

-

-

40

D / Week 4

e8

e8

-

-

d8

e8

e8

40

Average

36

Key:

d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am-2pm)

e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm-10pm)

Coverage:

Fri

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

6am to 2pm

1

2

2

1

1

1

1

2pm to 10pm

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

 

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.

 

Hosts - Option #2

Host / Week

Fri

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Hours

A / Week 1

-

D10

D10

-

-

D10

D10

40

B / Week 2

D10

D10

D10

D10

-

-

-

40

C / Week 3

e6

e6

e6

e6

e6

-

-

30

D / Week 4

e6

e6

-

-

D10

e6

e6

34

Average

36

Key:

D10 = 10-hour day shift (6am-4pm)

e6 = 6-hour evening shift (4pm-10pm)

Coverage:

Fri

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

6am to 4pm

1

2

2

1

1

1

1

4pm to 10pm

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

 

 

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. 

 

Servers - Coverage Requirements
Time Period			Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu
6am-12pm			1	2	2	1	1	1	1
12pm-2pm			2	2	2	2	2	2	2
2pm-6pm			2	2	2	1	1	1	1
6pm-10pm			3	3	2	2	2	2	2

 

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

 

Servers - Option #1

Server / Week

Fri

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Hours

A / Week 1

-

d8

d8

-

d8

d8

d8

40

B / Week 2

d8

d8

d8

d8

-

-

d8

40

C / Week 3

d8

-

-

d8

d8

d8

-

32

D / Week 4

e8

e8

e8

-

e8

e8

e8

48

E / Week 5

e8

e8

e8

e8

-

-

e8

40

F / Week 6

e8

e8

-

e8

e8

e8

-

40

Average

40

Key:

d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am-2pm)

e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm-10pm)

Coverage:

Fri

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

6am to 2pm

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2pm to 10pm

3

3

2

2

2

2

2

 

 

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.

 

Servers - Option #2
Server / Week		Fri		Sat		Sun		Mon		Tue		Wed		Thu		Hours
A / Week 1		-		d8		d8		-		d8		d8		d8		40
B / Week 2		d8		d8		d8		d8		-		-		-		32
C / Week 3		E10		E10		E10		E10		-		-		-		40
D / Week 4		e4		e4		e8		-		E10		E10		E10		46
E / Week 5		e8		e8		-		e4		e4		e4		e4		32
														Average		32
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (6am to 2pm)
e4 = 4-hour evening shift (6pm to 10pm)
e8 = 8-hour evening shift (2pm to 10pm)
E10 = 10-hour evening shift (12pm to 10pm)
Coverage:		Fri		Sat		Sun		Mon		Tue		Wed		Thu
6am to 12pm		1		2		2		1		1		1		1
12pm to 2pm		2		3		3		2		2		2		2
2pm to 6pm		2		2		2		1		1		1		1
6pm to 10pm		3		3		2		2		2		2		2

 

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.

Is your business open more than 8 hours a day or more than 5 days a week? If so, do you have a set schedule for your employees, or are you creating a new schedule every week based on individual employee availability and preferences? A set schedule will benefit both you and your employees.

• 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.

 

Crew / Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Hours
A / Week 1	-	-	D10	D10	D10	-	D10	40
B / Week 2	D10	D10	-	-	D10	D10	-	40

 

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.
 

Emp. / Week	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Hours
A / Week 1	-	-	D12	D12	-	-	D12	36
B / Week 2	D12	-	-	-	D12	D12	-	36
C	a5	-	-	-	-	a5	a5	15
D	-	-	a5	a5	a5	-	-	15

 

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).

 

During the coronavirus pandemic, organizations that employ first responders and critical workers want to minimize the risks associated with both public and employee interactions. Here are some scheduling strategies that can help:

Public Interactions
First responders and critical workers who are in close contact with the public, especially with people who might have virus, face a unique challenge. Their repeated exposures increase the chance of getting sick and not being able to perform their duties, or even worse, spreading it among their co-workers. How can managers of these frontline workers address this risk?

One approach would be to gradually rotate the staff through a 2-week furlough, so there's a reserve staff that hasn't been exposed to the virus. And, even if they have been exposed, keeping them away from work for that long will reduce the risk of spreading the virus to fellow workers.

In 24/7 operations, this can be done by adopting a 5-crew rotating shift schedule. If the organization is already on a 4-crew schedule, it would have to shrink the size of the crews by 20% to create 5 smaller crews. Here's an example of what this schedule would look like:

Crew / Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Hours
A / Week 1	N12	N12	N12	N12	-	-	-	48
B / Week 2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
C / Week 3	-	-	-	-	N12	N12	N12	36
D / Week 4	-	D12	D12	D12	-	-	D12	48
E / Week 5	D12	-	-	-	D12	D12	-	36
							Average	33.6
Key:
D12 = 12-hour day shift
N12 = 12-hour night shift

The way the schedule works is that each crew (A, B, C, D, and E) starts the schedule in the week shown next to them. After finishing the initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Crew A moves from Week 1 to Week 2, Crew B moves from Week 2 to Week 3, and so on. Crew E moves from Week 5 up to Week 1. All five crews continue rotating through this 5-week pattern for as long as needed.

Notice that there are 14 consecutive days off from Friday in Week 1 to Thursday in Week 3. This is the 2-week furlough mentioned above. If you only pay for the hours worked, the employees will average 35.2 hours a week when you factor in the overtime from the two 48-hour work weeks (Weeks 1 and 4). If you pay for an extra 40 hours of vacation time during Week 2 of the schedule, they will be paid an average of 43.2 hours a week over the 5-week period.

Employee Interactions
The secondary concern of these organizations is having sick or exposed employees spreading the virus to other employees. Here's an article I saw regarding this:  https://shift-work.com/news/news/11-steps-you-can-take-today-to-keep-your-employees-safe-and-your-shift-work-operation-going/

As this article states, 24/7 operations can temporarily switch to using two 10-hour shifts that are separated by 2 hours each. This will minimize contact during shift turnovers/handoffs, and it frees up time that might be used for cleaning and sanitizing. This may not be practical for smaller groups, but the concept has merit and maybe can be modified to suit your unique circumstances. 

How do you come up with a 10-hour schedule with only 2 shifts a day? Simple. You adopt any 12-hour pattern and replace the two 12-hour shifts with two 10-hour shifts. You could adopt the 5-week pattern shown above or any other popular 12-hour pattern that uses 4 crews.  

If anyone comes up with other scheduling work-arounds during this pandemic, please let me know and I'll try to pass them on. Thanks.

Are you searching for software to manage your employee work schedule? Well, I just read an article that evaluated several free scheduling software programs. I think you might find it particularly interesting. Sorry, but I was asked to delete the link to this article. I'm not sure why, but you'll have to do your own search. 

 

Remember, scheduling software programs won't create schedules for you. You have to have a pattern already in mind. Sure, there are free templates to use, but are they a good choice? Just because a pattern has the shift length and format (fixed vs. rotating shifts) you want doesn't mean it's a good approach for your group. You want a schedule that does three things: (1) optimizes coverage, (2) minimizes costs, and (3) maximizes employee satisfaction. You can read more here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies. 

Thank you for your service, Public Safety Dispatchers! I saw this bulletin in my Nixle from the Petaluma Police Dept. I thought it was worth repeating.

 

 

The week of April 14 - 20, 2019, is "National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week." This is an opportunity to honor the women and men who serve as our Public Safety Dispatchers. Telecommunicators week began in California in 1981 and quickly grew to national recognition. Just ten years later, Congress designated the second full week of each April as a time to remember the critical role Dispatchers play in keeping us all safe.
 

 

Dispatchers are the voice at the other end of the 9-1-1 call assisting a distraught caller and at the other end of the radio when police, firefighters, and medical personnel are responding to emergency situations. If you've ever been the victim of a crime, been in a collision, reported a fire or needed emergency medical help, you've called 9-1-1 and been helped by a Telecommunicator, also known as a "Dispatcher."
 

 

Not being visible or always recognized in the public eye, the critical role they play between the community and first responders is essential for every public safety call for service. Our Dispatchers are the direct link to our officers in the field. They monitor the radios, computers, phones, and more, answering thousands of calls from our community each year.
 

 

Please join us in this week as we say THANK YOU to the often heard but not seen, first of the first responders, our 9-1-1 Dispatchers.

 

In the U.S., most non-salaried employees are eligible for overtime after working more than 40 hours in a week. Usually this is based on the hours worked during the pay week.

Some pay weeks are better than others when it comes to 7-day work schedules. For example, with 8-hour shifts, the best days to start the pay week are Sat, Sun, or Mon. That's because employees can occasionally get a 3 or 4-day weekend off. If the pay week begins any other day of the week, employees can never get more than a 2-day weekend off since they would be working less than 40 hours in that week.

 

Some schedule patterns work fine with a pay period that begins any day of the week. Others only work if they start on a certain day. Trying to make one of those patterns start on a different day would compromise weekends off or create highly uneven work weeks such as 60 hours one week and 24 hours the next.

Pay weeks that begin at Midnight can create overtime unnecessarily. For instance, on a 12-hour shift schedule with shifts that begin at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., the night shift at the end of the pay week will have 5 hours in one pay week and 7 hours in the next pay week. Or, on an 8-hour shift schedule with a night shift that begins at 11 p.m., the last night shift of the pay week will have 1 hour in the first pay week and 7 hours in the next. Employees could end up working 33 hours the first week and 47 hours the next.

 

Pay weeks are often set by payroll personnel who aren't familiar with groups that work more than just Monday to Friday. And they are highly reluctant to change the pay week once it has been established. That means you'll have to avoid certain schedules (despite their attractiveness) or simply live with the negative consequences.

There are so many different pay weeks and schedule patterns that it's hard to say in advance whether there will be problems or not. Just be aware that pay weeks beginning on Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, or at Midnight could impact weekends off or cause additional overtime.

I just read an article by Jackie Edwards on unemployment for seasonal workers. The article is posted on a website that covers various aspects of unemployment. If this topic is something you might be interested in, here's a link: unemployment.

Shift schedules specify when employees are supposed to work. For managers, this defines how the staff will be utilized. For employees, this determines their time off, making it just as important as their pay.

Shift schedules tend to be associated with companies that operate around-the-clock, such as public safety (fire and police), hospitals, utilities, mines, and large manufacturing facilities. But shift schedules are needed by any group that has more than one shift.

The first big change in shift schedules began in the 1980s, when larger 24/7 operations started changing from 8-hour shifts to 12-hour shifts. These companies found that the longer shifts were good for both management and employees. Productivity improved because there were fewer shift hand-offs and tasks were more likely to be finished on one shift rather than passed along to the following shift. Although most workers hated the idea of working longer shifts, the 12-hour patterns were clearly better than the 8-hour patterns, since they offered twice as many days off and up to half the weekends off.

The second major change in shift schedules arose from widespread business growth. Companies that were working 5-days-a-week were expanding to 7-day operations. The three 8-hour crews covering Mon-Fri were burned out from all the weekend overtime and the companies didn't like the spiraling costs. Some companies chose to adopt 5½-day or 6-day schedules. Some chose to hire weekend crews. Most decided to add a fourth crew and adopt a 24/7 schedule, typically with 12-hour shifts.

The third and most recent change encompassed companies not normally associated with shiftwork, such as beauty salons, pharmacies, government offices, mechanics, dentists, insurance companies, restaurants, and customer support centers. They may not run 24/7, but they do operate longer than the traditional 8 to 5, Monday to Friday, and therefore require more than just one shift.

Some of these companies found it more economical to add a shift rather than move to larger facilities or purchase additional equipment. Others found it necessary to stay open longer because of competition and customer expectations. Because the workload in these companies is rarely constant all day or throughout the week, the challenge for scheduling is finding a schedule that matches the coverage with the workload throughout the hours of operation. This can involve staggered shift start times, multiple shift lengths, and overlapping shifts.

Whereas the two previous changes in shift schedules involved finding the single best shift length for around-the-clock coverage, the third change involves choosing the best combination of shift lengths and start times to accommodate a variable workload, often with less-than-24/7 coverage.

At the same time shift schedules were evolving, the process for finding a new schedule also was changing. Early scheduling transitions took place in companies with large staffs and budgets. They often hired consultants to help facilitate the change. The consultants would start by developing a business case that justified changing schedules. Then they would involve the employees in the selection process, educate them about different approaches, revise paid-time-off policies to match the new schedule, and help to implement the new schedule.

When smaller organizations (that couldn't afford a consultant) started changing schedules, they initially turned to industry forums for help, and more recently to free schedule templates found on the Internet. Although the number of options is somewhat limited, this approach is okay if the workload is constant and the staff size is a multiple of 4 (since most of the schedules rely on 4 crews). Since most smaller groups don't have a steady workload or the right number of employees, the templates often will result in unnecessary costs and/or ineffective utilization of the staff.

In addition to thinking you can simply copy schedule examples from the Internet, here are the most common mistakes made today when searching for a new shift schedule:

1.      Wrong priorities. Increased concern for employee work-life balance has led many managers to search for a schedule with shift lengths or work patterns that are popular with employees. They forget that employee satisfaction is NOT the primary purpose of the schedule. The reason you have a schedule is to ensure the right number of the right people are working at the right time. This means matching the coverage (the number of people actually working) with the workload distribution. You don't want a schedule with steady coverage if the organization's workload is lighter from Midnight to 6 a.m. or on the weekends. And you don't want a schedule with a lot of double coverage (from overlapping shifts) if the organization's workload is constant. The top priority should be to find an approach that satisfies the business requirements. Then, and only then, should you seek options (using that approach) that a majority of your employees prefer.

2.      Narrow focus. Focusing on a single issue and ignoring the big picture often results in costly choices. For example, many establishments think they're saving money by having a schedule with no overtime in it. They don't understand that this requires a larger staff and/or more overtime to cover absences. Although they think they are being frugal, a schedule with a small amount of built-in overtime actually might have been cheaper when the total labor costs are considered. Another example is the manager who wants to give his employees more days off by adopting a 10-hour schedule. He doesn't realize that this will reduce the coverage on each shift by 25%, which depletes the reserve capacity used to compensate for absences. Although employees now have 3 scheduled days off each week, they may have to work some of those days whenever somebody takes vacation or calls in sick.

 

3.      Solution-oriented. When most managers decide it's time for a new schedule, they immediately start searching for a solution on the Internet, e.g., schedule examples or articles about the pros and cons of different shift lengths or work patterns. They should start by developing a process for educating and involving employees. If employees don't believe there is a need to change or that their opinions are being considered, it will be difficult to secure their buy-in and support for the new schedule. Managers should never assume they know what's best for the group. They should try to find multiple options that satisfy the business requirements and let the employees make the final choice. Each site will choose differently due to its unique combination of demographics, experiences, and lifestyles.

Shift schedules will continue to evolve as more and more groups adopt them. Although many of the same issues will continue to exist, new problems are likely to arise as more diverse facilities begin implementing new schedules. Let's hope they learn from the mistakes of other organizations and contact us.