Some time ago, I got a call from the Chief of Police from a small city in the Mid-West. He had 6 officers and needed a minimum of 1-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. Their work schedule consisted of 8-hour fixed shifts. The officers were pretty happy with the schedule since they got every other weekend off. The problem was the high overtime expenses needed to cover vacations and other absences. The officers had an absence rate of almost 20%, which resulted in an overtime bill of around $80K a year. He was thinking about hiring another officer, but couldn't figure out how to use him to cover absences unless it was his full-time job.

I told him that he didn't need to hire more staff'; he needed a different schedule. 8-hour fixed shift schedules are not very efficient, especially in small groups like his. In his case, they would provide 1-person coverage 4 days a week and 2-person coverage 3 days a week. To ensure every other weekend was off, the double coverage was scheduled for weekdays only. Since most absences occurred on the weekends (when they only had 1-person coverage), they were forced to use overtime to avoid gaps in the coverage.

When choosing the best scheduling approach, he and his officers would have to make a tradeoff between shift length and format (fixed vs. rotating shifts) when selecting a new schedule. If having fixed shifts was most important schedule feature, they should adopt a 12-hour fixed shift schedule. If having 8-hour shifts was most important, they should adopt an 8-hour rotating shift schedule. Either approach would free up capacity to cover absences without excessive overtime. Flexible relief time could then be built right into the schedule.

With the12-hour fixed shifts, 3 officers would be assigned to each shift. Each shift would have a 3-week schedule in which one week was devoted to relief coverage and the other two weeks were devoted to the required coverage. They would have to work an average of 42 hours a week. Yes, overtime would be required, but a total of 12 hours per week for the entire group is all they would need. 

With the 8-hour rotating shifts, the 6 officers would work a 6-week schedule in which two weeks were devoted to relief coverage and 4 weeks were devoted to the required coverage. They would also average 42 hours a week.

 

The Chief said he'd have to think about it. He was hesitant to do this because the city was opposed to having employees work more than 40 hours a week and the officers were opposed to changing schedules. I never heard from him again. I suppose he's still incurring overtime every time someone is absent, having poor coverage, or maybe still searching for ideas on how to fix this. Or maybe he hired another officer. So he is either spending $60K a year for a 7th officer (wages + benefits) or $80K on overtime. What would you do?

Many employers say that they’re open to hiring employees with disabilities - but how many backs this statement up with concrete action? It takes ongoing work to ensure that your company is genuinely inclusive. If you need help designing schedules that make sense for your entire team, including your employees who need reasonable accommodations, Shift Schedule Design can guide you! Furthermore, these tips will show you how to support employees with disabilities, from improving as a leader to enhancing your recruitment strategy.

 

Create an Inclusive Culture

 

A truly inclusive culture starts with the boss. Consider how you interact with your staff, and focus on cultivating healthy relationships with each employee. To become a better leader and bring out the best in your team, try to provide mentorship to young employees, listen closely when your team shares their opinions, and give them agency to tackle projects independently with your background guidance.

 

Provide Flexible Schedules

 

Lots of people with disabilities need flexible scheduling at work so that they can go to doctor’s appointments and avoid burnout. Furthermore, people with disabilities will often seek out employers that offer more paid time off. Make sure to review your benefits package and see if you could increase the amount of PTO you give to employees. You could also consider allowing employees to work remotely when possible.

 

Add Assistive Website Technology

 

Employers who want to recruit people with disabilities often don’t realize that the technology their company relies on isn’t necessarily accessible. For instance, it’s a good idea to update your website with assistive technology. JazzHR recommends adding alt-text descriptions to images on your website and using a theme and color scheme that meets readability standards.

 

Adapt Your Recruitment Process

 

Inclusion starts with recruitment. If you want to recruit employees with disabilities, TLNT recommends connecting with local high schools and colleges to establish pipelines between educational institutions and your workplace.

 

You can also develop a recruiting document for new applicants detailing how your company is going the extra mile to support employees with disabilities. If you want to create a PDF document, you can use a PDF editor to make changes if necessary. All you need to do is upload the file, edit it, then download and share it with your employees.

 

Provide Professional Development Opportunities

 

Workers with disabilities might find it harder to access professional development opportunities and often feel that able-bodied employees receive more investment from company leadership. It’s important to give employees with disabilities the resources they need to move up in the corporate world. This can start with specially structured internship programs. Furthermore, make sure to let employees with disabilities know about upcoming workshops, certification programs, and job openings that would be suited for them.

 

Budget for Reasonable Accommodations

 

Most people with disabilities will need some form of reasonable accommodations at work. As an employer, you are legally obligated to provide these accommodations - but by preparing your finances in advance, you can ensure that you won’t be caught off guard by any additional expenses. To account for reasonable accommodations in your budget, MIUSA recommends estimating an extra 3% to 5% for your total program costs and an extra 2% to 3% for your administrative costs.

 

Many people with disabilities struggle to find employers who genuinely understand their strengths. It isn’t easy for someone with a disability to find gainful employment. With these tips, you’ll be able to create a better workplace environment for your employees with disabilities, from updating your recruitment strategy to becoming a great mentor.

 

Want to implement a customized schedule that suits your team? Turn to Shift Schedule Design! Call us today at 415-717-3754 to get started.

 

 

Chelsea Lamb

Businesspop.net | chelsea@businesspop.net

“Work-life balance” is largely a desire for more time off from work. That’s why so many employees want to change their work schedules. They want more days off and, for jobs that require Saturday and/or Sunday work, more full weekends off. In facilities that run 24/7, this often leads to a search for a schedule using 10 or 12-hour shifts, or a work pattern with less than 40 hours of work per week. Even though this means longer days of work or reduced compensation, many employees feel the extra time off is worth it.

 

Unfortunately, this can be in direct conflict with the common employer goal of maximizing employee utilization. For work schedules, this means achieving maximum coverage for the lowest possible cost. In 24/7 operations, “lowest cost” often requires keeping the headcount as low as possible and adopting a schedule that averages 42 hours a week (Why Eliminating Overtime in 24/7 Schedules Can Be Costly).

 

Thus, when it comes to choosing the best work schedule, management and the workers have different goals. Employees focus on the time off. Managers focus on minimizing headcount and cost. So, how do you strike a balance between these opposing points of view?

 

If you start from the employee perspective, you could end up with something that the employer just can’t afford. A good example is a company that works 24/7 and has a relatively steady workload. The employees want to change from 8-hour shifts to 10-hour shifts. This would require the company to hire 25% more staff (10 hour shifts). For most companies, this is clearly infeasible.

 

But, if you ignore what the employees want, you risk having high turnover, increased absences, and reduced productivity. As Mike Michalko recently commented on my website, “Too little emphasis on the employee leads to turnover and the high costs associated with onboarding and training. This is aggravated with needed positions in a highly competitive job market. If an employer doesn't address employee satisfaction, they'll end up training someone else's workforce.”

 

So, where do you start? I think it’s important to reflect on the reason you have a schedule in the first place. Most people think of the schedule as an on-off work pattern for a specific shift length, for example, a 5-on-3-off pattern for 8-hour shifts or a 2-3-2 pattern for 12-hour shifts. While it's true that the shift length and work pattern are essential components of the schedule, they don’t explain why the schedule is needed. 

 
The real purpose of the schedule is to ensure proper coverage:  the right number of people with the right skills at the right time and place. If the coverage isn’t adequate or matched to regular variations in the workload, the group won’t be able to provide the amount or quality of product/service expected by its customers. The schedule ensures that the organization effectively fulfills its purpose of satisfying the needs of its customers.

 

Therefore, the top priority for the schedule must be to maintain a level of coverage that matches customer demand. In most cases, more than one approach (usually different shift lengths) is possible. I’ve previously discussed how the hours of operation and the workload variability dictate the best choice of shift length(s):  (Shift Length Selection).

 

As an example, consider a company that operates 24/7 and needs 2 people working at all times. They first have to decide whether to use fixed shifts and rotating shifts. As a general rule, employees prefer fixed shifts whereas employers prefer rotating shifts (Fixed shifts vs. rotating shifts). In this example, we’ll assume they choose fixed shifts. Next, they have a choice between 8-hour shifts or 12-hour shifts. The 8-hour fixed shifts will require 9 employees working an average of 37.3 hours a week, whereas the 12-hour fixed shifts will require 8 employees averaging 42 hours a week. They decide to narrow the search to these two approaches.

 

For each approach, several different work patterns are possible. These patterns will vary in terms of the number of consecutive days of work and the nature of the days off. In general, the longer the blocks of work days, the longer the blocks of days off and the longer the weekends off.

 

Once the alternative patterns are developed, the company should involve the employees who will be working the schedule (Strategic Schedulers Enjoy Remarkable Success). The workers must choose between longer days of work more time off. They also must choose between longer blocks of work days and longer blocks of days off. The majority will decide how important work-life balance is and what sacrifices they are willing to make to achieve it.

 

To summarize, these are the recommended steps in changing employee work schedules:

1.       Establish the organization’s coverage requirements by time of day and by day of the week. Do you need the same number of people all day long? Maybe there is less work during the nighttime. Do you need the same number of people throughout the week? Maybe there is less work during the weekends. Here’s an example for a company that works 24/7:

 

 

2.       Identify different approaches (usually two different shift lengths) that will efficiently achieve the organization’s coverage requirements. The hours of operation and regular workload variations will play a key role in this step. Approaches that are highly inefficient will not be considered, e.g., unnecessary double coverage or excessive staffing requirements.

3.       Find alternative work patterns for each approach. Alternatives will vary the number of consecutive days of work, which will affect the amount and the nature of the time off.

4.       Involve employees in the review of all the options and final selection of the schedule. This gives them the opportunity to decide whether the improved time off is worth the (a) longer days of work, (b) more consecutive days of work, and/or (c) the average weekly hours of work.

 

Although work-life balance is not the starting point when changing work schedules, it is addressed by identifying different approaches/patterns that satisfy the coverage requirements, and then allowing employees to review, discuss, and vote on their preferred option. Shift Schedule Design can help you find the best approaches and associated work patterns. Please click on the link below to get started:

 

Request a quote

 

 

 

“We work 24/7 and we want to change to 10-hour shifts. Can you help us?” How many times have I heard that? At least 2-3 times a week. Yeah, 8-hour shift schedules suck. You might want to read about them here:

·         8-Hour Rotating Shifts (shift-schedule-design.com)

·         8-Hour Fixed Shift Schedules (shift-schedule-design.com)

The problem is that few companies have enough resources to make the change to 10-hour shifts. If you are simply replacing your three 8-hour shifts with three 10-hour shifts, your coverage will be reduced by 25%. For example, if your current 8-hour schedule produces 4-person coverage, a new 10-hour schedule would reduce that to 3-person coverage. 

Why is that? Let’s look at a simple example with rotating shift schedules. Here’s a popular 8-hour pattern called the Continental.

8-Hour Shifts

Crew / Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Hours
A / Week 1	-	-	D8	D8	A8	A8	N8	40
B / Week 2	N8	N8	-	-	D8	D8	A8	40
C / Week 3	A8	A8	N8	N8	-	-	D8	40
D / Week 4	D8	D8	A8	A8	N8	N8	-	48
							Average	42

Key:

D8 = 8-hour day shift

A8 = 8-hour afternoon shift

N8 = 8-hour night shift

 

This is a 4-week, rotating schedule operated by 4 crews. 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 4th week, they rotate up to Week 1. 

 

Yes, this is a terrible schedule to work. You work 7 shifts in a row and you have to change shifts every 2-3 days. Worst of all, you only get one weekend off every 4 weeks. 

 

You'll notice that there is a D8, A8, and N8 under each of the days of the week. This means one crew is scheduled to work each shift, all week long. Maybe not the same crew, but there will always be one crew scheduled for each shift. If the total staff is 16 people, each crew would have 4 employees. That means there would be 4 people at work at all times on a 24/7 basis.

 

Now let's see what happens if you change to a 10-hour rotating shift schedule.

 

 

10-hour Shifts

 

Crew / Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Hours
A / Week 1	-	D10	D10	-	-	D10	D10	40
B / Week 2	D10	-	-	D10	D10	-	A10	40
C / Week 3	A10	A10	-	-	A10	A10	-	40
D / Week 4	-	-	A10	A10	-	N10	N10	40
E / Week 5	N10	N10	N10	N10	N10	-	-	50
							Average	42

 

Changing to 10-hour shifts requires creating a 5^th crew and it doesn’t get rid of the overtime in the schedule. There are better patterns than this one that would give you 2 weekends off every 5 weeks. I can show you options that do this, but not for free.

Since the staff size (16) hasn't changed, four of the crews will only have 3 people and one will have 4 people. This means the coverage will now be only 3 instead of the 4 you had with the 8-hour shifts.

 

The positives of the 10-hour schedule for employees are that you get more days off (3 days a week for 4 out of 5 weeks) and more weekends off (up to 2 weekends off every 5 weeks). Negatives are the smaller breaks and the change in absence coverage.

 

With 10-hour shifts, you can't hold people over to cover an absence like you did with 8s. Absences have to be covered by calling people into work who are scheduled to be off. As an employee, you could end up working 5 or more shifts a week depending on the absence rate and whether you had any extra capacity before making this change.

The key question of course is whether it’s worth switching to 10-hour shifts. Increasing the average hours of work by 25% or hiring 25% more employees is hard to justify. Reducing the coverage by 25% is not a good choice either. Would the employees benefit that much? Maybe, maybe not. I find it pretty hard to justify.  

 

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve written plenty of articles about how to use the 6 hours a day that 10-hour shifts overlap to match the coverage to a variable workload. 10-hour shifts do have a place, if you can afford it. It’s been my experience that few smaller organizations (less than 50 employees) can do it.

 

Here is another article about 10-hour shifts with links to several of the other articles I've written on this topic: 10-hour Shifts.

 

 

The earliest 24/7 schedules were based on 8-hour rotating shifts. These schedules require employees to rotate through all three shifts: days, afternoons, and nights. Most of them use 4 equal-sized crews. If the company needed 8 people working around-the-clock, they would have 8 employees on each of the crews. Three crews would be working each day of the week (one on each shift) while the fourth crew was off. The different work patterns vary in the number of days worked before getting time off and how long it takes to get to the next shift.

In this article, we will look at the two key features of 8-hour rotating shift schedules: (1) consecutive days of work, and (2) speed of rotation.

 

Consecutive Days of Work

As a general rule, the more consecutive days of work, the longer the breaks (days off) and the more frequent the weekends off. Unfortunately, when you increase the days of work, sleep debt accumulates. Choosing from different work patterns thus involves a tradeoff between increased fatigue and more attractive time off.

The Continental shift schedule, one of the earliest and most popular patterns, required working 7 shifts in a row before getting 2 or 3 days off. This schedule had one full weekend off every 4 weeks.

Many employees found that working 7 consecutive shifts was too much, so they insisted on working fewer days in a row. A pattern with 6 consecutive shifts (the Metropolitan Plan) only offered one weekend off every 8 weeks. A pattern with 5 consecutive shifts only offered one weekend off every 10 weeks, and those occurred back-to-back, so that employees would have to go 18 weeks without a weekend off. Ouch!

Here's a table that compares 4 most common patterns:

 

	5 Days	6 Days	7 Days	7 Days
Sat-Sun off	every 10 weeks	every 8 weeks	every 4 weeks	every 4 weeks
Max. days off	2	2	3	4
Min. days off	1	2	2	1

 

 

Speed of Rotation

Some employees prefer to rotate quickly from shift-to-shift. That way, they don’t have to work a bunch of night shifts all at once. The Continental is a good example of a fast rotation. Here’s what that pattern looks like:

 

 

 

Crew / Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Hours
A / Week 1	-	-	D8	D8	A8	A8	N8	40
B / Week 2	N8	N8	-	-	D8	D8	A8	40
C / Week 3	A8	A8	N8	N8	-	-	D8	40
D / Week 4	D8	D8	A8	A8	N8	N8	-	48
							Average	42

Key:

D8 = 8-hour day shift

A8 = 8-hour afternoon shift

N8 = 8-hour night shift

 

This is a 4-week, rotating schedule operated by four crews. When the schedule first starts, the crews are assigned to specific weeks in the cycle. For example, Crew A is assigned to start in Week 1 and 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 4^th week, they rotate up to Week 1.

 

For companies that want a slower rotation, they could simply devote each block of days to a single shift, as shown below:

 

Crew / Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Hours
A / Week 1	-	-	D8	D8	D8	D8	D8	40
B / Week 2	D8	D8	-	-	A8	A8	A8	40
C / Week 3	A8	A8	A8	A8	-	-	N8	40
D / Week 4	N8	N8	N8	N8	N8	N8	-	48
							Average	42

Key:

D8 = 8-hour day shift

A8 = 8-hour afternoon shift

N8 = 8-hour night shift

 

With this adjustment, the rotation is slowed to once a week. The other two patterns (6 days and 5 days) also rotate shifts on a weekly basis. This is still too fast for many people, but a slower rotation can be difficult to achieve.

 

One approach is to increase the number of crews from 4 to either 9 or 12. It’s not as efficient (i.e., it requires a slightly larger staff), but it will slow the shift rotation to once every 3 or 4 weeks.

 

The ultimate approach is to adopt a fixed shift pattern and then re-allocate the employees to different shifts periodically, such as every 6 or 12 months. This also may require a few additional employees since 8-hour fixed shift schedules are not as efficient as 8-hour rotating shift schedules.

 

Summary

8-hour rotating shift schedules have two key features: consecutive days of work and speed of rotation. 

 

The most attractive schedules for employees in terms of time off require them to work 7 shifts in a row. Unfortunately, this is really tough on sleep. That’s why some employees would rather work fewer consecutive shifts, even though they get fewer weekends off.

 

Some employees prefer a fast shift rotation so they only work 2 or 3 night shifts in a row. Most employees, however, prefer a much slower rotation. This can be achieved by increasing the number of crews or by adopting a fixed shift schedule and having employees change shifts every 6 or 12 months.

 

As a general rule, employees prefer fixed shifts while employers prefer rotating shifts (Fixed shifts vs. rotating shifts). Because of this, many companies migrated to 8-hour fixed shifts or longer shift lengths (usually 12-hour shifts). Fixed shifts eliminated the need to change shifts, which helped to reduce fatigue and improve predictability (Schedule Consistency & Predictability). Longer shifts resulted in more days off and more weekends off, which also helped reduce fatigue (12 Hour Shifts).

 

Many companies that operate 24/7 have their employees work an 8-hour fixed shift schedule. With this type of schedule, employees never change shifts, but may work different days each week following a multi-week work pattern. This is called a fixed shift schedule with rotating days of work. Unlike a schedule with fixed shifts and fixed days of work, this approach treats everyone equally in terms of weekends off, so it tends to be the preferred approach.

When these companies first started covering 24/7, they may have adopted a work pattern that was popular for their line of business or the managers had some experience with. The schedule may have worked fine initially, but as the company grew and added more employees, management didn’t update the schedule. They may not have realized that the pattern only works properly for a specific coverage level.

Let’s take a closer look at two popular 8-hour work patterns to understand why they only work under certain conditions. We will only show one shift (the 8-hour day shift = d8) since the pattern will be the same for all 3 shifts. Each crew should have the same number of people, so that the coverage is consistent from day-to-day.

4-on-2-off
Crew / Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	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	d8	40
D / Week 4	d8	-	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	40
E / Week 5	-	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	32
F / Week 6	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	-	32
							Average	37.3

 

The way this pattern works is there are 6 crews for each shift, labeled A, B, C, D, E and F. Each crew begins the schedule in the week they are shown. Crew A begins on Week 1, Crew B begins on Week 2, Crew C begins on Week 3, and so on. After finishing that initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Crew A moves to Week 2, Crew B moves to Week 3, and Crew F moves to Week 1. They continue this rotation until after Week 6, in which they rotate back up to Week 1.

If you start at the top, you’ll see that you would work 4 days (Thu-Sun) and have the next two days off (Mon-Tue). Then you would work 4 more days (Wed-Sat) and have the next two days off (Sun-Mon). This pattern of working 4 days in a row and then taking the next 2 days off continues indefinitely.

You’ll see that there are four d8s shown under each day of the week. This means that 4 crews are always scheduled to work. If you need 4-person coverage, you would simply have one person in each of the 6 crews. If you need 8-person coverage, you would have two people in each of the crews.

But what if you need 3-person coverage or 5-person coverage or something else that isn’t a multiple of 4? That’s where this pattern stops working correctly. Yes, people use it for the wrong coverage levels or with the wrong number of crews and wonder why the coverage isn’t consistent. It only works properly for coverage that is a multiple of 4 people. And it only works if you use 6 crews on each shift.

Employees like this pattern because they only have to work 4 consecutive days and they always get 2 days off. They don’t like that they only get one full weekend off every 6 weeks. In addition, there are 2 weeks in which they only get 32 hours of pay. You could add more days to make 40 hours, but that would disrupt the 4-on-2-off pattern.

 

Here's another pattern:

6-on-3-off
Crew / Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Hours
A / Week 1	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	48
B / Week 2	-	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	40
C / Week 3	d8	-	-	-	d8	d8	d8	32
D / Week 4	d8	d8	d8	-	-	-	d8	32
E / Week 5	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	-	40
F / Week 6	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	48
G / Week 7	-	-	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	32
H / Week 8	d8	d8	-	-	-	d8	d8	32
I / Week 9	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	-	-	32
							Average	37.3

 

This pattern uses 9 crews on a 9-week pattern. It works the same way as the previous schedule. The crews begin the schedule in the week they are shown next to: Crew A begins in Week 1, Crew B begins in Week 2, and so on. After finishing that initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. After completing Week 9, they rotate up to Week 1 and start the pattern over again.

You’ll see that there are six d8s listed under each day of the week. This means that 6 crews are always scheduled to work. If you need 6-person coverage, you would simply have one person in each of the 9 crews. If you need 12-person coverage, you would have two people in each of the crews.

Using this pattern with anything other than 9 crews throws everything off. Likewise, trying to achieve any coverage level that isn’t evenly divisible by 6 won’t consistently produce the coverage you want.

 

Recommended Approach

So, if these popular 8-hour patterns only work for a limited number of situations, how are you supposed to pick a schedule? You should always begin with the desired coverage level. In this article, I will discuss 3 coverage levels:

• 1-person
• 2-person and multiples of 2 people such as 4, 6, 8, etc.
• 3-person and multiples of 3 people such as 6, 9, 12, etc.

I won’t address odd coverage levels (such as 5, 7 or 11) as these would require a custom-designed schedule, often without any crews.

I will show one pattern for each level of coverage, even though there are many others that are superior. Sorry, you have to pay for the good stuff. The patterns shown here simply illustrate the point that schedule selection should never begin with a preferred pattern. Instead, coverage levels should always be the starting point for schedule creation. Coverage levels dictate the number of crews or employees needed for each shift. Once that has been established, you can compare different work patterns using that number of crews/employees.

1-Person Coverage
Crew/Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Hours
A / Week 1	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	40
B / Week 2	d8	d8	-	-	d8	d8	d8	40
							Average	40

 

With 2 crews working 40 hours a week, there will always be 3 days a week with double coverage on each shift. In the pattern above, this occurs every Friday, Monday and Tuesday. If you eliminate the extra coverage, employees would only average 28 hours a week. Full-time employees won’t tolerate this, which is why it’s not shown.

This inefficiency is why 8-hour fixed shifts are rarely used when you need 1-person coverage. Other approaches such as 8-hour rotating shifts or any type of 12-hour shift schedule would only require 4 people, though they do make employees work an average of 42 hours a week.

Employees like this sort of schedule because they get every other weekend off. But it requires a lot more employees than other approaches, so few organizations can afford to adopt it. If you have unlimited resources and can tolerate the double coverage three days a week, go for it! Better yet, why not adopt a 12-hour fixed shift schedule that requires 33% fewer employees and gives them almost twice as many days off.

 

2-Person Coverage (and multiples of 2 people)
Crew/Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	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	d8	40
							Average	40

 

Unlike the pattern for 1-person coverage, this is more efficient because it only has 1 day of extra coverage every week. In the above example, there are 3 d8’s every Tuesday. This schedule can be used coverage that is any multiple of 2 people such as 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.

The pattern shown here is not very good for employees, however, since they would never get a full weekend off. Don’t be discouraged. There are other patterns that provide one full weekend off every 3 weeks, some that are up to 4 days long. Like I said, you have to pay to see the good ones.

You could drop the Tuesday shift in either Week 1 or Week 2 of the above pattern, but then the employees would only get 32 hours that week. Over a 3-week period, they would average 37.3 hours/week, the same as the 4-on-2-off and 6-on-3-off patterns shown earlier. In some cases, depending on the pay week, dropping the unnecessary coverage might extend the weekend off so that employees wouldn’t mind getting fewer hours of work/pay.

 

3-Person Coverage (and multiples of 3 people)
Crew/Week	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	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	d8	d8	48
D / Week 4	d8	-	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	40
							Average	42.0

 

8-hour fixed shift schedules for 3-person coverage (or multiples of 3) are the most efficient of all, since there is no unnecessary extra coverage. They do require a small amount of overtime, however.

For employees, the above pattern wouldn’t be very attractive since they would never get a full weekend off. There are other patterns using 4 crews per shift that provide weekends off. A pattern that is based on working 5 shifts in a row will provide 5 weekends off each year. A pattern based on working 6 shifts in a row will provide 6 weekends off each year. A pattern based on working 7 shifts in a row will provide 13 weekends off each year.

For work-life balance, many employees will say that working 7 consecutive days to get 1 weekend off every 4 weeks isn’t worth it. But the prospect of only getting 5 or 6 weekends of a year is even worse. That is exactly why so many companies have switched to 12-hour shifts. They found that both the company and the workers benefitted from the longer shifts. Yes, workers hated working for 12 hours, but they accepted the long hours to get twice as many days off and up to half the weekends off (12 Hour Shifts | Shift Schedule Design (shift-schedule-design.com)).

 

Summary
When choosing an 8-hour fixed shift schedule, adopting a well-known or familiar work pattern, such as the two discussed in this article, will only work properly if your coverage and number of crews match the pattern’s requirements. If your coverage or staff size doesn't match, you may have to overstaff to reach your desired coverage level and the coverage will vary from day-to-day.

Many of these well-known patterns average less than 40 hours a week - not the most effective way to utilize your employees. For employees, although the pattern may be easy to remember or explain, they rarely provide as many weekends off as other 8-hour options.

The best way to select an 8-hour fixed shift schedule is to start with the desired coverage level. That, in turn, will dictate how many crews are necessary. Three of the most common approaches were discussed in this article:

• One-person coverage using 2 crews per shift, or 6 total crews.
• Two-person coverage (or multiples of 2) using 3 crews per shift, or 9 total crews.
• Three-person coverage (or multiples of 3) using 4 crews per shift, or 12 total crews.

Once the number of crews is decided, the company can search for compatible work patterns. That way, employees can discuss and compare the different patterns, and then vote for the one they prefer. I recommend that you also include a few options using 12-hour shifts, just so the employees are aware of what else is possible. Naturally, I hope you'll consider our company to show you these different options. Please click on this link below and fill out the form. I'll respond with a proposal that outlines the best solutions and what I would charge to create them for you.

 

Request a quote for custom schedule design)

 

The most efficient shift length (one that requires the fewest staff) depends the nature of the hourly coverage requirements, i.e. whether the coverage needs are constant or vary on a regular basis throughout the day. It doesn't matter if the group operates 24/7 or something less than that. Here's a flow chart of the steps involved:

 

 

 

 

24/7 Operations

If the coverage requirements are steady throughout the day, then the best choice is either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. That's because these shift lengths don't overlap during the 24-hour day. Other shift lengths (9, 10, or 11 hours) would overlap. This not only doubles the coverage during the overlap(s), but it also increases the staffing requirements. Three 9-hour shifts require 12.5% more staff, three 10-hour shifts require 25% more staff, and three 11-hour shifts require 37.5% more staff.

 

If the coverage requirements vary fairly regularly by time of day, the organization can either use:

• Fixed shifts with different staffing levels on each shift that match the coverage requirements, e.g., 4 people on day shift, 3 people on evening shift, and 2 people on night shift.
   
• Overlapping shifts, e.g., 9 or 10-hour shifts. By changing the shift start and end times, the daily overlaps can be consolidated and matched to the busy period.
   
• An overlay shift that boosts the coverage for the length of that additional shift, e.g., a 6-hour shift from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Less than 24/7 Operations

If the coverage requirements are steady, the best choice would be a shift length that matches the hours of operation - up to a maximum of 12 hours. For example, if the company is open for 11 hours a day, the most efficient choice would be an 11-hour shift, since this would require the smallest number of employees and would avoid any overlapping shifts. If the daily hours exceed 12 hours, then 2 shifts are needed each day. For example, a company that is open 14 hours a day could have two 7-hour shifts or one 8-hour shift and one 6-hour shift.

 

If the coverage requirements vary by time of day, the organization can either use:

• Fixed shifts with different staffing levels on each shift that match the coverage requirements, e.g., 2 people on the first shift and 4 people on the second shift.
   
• Overlapping shifts. For example, if the late afternoon is busiest, a company could use a 12-hour day shift and an 8-hour evening shift that overlaps from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
   
• An overlay shift that boosts the coverage for the length of that additional shift, e.g., a 4-hour shift from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Summary

If you want to maximize employee utilization, your shift length should be based on the whether the workload and associated coverage requirements remain steady throughout the day or vary on a fairly regular basis. Steady workloads should have shifts that don't overlap for more than the length of a meal break. Variable workloads can be addressed in several different ways.

 

Many people choose the shift length for other reasons. For example, they choose 10-hour shifts, hoping to get an extra day off each week, or they choose 12-hour shifts, hoping to get more weekends off. They don't realize that this may increase the headcount requirements, not match the coverage with the workload, or utilize the staff ineffectively.

 

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:

 

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Today, we're going to look at employee work schedules at a car dealership. The manager of this dealership runs the sales department 7 days a week for 12 hours a day (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.). He runs the parts department, service writers, and mechanics for 10 hours a day (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) on Mon-Fri, but wants to add Saturday. He doesn't need a schedule for the administrative staff since they work 8 hours a day Mon-Fri.

Like many dealers, he hasn't kept data on the volume of customers by time of day or day of the week. He says the volume fluctuates too much, though it's always busier on weekends. He wants at least 2 salespeople during the week and 3 or 4 salespeople on the weekends. For parts and service writing, he wants 2 people Mon-Sat. For mechanics, he wants 6 people Mon-Sat.

Salespeople
The current schedule for the sales people consists of fixed 8-hour shifts with fixed days of work. Eight salespeople are needed to do this: four on days (Employees A, B, C, and D) and four on afternoons (Employees E, F, G, and H). The schedule is shown below. Employee A works the day shift (d8) from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday through Wednesday, Employee B works the day shift Thursday through Monday, and Employee F works the afternoon shift (a8) from 12 noon to 8 p.m. every Thursday through Monday.

Current Schedule
Employee	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Hours
A	d8	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	-	40
B	d8	d8	d8	-	-	d8	d8	40
C	d8	d8	d8	d8	-	-	d8	40
D	d8	d8	-	-	d8	d8	d8	40
E	a8	a8	a8	a8	a8	-	-	40
F	a8	a8	a8	-	-	a8	a8	40
G	a8	a8	a8	a8	-	-	a8	40
H	a8	a8	-	-	a8	a8	a8	40
							Average	40
Key:
d8 = 8-hour day shift (8am-4pm)
a8 = 8-hour afternoon shift (12pm-8pm)
Coverage:	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
8a - 12p	4	4	3	2	2	2	3
12p - 4p	8	8	6	4	4	4	6
4p - 8p	4	4	3	2	2	2	3

The resulting coverage is shown above. It produces higher coverage on the weekends, but it has a 4-hour overlap that is unnecessary. If 12pm to 4pm was a particularly busy period, the overlap would be great. But this isn't a particularly busy time of the day for sales. 

Do the employees like this schedule? Well, they like working the same shift and the same days all the time, but they hate never getting a weekend off.
We were able to convince the manager that 12-hour shifts would be a better choice. Here's the schedule we designed.
 

Proposed Schedule
Emp. / Week	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Hours
A / Week 1	D12	D12	D12	-	-	-	-	36
B / Week 2	D12	D12	-	-	D12	D12	-	48
C / Week 3	-	-	D12	D12	-	-	D12	36
D / Week 4	D12	D12	-	-	D12	D12	-	48
E / Week 5	D12	D12	D12	-	-	-	-	36
F / Week 6	-	-	-	D12	D12	-	D12	36
G / Week 7	D12	D12	-	-	-	-	D12	36
							Average	39.4
Key:
D12 = 12-hour day shift (8am-8pm)
Coverage:	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
8a - 8p	5	5	3	2	3	2	3

With this schedule, all the employees are on the same shift, but they work different days each week. This is called a fixed shift schedule with rotating days of work. Each employee starts in the week shown for them. After finishing this initial week, they rotate to the next week of the schedule. Employee A moves from Week 1 to Week 2, B moves from Week 2 to Week 3, and so on. Employee G moves from Week 7 up to Week 1. All the sales people would work the same 7-week pattern. It's just that they would be in different weeks of that pattern.

Unlike the current schedule with 8 salespeople, only 7 salespeople are needed with the 12s. The coverage is better too. The 4 hours of overlapping shifts is eliminated and they would have 5 people working both Saturday and Sunday instead of 4 people. The employees should be happier as well. They would get 2 weekends off every 7 weeks (weeks 3 and 6 of the schedule). There are also two 4-day breaks (Weeks 1 and 7) and one 7-day break (Week 5 into Week 6). 

Parts, Service Writers, Mechanics
The current schedule for these three positions is Monday to Friday for 10 hours a day (8 a.m. to 6 p.m.). The manager organized them into 3 teams, with each team consisting of 1 Parts Person, 1 Service Writer, and 3 Mechanics.

Current Schedule

Team

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Hours

A

-

-

-

D10

D10

D10

D10

40

B

-

-

D10

D10

D10

D10

-

40

C

-

-

D10

D10

-

D10

D10

40

Average

40.0

Key:

D10 = 10-hr day shift (8am-6pm)

Coverage:

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

8a - 6p

0

0

2

3

2

3

2

Team A worked the 10-hour shift Tue-Fri, Team B worked it Mon-Thu, and Team C worked it Mon-Tue and Thu-Fri. The biggest problem was that all 3 teams worked every Tuesday and Thursday - which are not busy days. Employees liked the schedule, though Team C complained that they didn't get a 3-day weekend off like the other teams did.

We created a new schedule for Mon-Sat coverage with rotating days of work so that the employees wouldn't get stuck working every single weekend. Here's what we designed.
 

Proposed Schedule

Team / Week

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Hours

A / Week 1

D10

-

D10

D10

-

D10

D10

50

B / Week 2

D10

-

D10

D10

D10

-

-

40

C / Week 3

-

-

-

-

D10

D10

D10

30

Average

40.0

Key:

D10 = 10-hr day shift (8am-6pm)

Coverage:

Sat

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

8a - 6p

2

0

2

2

2

2

2

 

Without adding any staff, we rearranged the pattern so 2 teams were working every day from Mon-Sat. The only sacrifice was one 50-hour work week and one 30-hour work week. This could be resolved by moving the Tue shift in Week 1 to Week 3, however, that would leave the Mon shift in Week 1 sitting out there all by itself. This is poor scheduling because it encourages employees to call in sick or take vacation on that day to bridge the time off before and after that day.

The advantages of this new schedule are that it uses the same number of employees, but adds Saturdays and gets rid of the extra coverage on Tue and Thu. The manager was extremely pleased with this, since he got what he wanted for a small price – the overtime for one team every week (though this was offset partially by the 30-hour Week 3).

The employees didn't like the idea of rotating and working Saturdays, but they did like getting a 6-day weekend off every 3 weeks.

Conclusions
Sometimes it helps to have an outsider take a fresh look at your business, and especially your employee work schedule. The manager of this dealership would have lived with ineffective schedules and incurred unnecessary costs for years if he hadn't decided to expand the coverage to include Saturdays and contacted us for assistance.

We showed him how to improve the sales coverage and to do it with fewer people. We showed him how to add Saturday coverage for Parts, Service Writers, and Mechanics without adding more staff. In most cases, the employees were happy with the changes. They resisted the change to schedules that rotated the days of work, but they liked the longer breaks and opportunities for weekends off.