During this past week, I was contacted by two foreign companies with labor contracts that limited the annual hours of work for their employees. They wanted me to design schedules that didn't exceed an annual target (1,712 in one case and 1,816 in the other).
 

To “simplify” the assignment, I converted the annual figures into weekly numbers by dividing the annual hours by 52 weeks: 

• 1,712 hours/year divided by 52 is 32.9 hours/week
• 1,816 hours/year divided by 52 is 34.9 hours/week 

With 12-hour shifts, the average weekly hours worked depends on the number of crews. Here are the averages:  

• 4 crews work an average of 3.5 shifts a week or 42 hours a week
• 5 crews work an average of 2.8 shifts a week or 33.6 hours a week
• 6 crews work an average of 2.33 shifts a week or 28 hours a week 

A 5-crew schedule would only work with rotating shifts, whereas the 4-crew or 6-crew schedules would work with either fixed or rotating shifts. To minimize the staffing requirements, we decided to use the 5-crew approach with rotating 12-hour shifts that average 33.6 hours/week. This worked fine for the company with the higher limit (34.9 hours/week), but not for the other company (32.9 hours/week).
 

This could be resolved by either incorporating a 30-minute unpaid meal break or scheduling a vacation period every year to reduce the hours of work. This starts to get complicated quickly, so I won't go into all the details here. I just wanted to show you how this sort of challenge can be addressed.

When people discuss shift schedules, they tend to focus on the key schedule features like the frequency of weekends off, the number of consecutive days off, how quickly you change shifts, and how many shifts in-a-row you have to work. These features may be important for the people working the schedule, but they overlook the reason for having a schedule in the first place. So much attention has been devoted to all these schedule features that the schedule's purpose has almost been forgotten.

Why do you need a schedule for your employees anyway? Is it to attract and retain good workers? Is it to keep the current workforce happy and motivated? Is it to minimize overtime? Although all of these things are important, they are not the fundamental reason for having a schedule. 

The basic purpose of a schedule is to ensure that you have the right number of the right people at work at the right time, in other words, to match the coverage with the workload. This is sometimes called effective employee utilization. A secondary goal is to minimize costs for the organization, which is often called efficient resource utilization. In short, the schedule enables the organization to effectively and efficiently carry out its responsibilities.

A schedule pattern may be very appealing to employees, but if it doesn't fulfill the essential goals of optimizing coverage and doing it efficiently, it's not good for the organization and should not be considered. If you don't have enough people at work, the organization's mission will be compromised. If you have too many people at work, you're wasting its precious resources. Once the schedule's purpose is achieved, only then can you search for options that maxmize employee satisfaction.

You can read more about this here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies. 

Search for information about 24/7 schedules and you'll find multiple websites showing examples of popular work patterns, e.g., Continental, Pitman, DuPont, 6-on-3-off, 4-on-2-off, etc. You get the impression that these schedule templates are good for any group that works around-the-clock. All you need to do is choose the option you like best.
 

This is highly misleading. There are three reasons why:

1. Coverage. Smaller organizations rarely need the same number of people working at all times. Yet the free templates found on the Internet produce constant coverage on a 24/7 basis. The primary reason you have a schedule is to match the coverage with the workload, so why would you want a schedule that doesn't do that? It would be a huge waste of your resources.
    
2. Staffing. Each template works best with a specific number of crews (usually 4). If your staff size isn't a multiple of this number, the crews will not be the same size which will result in uneven coverage. Another staffing issue has to do with schedule attractiveness. Some templates look great, but require way more employees than other, more efficient patterns. Don't get seduced by a schedule's attractiveness.
    
3. Pay Week. Each template works best for a certain overtime / pay week, e.g., Sunday to Saturday. Some schedules can be modified, but some can't. This can result unbalanced work week hours and in the loss of weekends off for employees. 

So, if looking through popular work patterns is not a good way to find a new 24/7 shift schedule, what's the best approach?
 

You should always start with the workload distribution and the associated coverage requirements. How many people do you need at work on each shift? Does this stay the same all week?
 

When we design schedules, we compare the coverage requirements with your staff size and the average hours worked each week to determine what is feasible. Sometimes, overtime may need to be built into the schedule to avoid gaps in coverage. Occasionally there may be more staff than necessary, so we'll show you different ways to utilize these "extra" resources.

We then evaluate your schedule preferences to see if this creates any problems. If the resources are adequate for the coverage and scheduling preferences, we start the actual shift schedule design. Often, we can apply common scheduling patterns as a starting point, and modify them to fit your unique circumstances.

We create several different shift schedule options to show you the range of possibilities, such as the number of consecutive days worked, different shift lengths, relief coverage, and so on. The goal is to satisfy your specifications and explore possibilities you may not have considered.

What is a better schedule anyway?

Ask employees, and some will tell you, "10-hour shifts from Mon-Thu." Others may say, "12-hour fixed shifts with every other weekend off." The common themes are the preferred shift length and format (fixed shifts vs. rotating shifts).

Ask managers, and some will say, "We need more coverage on the 2nd shift because that's the busiest part of the day." Others will say, "We need to hire more staff, but upper management has a lid on hiring" or "Overtime is killing us, so we need a schedule that will reduce it." The common themes with this group are coverage and costs.

Unfortunately, the best solutions for employees probably will not produce the best results for managers. For example, 10-hour shifts in 24/7 operations require at least 25% more staff than 8 or 12-hour shifts. And fixed shifts can increase the staffing requirements even further. Ouch! Some of the scheduling preferences just aren't feasible, and some may compromise the organization's mission.

Most organizations simply can't afford to adopt the types of schedules that employees wish they had. So the question becomes, will the best solutions for managers produce good results for employees? I believe they can. Employees won't get their fantasy schedule, but they will get an attractive pattern with good breaks and maximum possible weekends off.

Here is how I define the "best" shift schedules. They should address three goals: (1) optimize coverage, (2) minimize costs, and (3) maximize employee satisfaction. These goals are in priority order. In other words, when designing a schedule, you should start with the coverage allocation, then work on keeping costs down, and finally on what makes employees happy. Reversing this order can wreak havoc on the organization. Here's another article that explains this in much greater detail:  https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies. 

One of the most popular 12-hour police schedules is the 2-3-2 pattern, also known as the Pitman (or sometimes Pittman) schedule. The reason for its popularity is you only have to work 2 or 3 days in a row and you get every other weekend off as a 3-day weekend. No wonder so many people think it's the best. But you probably didn't know that there are some big downsides to this pattern for the night shift.

Let me explain.

Most people working the night shift tend to stay awake during the daytime on their days off (roughly 75% of the people on 12-hour shifts and 50% on 8-hour shifts). With the 2-3-2 pattern, this means that every 2 or 3 days, people are flip-flopping when they sleep. This can be really tough on sleep and alertness. In fact, it's even worse than most rotating shift schedules that rotate on a weekly basis.

Another problem with the Pitman has to do with the organization's overtime/pay week, since that dictates what days you get off for the weekend. If your pay week begins on Mon, Wed, or Fri, the 3-day weekend will be Sat, Sun, Mon instead of Fri, Sat, Sun. For the night shift, this means you have to work Friday night, so it really doesn't feel like you're getting the whole weekend off.  

If your schedule has fixed shifts, I recommend that each shift select it's own pattern. This way the day shift can work the Pitman while the night shift can work something else that is better for alertness and safety. The best choice on the night shift is the 4-on-4-off shift schedule. That's because there are fewer changes from work-days to off-days, meaning a slower rotation of when people sleep. Other 12-hour patterns lie somewhere in between these two extremes: Pitman and 4-on-4-off.

When companies expand from working 5 days a week to 7 days a week, they start by having the current employees work overtime on the weekend. Over time, however, management faces a tough choice:

1. Continue to rely on weekend overtime. To avoid alienating the current workforce, management can continue relying on weekend overtime to meet demand. Unfortunately, the situation will eventually become worse with excessive costs, lower productivity, quality and safety issues, and personnel problems such as increased absenteeism and turnover. By the time management realizes this, employees will have become addicted to the overtime and it will be difficult to change anything.
    
2. Hire a weekend crew. The company can keep the current employees on their Monday through Friday schedule and hire new employees for a weekend crew. Because it's difficult to find and retain good part-time employees, companies usually hire a full-time weekend crew that works 12-hour shifts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Double coverage every Friday is expensive. So is the common practice of paying the weekend crew for 40 hours instead of the 36 hours they actually work. Less experience on the weekend crew results in lower productivity. Personnel that work weekends often do so to get their foot in the door. After a year or more of waiting to be hired, they may get frustrated, leading to increased turnover and absenteeism. You can read more here: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=weekend-crews.
    
3. Adopt a 24/7 schedule. While the two options discussed above minimize the impact on the current workforce, they have some serious disadvantages. They might be safe from a labor relations perspective, but the cost can be considerable. The best way to avoid those costs is to adopt a 24/7 schedule. I've previously recommended a process to follow:  https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Selection_Process. I've also discussed incremental steps to take: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Expand_from_5_to_7_Days. For examples of different 24/7 schedules, please check this out: https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Schedule_Examples.

I've written numerous articles about 10-hour shifts for groups that work 24/7. If you'd like to see some of these 10-hour articles, here are the links:
 

1. https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/10-Hour_Shifts
   
   
2. 10-Hour Shifts in 24/7 Operations (shift-schedule-design.com)
    
3. 10-Hour Shifts for 24/7 Coverage (shift-schedule-design.com)
    
4. 10-Hour Shift Schedules and Police Management (shift-schedule-design.com)
    
5. 10-Hour Shift Schedules for Police Officers (shift-schedule-design.com)

For managers of 24/7 operations, 10-hour shifts have a number of shortcomings. The biggest, of course, is the fact that they require at least 25% more staff than 8 or 12-hour shift schedules. That's because you really are covering 30/7 instead of 24/7. There are several other issues, which you can see by reading the articles. 

On the other hand, there are situations where 10-hour shifts are a good choice. If you have a busy period around the same time every day, you can take advantage of the double coverage achieved with the overlapping shifts. You can boost the coverage for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day. This may require odd shift start/end times or adding a 4th shift.

For employees in 24/7 operations, 10-hour shifts are attractive primarily for two reasons:

1. Working 2 extra hours each day in order to get one more day off each week is a reasonable trade-off. Getting that extra day off each week is worth the sacrifice. And 10-hours is seen as a lot more tolerable than 12 hours.
    
2. Most people think that a 10-hour shift schedule will feature 3 consecutive days off, ideally on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Who doesn't want a 3-day weekend off all the time?

Unfortunately, in 24/7 operations, these two results aren't always realized. Similar to 8-hour and 12-hour shift schedules that average 42 hours a week, many 10-hour schedules also have overtime built into them. This means that the employees won't always get 3 days off. The number of weeks with only 2 days off depends on the 10-hr schedule adopted. Usually it's once every 5 weeks. 

10-hour schedules in smaller organizations (fewer than 21 people) won't have 3 consecutive days off either. Most of the breaks will be only one or two days long. This can be avoided by adopting a schedule with fixed days of work. The downside of this approach is that few employees will get a full weekend off, let alone a 3-day weekend. Only a few of the most senior employees will get a 3-day weekend off.

To summarize, 10-hour shift schedules for 24/7 operations rarely meet employee expectations for several reasons:

1. Most of these 10-hour schedules don't consistently offer 3 days off every week.
2. They rarely offer 3 consecutive days off. 
3. Typical 10-hr schedules feature a maximum of one 3-day weekend off every 5 weeks or 2 every 7 weeks.

Naturally, all of this depends on the staff size, the coverage requirements, and when the overtime/pay week begins. If you want to know how 10-hour shifts might work for your group, please click the following link, fill out the form, and I'll let you know what's feasible for you:  https://www.shift-schedule-design.com/21.html

In the last few weeks, a number of people have contacted me for help with their schedules. What's unusual is that many of them didn't have a scheduling preference. They said they were open to 8-hour, 10-hour or 12-hour shifts. Most of them wanted fixed shifts.
 

I started by telling them that fixed shifts often require a few more employees than rotating shifts. This is true with both 8-hour and 10-hour shifts. This can be critical when the group is already staffed at a minimum or understaffed. They could still use fixed shifts, but they would either have to hire more staff or adopt a schedule with a lot of overtime in it.
 

Next, I went into the problems with 10-hour shifts. I know, everybody loves 10s. But 10s are really inefficient when you're trying to cover a 24-hour day. You need three shifts, which means you're really working 30 hours a day instead of 24 hours. This 25% increase in hours per day requires a 25% increase in staff or a 25% reduction in the amount of coverage. Few organizations can handle this.

That leaves 8-hour shifts and 12-hour shifts. And if the coverage is not the same at all times, a 12-hour shift schedule may not be a good fit. What is needed is a combination of 8s and 12s, for example 8 people on the 12s and 4 people on the 8s. Although the 12-hour shifts might improve the efficiency (i.e. require fewer people), the 8-hour fixed shifts are highly inefficient for low levels of coverage like one person. For example, 1-person coverage requires 2 people and there would be 3 days a week in which both of them are scheduled to work.

I believe that the people who contacted me with no schedule preferences did so to find a scheduling solution to their current situation. What they didn't realize was that they had a staffing problem, not a scheduling problem.

Yes, they might find some schedule changes that are a little more efficient, but not to the extent they hoped to find. And some of those changes might result in schedules that are not very employee-friendly (e.g., 8-hour rotating shifts).

I just finished designing a set of shift schedules for a senior living facility. They needed 1 person working for 8 hours (day shift) and 2 people working for the next 8 hours (afternoon shift) throughout the week.
 

This amount of coverage requires at least 4 employees working an average of 42 hours a week. But, in this case, the manager wanted his employees to have every other weekend off.
 

To achieve that much time-off in a 24/7 operation, I would normally recommend 12-hour shifts. But this facility only needed coverage for 16 hours a day, so 12-hour shifts would not be a good fit. The only other solution would be to increase the staff size.
 

I decided to show the manager schedules for 4, 5, and 6 employees. This way I was able to show how the different staffing levels affected his goal of having every other weekend off. If he wanted to hire more staff over time, he had schedules for each level of staffing.
 

For each staff size, I created 2 patterns: one with lots of consecutive days worked (7 or 8) and one with few consecutive days worked. All of them had the same number of weekends off, but fhe former had longer breaks and longer weekends off (3 and 4 days). This way the employees could compare the two to decide which one they preferred.

Custom-designed schedules illustrate different approaches for reaching your goals. They can help with staffing decisions and with obtaining employee buy-in for a new schedule. Seeing actual examples of the different approaches supports making superior workforce decisions.