Higher-ranking law enforcement personnel (e.g., Police Chiefs, Sheriffs, Captains, and Lieutenants) tend to look at 10-hour shifts in a different way than their subordinates do. They are well aware of the popularity of 10-hour shifts among the officers/deputies, but often are unable to adopt them due to resource constraints. Let's look at the major considerations in the change to 10-hour shifts from the management perspective.

Overtime

Since four 10-hour shifts add up to 40 hours a week, some people believe 10-hour shifts will eliminate overtime from the work schedule. Unfortunately, this is not always the case as shown below:

A crew can consist of one to hundreds of officers. Unlike many 8 or 12-hour shift schedules that require 4 crews, 10-hour schedules require 5 or more crews. For example, to have 1-person coverage around-the-clock, you need 5 people if you use rotating shifts and 6 people if you use fixed shifts. To have 2-person coverage, you would need 10 people (5 crews of 2 each) with rotating shifts and 12 people (6 crews of 2 each) with fixed shifts.

The most common 10-hour schedules rely on 5 or 15 crews. These schedules average 42 hours a week, the same as most 8-hour and 12-hour schedules that use 4 crews. I occasionally get calls from Police Captains and Lieutenants who have tried to create a schedule on their own, but can't make it work. They didn't realize that the schedule needed an occasional 50-hour work week or that it required more crews. Overtime is unnecessary only when the schedule is comprised of 6 crews or 21 crews (and sometimes with a crewless schedule).

Overlapping Shifts

A schedule that uses three 10-hour shifts will have 6 hours a day in which the shifts overlap one another, producing double coverage. There are two common ways to use the overlaps:

• Overlap each shift by two hours. Officers on the out-going shift can do their paperwork while officers on the in-coming shift are out on the street. This ensures continued coverage throughout the day. This approach tends to be preferred by the officers.
  
  
• Align the overlapping shifts with the busiest period of the day. Coverage can be boosted for 6, 12 or 16 hours a day depending on how the shifts are scheduled. I recommend this approach because the primary reason for having a schedule is to allocate the resources to match the workload. The downside is that it often requires unusual shift start/end times. This approach tends to be preferred by management.

Coverage Reduction

The biggest problem with 10-hour shifts is that they require more resources than 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. A 10-hour schedule requires more staff because the officers are really covering 30 hours a day (three 10-hour shifts). This will either require 25% more personnel or a 25% reduction in the coverage levels. In most cases, headcounts are frozen, so the impact is reduced coverage on each shift.

Even if sufficient staff is available, they are usually needed for other purposes such as absence coverage. Since the absence rates in most police departments are rather high, most Chiefs opt to use any “extra” staff in one of two ways:

• Increase coverage levels above the minimum. For example, a department needs 3 officers on each shift. This requires at least 12 officers working an average of 42 hours a week. They use their staff of 16 officers to provide 4-person coverage. This allows for up to one absence on each shift.
  
  
• Build relief coverage into the schedule. This is often more efficient than increasing the coverage on each shift. For example, the same department only has 14 officers, so they adopt a 14-week rotating shift schedule in which 2 of the 14 weeks are devoted to relief coverage. This requires fewer staff and provides more flexible absence coverage.

When the "extra" coverage is lost, absences (like vacations, sick time, training, court time, etc.) will have to be covered using overtime. This is the most common reason for rejecting the switch to 10-hour shifts. This is such an important point that I have to repeat it. Adopting 10-hour shifts will reduce the coverage on each shift (except for the periods of overlapping shifts). Since part of this coverage provides a cushion for absences, the 10-hour shifts will result in much higher levels of overtime.

Absences

Some people believe that 10-hour shifts will reduce absences. Since the longer shifts provide one additional day off each week, this time can be used for doctor's appointments or other personal business. I am not aware of any studies that confirm this, but it seems possible. The Shift Length Experiment prepared by the Police Foundation did not report any significant reductions in sick leave when switching to 10s (http://www.policefoundation.org/publication/shift-length-experiment/). If there is an impact, it is undoubtedly small. 

Conclusions

10-hour shifts are universally popular with the officers. Chiefs or Sheriffs are aware of this, but often lack adequate resources to make the change. The simple fact that 10-hour shifts require at least 25% more staff than other approaches means that few departments can afford them. From what I've seen, it's primarily the larger departments that have adequate resources to adopt 10s. Smaller departments (less than 30 officers) rarely have enough personnel. 

Almost every week I'm contacted by police officers, sheriff's deputies, and patrolmen about 10-hour shifts. They believe that 10-hour shifts would benefit themselves and their fellow officers. I believe there are two reasons they think 10s would be an improvement over their current 8-hour schedule. I will take a closer look at each of these in an attempt to sort out the reality from the myth.
  

Time Off 

In 24/7 operations, typical schedules using 8, 10 or 12-hour shifts provide the following number of days and weekends off:
  

Shift Length        Days Off Per Year             Max. Weekends Off

   8-hour                           91                                       25%

 10-hour                          146                                      40%       

 12-hour                          182                                      50%

It is clear that 10-hour shifts offer more days off and more weekends off than 8s, but not as many as 12s. I believe that 10s are the most popular shift length because they offer more time off than 8s and they are seen as more tolerable than 12s. If the only objective was to maximize time off, 12-hour shifts would be the clear winner.

The key point that is often overlooked is absence coverage. With 8-hour shifts, absences are covered either by holding someone over from the previous shift or by splitting the vacant shift into two 4-hour components that can be covered by the preceding and following shifts. With 10-hour and 12-hour shifts, absences must be covered by calling someone in from a scheduled day off. Many law enforcement agenices have built additional coverage into their schedules to compensate for their high absence rates. But what happens if that extra coverage isn't available? Since 10-hour shifts will reduce the available coverage by at least 25%, there won't be any extra capacity to cover absences. So, instead of getting the expected 3 days off every week, the officers might only get 1 or 2 days off.

On/Off Work Patterns

The common perception of 10-hour work patterns is 4 days of work followed by 3 days off. In 24/7 operations, however, this pattern only works if you use 6 crews and fixed days of work. This requires a lot more staff, a backwards rotation, and fixed days of work. You can read more about this approach and its shortcomings here:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Blog?m8:post=problems-with-free-schedule-examples 

The best 10-hour schedule for 24/7 operations uses 7 crews per shift or 21 total crews. There is no built-in overtime with this schedule. It also has the most attractive work pattern (4 or 5 consecutive days of work followed by 3 or 4-day breaks). The pattern can easily be adapted for use with either fixed or rotating shifts.

If you don't have 7 officers or a multiple of 7 (14, 21, 28, etc.) per shift, your 10-hour schedule will have shorter blocks of work (two to four days) and shorter breaks (one to three days). Many officers are disappointed when they see these patterns because there are so many one and two-day breaks. These patterns are especially unattractive to anyone who is expecting to consistently get 3 consecutive days off by changing to 10-hour shifts.

Organization and Supervision 

Many 8-hour and 12-hour schedules use 4 squads. Squad members work the same shift(s) and the same days of the week. 10-hour shift schedules for small organizations (less than 50 people), rarely use squads. Some days, Officer A might be working with officers C and E. On other days, he or she might be working with officers B and D, or maybe with officers G and J.

With 8 or 12-hour shift schedules, each squad usually has a sergeant or corporal who acts as the team leader/supervisor. With 10-hour shifts, in order to ensure that a supervisor is always on duty, it's necessary to put them on their own, separate schedule. This means the officers will not always be working with the same supervisor after changing to a 10-hour shift schedule.  

Conclusions 

10-hour shifts provide more time off than 8-hour shifts, but not as much as 12-hour shifts. The extra days off may not be realized since some of them will probably be used to cover absences. Although the schedule will provide 3 days off for most weeks, they won't always occur on consecutive days. 10-hour shifts also will change the way the group is organized and supervised. Although 10-hour shifts are clearly more attractive than 8-hour shifts, they may not live up to the high expectations that many police officers have of them. I think the shift length debate among officers should not be 8s vs. 10s, but 10s vs. 12s.

Please check out my other 10-hour blog posts, especially 10-hour shifts and Police Management. Go to the search box and type in 10 hour shifts. You really need to educate yourself about this before making a choice you might regret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your group needs a new employee work schedule. Maybe the staff size has changed. Or the demand for your product/services requires you to increase the hours of operation. Perhaps you've run out of space and need to add a 2^nd or 3^rd shift. Maybe you're just tired of listening to employee complaints. Whatever the reason, you know that something has to be done.

If you're like most managers in this situation, you may be asking friends or associates in your industry about their schedules. And you're probably searching the Internet for additional ideas. It's important to find a solution that doesn't require a lot of time or money. Your regular responsibilities can't be put on hold and your budget has little room for unexpected expenditures.

Unfortunately, a schedule that's not tailored to the organization's hours of operation, coverage requirements, staff size, and pay week will rarely be a good solution. You will probably end up with problems such as these:

• Ineffective coverage
• Inconsistent coverage
• Over-staffing
• Unnecessary overtime
• Minimal weekends off

Let's look at each of these problems a little closer.

Ineffective Coverage
The fundamental purpose of the schedule is to ensure the right number of people at work during all the hours of operation, i.e., to match the coverage with the workload.

• If the work volume is fairly steady, then the coverage also should be constant. A schedule with hours of overlapping shifts would be ineffective for these situations. For example, using 10-hour shifts in an organization with a steady workload would be a waste. There is no need for the 6 hours of double coverage while the shifts overlap. It would also be costly, since it would require 25% more personnel than a schedule using 8-hour or 12-hour shifts.
  
  
• If the work volume varies by time of day or day of the week, the coverage should reflect that. Possible solutions include mixed shift lengths, overlay or power shifts, 10-hour shifts, staggered shift start times, or different coverage levels on each shift. An example of ineffective coverage is a police department with a heavier workload on Friday and Saturday evenings that uses a schedule with the same coverage throughout the week.
  
  

Inconsistent Coverage
An ideal schedule consistently matches the desired coverage. Some schedules don't do this. Here are two examples:

• Sometimes companies have more staff than the minimum necessary. They may have reached this position because they were using an inefficient schedule which required more employees or they thought the extra personnel would help to cover absences. A small food processing firm needs 5 people working on a 24/7 basis. They employ 23 people, three more than the minimum necessary. They could have used the extra employees to build relief coverage into the schedule, but instead adopted a schedule in which the coverage varies between 5 and 6 people.
  
  
• Sometimes organizations adopt schedules that produce fluctuating coverage because they like the work pattern even though it is a poor match for their requirements. For example, a warehouse needs at least 3 people working around the clock. They chose a schedule with a 6-on-3-off pattern because their employees thought it would be better than the current schedule. Because of their staff size, however, the coverage varied between 2 and 3 people. To maintain the minimum coverage levels, the company was forced to hire 3 more employees. The coverage now varies between 3 and 4 people. In this case, choosing the wrong schedule increased their costs by 25% and it is still producing inconsistent coverage.
  
  

Over-staffing
Nobody wants to overstaff, yet it happens all the time. It occurs primarily for three reasons:

• The organization sets an annual target of less than 2,080 work hours per employee (<40 hours a week). For example, a police department has a labor contract that limits employees to 1,820 hours a year. This is an average of 35 hours a week. They need 5-person coverage using 10-hour rotating shifts. Because of the reduced work hours, they have to employ 30 officers. If they worked an average of 42 hours a week, they would only need 25 officers.
  
  
• The organization builds extra coverage into the schedule rather than using relief coverage. For example, small utility needs 4-person coverage at all times. Although they could do this with 16 people working an average of 42 hours a week, they employ 20 people to have 5-person coverage at all times. They could have employed 17 people (rotating shifts) or 18 people (fixed shifts) and built relief coverage time into the schedule which would have accomplished the same thing.
  
  
• The organization wants a schedule with no built-in overtime. A small hospital needs 3 CNAs on a 24/7 basis. Their 8-hour fixed shift schedule requires at least 12 people working an average of 42 hours a week. However, they are instructed to eliminate overtime from the schedule. To maintain the same coverage, they are forced to employ 15 people at 40 hours a week.
  
  

Unnecessary Overtime
People adopt work patterns that were intended for a different pay week. If they don't tweak the schedule, they could end up with highly unbalanced work weeks and more overtime than necessary. Example:  A small trucking company found a schedule that was intended for a Sun-Sat pay week. Since their pay week starts on Monday, the employees work 60 hours one week and 24 hours the next, and the company has to pay for an extra 3 hours of overtime per employee every week.

Minimal Weekends Off
Employees want to get as many weekends off as possible. This may not be achieved if the organization chooses the wrong schedule or doesn't modify it to fit their pay week.

• A nursing home has a schedule with several split weekends in which employees work either Saturday or Sunday instead of both. A different pattern would have provided more full weekends off.
  
  
• Many work patterns work best for a certain pay week. For example, a popular 8-hour rotating shift schedule pattern that requires only 4 or 5 consecutive days of work provides 1 weekend off every four weeks - only if the pay week begins on Sunday. Trying to use this pattern with a Monday start will mean the workers never get a full weekend off.
  
  

Conclusions
When organizations select a schedule that is not matched to their specific resources or requirements, employees can suffer from fewer full weekends off and the organization can suffer from ineffective coverage and higher costs.

Sometimes an organization's scheduling requirements make it difficult to find a solution. Here an example from last week. This client operated on a 24/7 basis. It used to have 7 employees, but was just given authorization to hire an 8th person. They wanted 8-hour rotating shifts with no overtime in the schedule. The difficulty was the labor agreement that required employees to have 3 days off after any series of night shifts.

My first step was to determine what kind of coverage the 8 employees could produce without incurring any overtime. We discussed a couple of different possibilities and the client agreed on weekday coverage of 3 on days, 2 on afternoons, and 1 on nights. The weekend coverage would be 2 on days, 2 on afternoons and 1 on nights. This combination of variable coverage (shift-to-shift and weekday-to-weekend), no overtime, and 3 days off after the night shifts made the schedule design especially challenging.

My second step was to create a schedule primarily using 7 consecutive shifts. This is shown below:

The way this schedule works is that the 8 employees are initially assigned to different weeks of the schedule (A to Week 1, B to Week 2, and so on). After they complete the first week, they move down to the next week of the schedule. They continue doing this until they finish the 8th week of the schedule, after which they rotate up to Week 1. All 8 employees are working the same schedule; they are simply in different weeks of the 8-week cycle.

Although this achieved the desired coverage and had 4 days off after the night shifts ended in Week 4, there was one 48-hour work week and one 32-hour work week. My first thought was to simply move a shift from Week 2 to Week 8 to balance the hours. The only open days in Week 8 were Thu, Fri and Sat. Moving the Thu shift from Week 2 would leave an isolated workday (Wed) in that week. Moving the Fri or Sat shift would result in an isolated workday in Week 8. An isolated workday is one with days off both before and after it, which makes it vulnerable to excessive absences.

Obviously, my initial approach would not satisfy all of the requirements. There are no rules of thumb or proven procedures for doing what I did next. It's like trying to solve a puzzle by moving shifts around and experimenting with different approaches. Finally, I was able to come up with 5 options that worked. Here is one of them - just to show you that it can be done:

If you have multiple requirements like this client did, designing it by yourself will probably be too time-consuming or too frustrating. You might be tempted to accept inconsistent coverage or coverage that doesn't match your desired levels. But is it really worth those kinds of sacrifices, when you can hire a reasonably-priced expert to help?

Did you know that your shift schedule actually determines how the organization will use its two key labor resources: employees and overtime? Many people don't. They think the schedule simply determines when employees come to work and when they get time off. That's why they focus on specific work patterns (e.g., 5-on-2-off or the DuPont rotating shift pattern) or shift lengths (e.g., 10-hour shifts) when searching for a new schedule. As a result, they end up with schedules that have attractive patterns or a preferred shift length, but make poor use of the resources. Here are two examples.

Example 1

A group works 24/7. It needs 2-person coverage for 16 hours and 1-person coverage for the remaining 8 hours when the work volumes are lightest. They have 7 employees working 8-hour rotating shifts. One of the employees spends a weekend searching for free schedule examples on the Internet. He comes up with a 12-hour rotating shift pattern that provides every other weekend off. This pattern is sometimes called a Panama schedule. The other employees think it would be great to get that many weekends off, and whole-heartedly support the change. The problem is that the pattern uses 4 crews. Because of the group's size, it would have 3 crews of 2 people each and 1 crew with just one person. The coverage would fluctuate between 1 and 2 people on each shift. Adopting this pattern would create a complete mismatch between the coverage and the workload.

Example 2

A police department with 18 officers needs 4-person coverage on a 24/7 basis. They are working an 8-hour fixed shift schedule that follows a 4-on-2-off pattern. Due to budget cuts, the department will be losing 2 officers. They decide to keep the current work pattern because the officers are familiar with it and seem to like it. The problem is that the pattern only works properly with 6 people per shift. Using that same pattern with only 5 people per shift will cause the coverage to fluctuate between 3 and 4 people. The worst part is that the reduced coverage occurs on Wednesday through Saturday (when workloads are the heaviest). Once again, the chosen schedule is not an effective use of the department's resources.

You increase the likelihood of an inappropriate, ineffective, or costly solution if you ignore the resources and business requirements during the schedule search. We recommend the following process to make optimal use of your labor resources:

Step 1

Compare the staff size with the coverage requirements. Our free staffing calculators can help:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. If the desired coverage can be achieved with the existing staff, you can proceed to the next step. Otherwise, determine whether adding overtime to the schedule will allow you to consistently achieve the coverage requirements. If you're still short, you'll either need to hire more staff or reduce the coverage.

Step 2

Compare different shift lengths with the coverage requirements to identify the best fit. Our free schedule evaluation can point you in the right direction: http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Free_Schedule_Evaluation. If the workload is steady throughout the day, you could use either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. Anything else will have overlapping shifts and will require extra resources. Using 10-hour shifts, for example, would result in 6 hours of overlap (and double coverage) every day of the week. Plus it would require 25% more staff. That would be wasteful. What if the workload varies by hour of the day? For instance, if it changes at 8 hour intervals, using 12-hour shifts probably would not be a good match. In situations with highly variable workloads (e.g., communication centers or airline security operations), you may need to adopt multiple shift lengths with staggered start times. These situations often require professional assistance. 

Step 3

Find a work pattern that fits or can be adapted. In Example 1 above, the group's size (7 employees) does not match standard 4-crew patterns, so the schedule might have to be created from scratch. It might be possible to modify a standard 4-crew pattern, but this requires some experience in schedule design. In Example 2 above, the group's size (16 employees) would allow them to use any popular 4-crew pattern with 12-hour shifts. If they decide to stay on 8-hour fixed shifts, they would need to modify patterns that use 4 crews per shift.

Step 4

The last step of the process is to tweak the pattern to maximize the weekends off. At this point, it's important to take the overtime pay week into account. You don't want the changes to create unnecessary overtime or compromise the coverage. A professional schedule designer can help with this step.

Conclusion

Shift schedules determine how you will utilize your labor resources. If you want to make optimal use of these resources, we recommend a 4-step process. Yes, choosing a shift length and work pattern are steps in the process, but they are not the best places to start. If you don't feel comfortable following this process and want the best possible schedule, contact us today.

Catchy title, don't you think? Maybe I should write a book...

Anyway, I just finished adding a new page to the website with this same title. I don't want to repeat the article here, but I'll give you a little teaser from the article itself:

"If your group needs a new shift schedule, you naturally want to find the best possible schedule. But how do you know what's best? And how do you come with options for the group to consider? Let's start by exploring three things a good schedule must do: (1) optimize the coverage, (2) minimize the labor costs, and (3) maximize employee satisfaction."

Here's a link to the article:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Shift_Schedule_Design_for_Dummies.

The article also lists a process for designing schedules, but it's the 3 things a good schedule must do that is most important. So many people think a good schedule merely has the shift length they want or an on-off work pattern they heard about (e.g., Panama, DuPont, or Southern Swing). They end up with schedules that produce ineffective or inconsistent coverage, cost more than necessary, and don't maximize weekends off for the employees.

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

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

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

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

Increased employee turnover.

Increased absences.

Lower productivity.

More complaints and grievances.

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

I hope you've had a chance to try out our new staffing calculator. If not, here's a link:  http://www.shift-schedule-design.com/Staffing_Calculator. You can use this set of calculators for several purposes:

1. Staff size. You can see how many employees are required to achieve the basic coverage requirements. This does not factor in other considerations such as absences, maintenance, or training. But it will quickly tell you if you have enough staff.

2. Coverage. If you don't have enough staff for the required coverage, you can determine what coverage levels are possible. If you have more than enough staff, you can also determine how much coverage is possible.

3. Shift length. You can explore the staffing and coverage implications of different shift lengths. For example, suppose you want your group to adopt 10-hour shifts. You can use the calculator to determine whether they are feasible for your minimum coverage requirements. Alternatively, you can see how much coverage is possible for a given staff size.

4. Weekly hours. With 8 and 10-hour shifts, the calculators show the staffing requirements using 40 hours per week and 42 hours per week. The reason for the 42 hours is that many 24/7 schedules require this much time to avoid gaps in the coverage.

5. Schedule format. You can also see whether changing to fixed shifts is feasible for your group. Each shift length except 12s has separate calculators for fixed shifts and rotating shifts. The reason is that fixed shifts (with 8s and 10s) often require a few more staff than rotating shifts for the same shift lengths.