Mark,

I can't offer much help. Sorry. When organizations try to avoid overtime, they think they are doing something good and beneficial. In reality, they are causing other problems for both employees and the organization. Have you read my blog on 12-hour schedules without overtime. There's an example of a 5-crew schedule there. This might be something for you to consider since you are already using 5 crews. At least you would not have to work so many days each week.

Bruce

      Hello,  We (Boiler Room Operators). 4 man crew covering 24/7  8 hour days 40 hour week with the additional 8 hrs ot.  I was trying to convince our company to go with the DuPont Schedule. (hope your familuar with that schedule. If not the operators work one week 48 hours and the second week 36hours) We get paid every two weeks). I figured it to be a cost of 4 man hours (straight time) per week more.

    The HR dept is debating it.  are there any other schedules Rotating that would be 40 hr. per week (with the additional 8 hrs ot.) They want to break even. Currently we work a steady shift  the senior operator works 7 to 3  (monday thru Friday) Second operator works 3 to 11 Tues thru Sat). the Third operator works  11pm to 7am Wed thru Monday and the 4th operator works 3to11 Sat thru Mon and 11 to 7am Tues and wed). 

       I was curious if there are other schedules that are more user friendly and fair to all 4 operators.  Please let me know ( I did work one years ago that everyone rotated and had one weekend a month off) but I was hoping there were others that were better. Thanks

Tom,

I'm sorry, but somehow in submitting my reply to your comments, I managed to delete everything - your comments and mine. I'll try to remember what you said and create this new reply. Please let me know if I left something out or didn't address some of your concerns.

Organizations sometimes adopt 5-crew schedules to avoid having overtime in the work schedule. They use the 5th crew for two purposes: to fill the coverage gap and to provide relief coverage (to cover absences). The problem is that you can't do both - at least not thoroughly. If you focus on the coverage gap, that removes the relief coverage for 2-3 days a week (The reasons for more than 1 day of interruption would take too long to explain here). If you focus on providing a full week of relief coverage (as your group apparently did), you still have the coverage gap.

There are three ways to address this. One solution is to modify the 5-crew schedule so it averages 42 hours a week. The schedule will be 5 weeks long (one week for each crew) and one week will be completely devoted to relief coverage. The other 4 weeks will be completely devoted to the basic coverage requirements. If you like the 8-hour weekday shifts and 12-hour weekend shifts, you can still do this though it may require a different work pattern than your current schedule. Keep in mind that you are allocating 20% of the staff to absence coverage with this approach.

A second solution would be to adopt a crewless schedule. If you have 30 employees, for example, you could adopt a 30-week schedule. This gives you more flexibility on how you allocate the work hours. You may not need to allocate 20% to relief coverage as you do with a 5-crew schedule. Maybe you only need to devote 3 weeks to absence coverage (10%). This leaves 27 weeks for the basic coverage. If this is insufficient, you may need to build overtime into the schedule or hire a few more employees.

The 3rd solution would be to hire part-time employees to cover the gaps. This is probably the cheapest approach, but it poses challenges such as finding and retaining qualified candidates, and how to fit the part-timers into the schedule if the organization is large.

Your situation illustrates the difficulty of addressing coverage and absences. Your group hired additional staff (the 5th crew), yet there is still a need for overtime. I'm not opposed to hiring the extra staff (hey, it's great for the economy). My point is that avoiding overtime will not lower the cost of doing business. Overtime is needed for both coverage reasons and filling vacancies (usually caused by absences). You can avoid this overtime by hiring more and more staff, but that rarely will be the cheapest approach.

Bruce

any recommendation on how to split 30 employees into 3 shifts 24/7 with minimal ovetime worked

Ralph, The starting point for all schedule design efforts is the coverage requirements. Without that information, I might make assumptions about your situation that aren't appropriate. Without that information all I can tell you are some generic observations about overtime.

Most 24/7 schedules use 4 crews. With 30 employees, you could either have 2 crews with 7 people and 2 crews with 8 people, or you could have a "crewless" schedule (30 people on a 30-week schedule for rotating shifts or 10 people per shift on 10-week schedules). Schedules using 4 crews would have to average 42 hours a week if you use 8-hour shifts. Schedules without crews might be able to avoid built-in overtime, but it really depends on the coverage requirements and whether you want fixed shifts or rotating shifts.

I like to think of overtime as a substitute for staff. Increase the OT and you can reduce the staff. Reduce the OT and you must increase the staff. When you compare the costs, it turns out the overtime is usually cheaper. The primary reason is that each additional employee's cost is more than just his or her wages. There is also the cost of benefits (holidays, vacation, sick time, medical and workers comp insurance, 401K contributions, pensions, etc.).

Another point about overtime. It can occur in two places. One is in the schedule. The other is to cover absences. Organizations that avoid OT in the schedule, often have high OT to cover absences. I prefer to keep OT in the schedule to create relief coverage. This reduces or eliminates the need to use mandatory overtime to cover absences. Employees generally prefer to have regularly scheduled overtime rather than last-minute hold-overs that spoil plans and require quick adjustments to their personal lives to accommodate the overtime.

I am trying to create a 24 x 7 work schedule for a facility that requires 25 people per crew. there are 54 employees.  I need 3 teams with minimal over time. Please provide any suggestions.

Janet,

Most 24/7 schedules use 4 crews. That way each crew works an average of 42 hours a week (4 crews * 42 hours/week = 168 hours/week which matches 24 hours/day * 7 days/week = 168 hours/week). If you use 3 crews, they would have to work an average of 56 hours a week. Since you posted your comments under "Schedules with No Overtime" I'm not sure how to respond.

You said you need 25 people per crew yet you only have 54 employees. Three crews at 25 each would be 75 employees. I'm confused as to what you need. The starting point for selecting a schedule is the workload distribution and associated coverage requirements. I assume you need the same coverage on each shift for the entire week. The problem is you didn't say what that was. If I use the 54 employees, you have enough for 13 to 14-person coverage around the clock. If I use 25 people per crew for 3 crews, you have enough for 18 to 19-person coverage. If I use 25 people per crew for 4 crews, you have enough for 25-person coverage.

If you need the same coverage at all times, you can use either 8-hour or 12-hour shifts. The next step is to decide whether you want fixed shifts or rotating shifts. 8-hour fixed shifts are not as efficient as 12-hour fixed shifts or 8-hour rotating shifts, i.e., they often require more personnel.

I'm sorry I can't help you more than this, Janet. I really would need more information and clarification. I recommend that you fill out my Free Schedule Evaluation in detail so I can give you better guidance.

Hi Bruce,

Im actually handling a 24/7 call centre and have a total of 25 agents at the moment. This numbers are due to increase soon.

My concern now is to have sufficient supervisory coverage around the clock, Ive got 4 Team Leads who are to be managed with. 

Please advise how i can create a work schedule for the 4 of them, as they need to cover around the clock with out any OT, and at the same time try to have maximun face time with their direct reports as much as possible.

Thanks and Regards,

Thieru