Category: Scheduling

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How to develop a call-out policy that reduces business impact

Abstract art of man in apron on cellphone

Summary

  • Practice compassion and consistency when handling call-outs and disciplinary action

  • Clearly communicate call-out policy across your workforce so staff and managers are on the same page

  • Streamline the call-out process with mobile-first scheduling 

Picture this: You’re looking at the clock. It’s 10 minutes before your employee is scheduled to come in for their shift — and, suddenly, your phone rings. It’s your employee calling to say something urgent came up, and they won’t be able to work. All your other team members have already requested the night off.

These kinds of scenarios put managers and supervisors in a dilemma. No business wants to operate understaffed, especially with a last-minute notice, but emergencies do sometimes happen.

Striking a balance between keeping your business running smoothly and letting employees call out when they really need to can be difficult. It’s important to have a call-out policy in place, so your entire team understands when it’s appropriate to call out and how to do so in a way that helps the business work around their absences.

Create a clear and comprehensive call-out policy

Your call-out policy should clarify everything that your team needs to know about calling out so that there’s no room for misunderstanding what’s allowed and what’s not. Putting your policies and procedures into words builds accountability and sets clear expectations on what employees need to do in order to call out. Including these five elements ensures that your call-out policy covers everything your employees need to know:

  1. Definitions: Define “call out” – specifically, an employee informing you that they’re unable to work their scheduled shift as planned. Define tardiness vs. absence — someone calling to say they’ll be late versus not working at all. You should also clarify the difference between excused and unexcused absences and what criteria you use to excuse absences. For example, absences due to medical or family emergencies should be excused, but call-outs without notice and a legitimate reason should not. 
  2. Deadlines: What is the latest time before their shift that an employee can call out in order to be excused from work? You might ask employees to call out at least eight hours before their shift starts to receive an excused absence without reason, or they can call out at any time if it’s a valid emergency.
  3. Procedure: Explain how employees should submit a formal call-out request – via phone call, email, text message, or app. Who is responsible for getting their shift covered – the employee or management? Does an employee who calls out need to follow up and provide documentation or proof, like a signed doctor’s note?
  4. Records: Explain how you track attendance and shift changes across your team for visibility – for example, timekeeping and scheduling software, paper timecards, or a retail point-of-sale system.
  5. Consequences: Describe what circumstances require disciplinary action, like reaching a certain number of absences, and what penalties employees may receive. Set a limit on unexcused absences and how many will be considered job abandonment.

Keep your call-out policy simple and easy to comprehend using simple language instead of legal jargon. Walk through all of your procedures clearly, including visual how-to guides if necessary, so that employees know exactly how to call out of work while following company policy.

Treat your employees with compassion

Nobody wants to call out if it means they’ll lose their job, even if they need to call out. But you also don’t want employees fighting through hazardous weather to come to work or struggling with a personal health matter while trying to be productive. Exercising compassion and empathy puts support structures in place so that your employees can call out of work when they need to while still following the policy. 

The key to a compassionate call-out procedure is to offer flexibility as long as employees give notice as soon as possible and can provide a good reason for their absence. Include specific wording in your documentation that allows you to excuse absences for additional reasons outside of those explicitly given in your policy.

An employee experiencing a medical emergency or car trouble right before their shift might choose a “no call, no show” if they know that they won’t be excused from work for calling out too late. But if you’re willing to excuse call-outs in these extenuating circumstances, that employee would make sure you knew why they weren’t able to show up. This lets you plan around their absence more effectively because you know about it before the fact instead of after it has already happened.

Your call-out policy should prioritize your employees’ well-being and build mutual respect for both company and employee time. Give employees a certain number of sick days or personal days that they can use to call out of work at their discretion. Tell employees that you’d prefer them to be safe and call out of work than to come in under less-than-ideal circumstances. 

Create a company culture that encourages employees to communicate their needs and put themselves first. In turn, you’ll have a workforce that has more trust in their management and communicates in a timely, transparent manner when they need to take a day off.

Apply disciplinary action fairly and consistently

There’s a fine line between using disciplinary action to assign accountability and using it to punish your employees. The difference comes down to how fair the consequences are and how consistently the rules are applied.

Whatever consequences employees receive should be proportionate to how disruptive their absences are to the business. Employees who frequently call out at the last minute without a justified reason should receive more scrutiny than those who only call out once every few months. Similarly, an unexcused, no-call, no-show absence is more serious than an employee who calls out and gets their shift covered by a co-worker.

Every employee’s situation is unique, so it can be difficult to apply the rules fairly across all circumstances. An attendance point system can remove bias from attendance tracking. With a point system, employees might accrue a certain number of points for excused absences and more for unexcused absences. These points can expire or be removed from employee records over time, ensuring that only employees who excessively miss work or call out late are flagged for disciplinary action. 

Whenever you discipline employees, make sure that those consequences are justified, backed up with evidence of unexcused absences and call-outs. Don’t display favoritism toward employees with higher seniority or longer tenure; all employees should respect the company’s call-out policy equally.

Educate employees on your call-out policy

You can’t expect employees to comply with rules if they don’t even know what those rules are. That’s why it’s important to make sure your workers understand your call-out policy well before you expect them to follow it.

Make sure that all company policies are available and readily accessible to employees. Post your call-out policy on a staff bulletin board and send it to all employees via email. Add it to your employee handbook, and then ensure that all workers have a copy. Remind employees frequently about your call-out policy, especially during time periods when they’re more likely to take time off, like a holiday, spring break, or flu season.

Ensure that all managers understand the call-out policy thoroughly so that they can accurately answer any questions from their team members. Hold training sessions as necessary for managers on your call-out policy. Go over the difference between excused and unexcused absences, what kind of disciplinary actions are appropriate, and how to document call-outs. Educating both your managers and employees so that everyone knows what’s expected of them makes your call-out policy more likely to succeed. 

Fill call-outs faster with the right tools

In an ideal world, employees would never need to call out, but in reality, things happen. Put tools and policies in place to help you expect the unexpected and navigate unforeseen circumstances with ease. The right scheduling solutions can help automate the process of backfilling call-outs, proactively reducing the impact absenteeism has on your bottom line.

Workforce.com empowers both managers and workers to deal with call-outs efficiently while staying in close communication throughout the process. Shift swaps enable employees to take ownership of calling out. Meanwhile, managers have the option to reassign shifts, offer shift bids, or even remove them if no coverage is available.

If you’re in HR and having a hard time enforcing an efficient call-out policy, here’s what you can do to back control.

For more info, go ahead and contact one of our workforce management pros today.

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How to create a rotating schedule [Examples + Benefits]

Summary

  • A rotating schedule is a schedule that gives employees the opportunity to work various shifts.

  • There are various types of rotating schedules. These include the DuPont, Pitman, 24-48, and 4-3 schedules.

  • Rotating schedules are complex and pose some risks, including a lack of consistency, health risks to employees, and more complicated scheduling.

Considering a rotating schedule? Not sure what the options are, or what the benefits even entail?

Rotating schedules aren’t for everyone, but if implemented correctly and in the right context, they can be tremendously effective.

There are various options to choose from, and picking the one that’s right for your business is key to boosting productivity and revenue without placing an unfair burden on employees.

What is a rotating schedule?

A rotating schedule is one where your employees work different shifts across different scheduling cycles.

For example, in a given two-week scheduling cycle, an employee might work day shifts during the first week and night shifts during the second week. Assuming you have only two shifts per day, the employee might work both day and night shifts during the two weeks.

Approximately 2.4% of U.S. employees work rotating schedules. The numbers are higher for employees in the wholesale, retail, leisure, and hospitality sectors, with approximately 5% of employees working rotating shift schedules in these industries.

Types of rotating schedules

There are several different types of rotating schedule templates.

DuPont

The DuPont schedule is used by businesses that need 24/7 coverage. There are two 12-hour shifts spread among four teams. Each team works four nights in a row, followed by three consecutive days off, then they work three day shifts, followed by just one day off, and end the rotation working four nights. Finally, the fourth week gives seven full days off before the whole cycle starts again.

The DuPont shift schedule is popular within the industrial and manufacturing sectors. It has benefits and drawbacks for employees. Workers get a full week break, often called a long change or long break, within each 28-day rotation, which is often appealing. However, the limited recovery time between day and night shifts makes it difficult for workers to adjust, and they may struggle with disrupted sleep schedules as a result.

Pitman

The Pitman shift schedule, also called the 2-3-2 schedule, is similar to the DuPont, with four teams working two 12-hour shifts over a two-week cycle. The advantage of the Pitman schedule is it ensures workers get time for recuperation between shift cycles. They don’t work more than three days in a row, and they get alternating weekends off. Within a given two-week cycle, employees work two days followed by two days off, work three days followed by another two days off, and then work two days followed by three days off.

24/48

Employees work a full 24 hours, and then they take a full 48 hours off. This schedule works on a three-day cycle and requires three teams for it to make sense. Every employee works an average of 56 hours per week. This schedule is common in nursing and emergency services and is usually intended to reduce the number of shift changes that occur on schedules – a variable that is best minimized in these particular industries. Employees work only three days per week, but they’ll work 24-hour shifts, which can be exhausting.

4-3

This schedule splits employees into groups of six in order to provide 24/7 coverage. Each team shuffles the 8-hour shift they’re working. For example, someone on this schedule would work four days on the 6 a.m. – 2 p.m. morning shift, have three days off, work four days on the 2 p.m. – 10 p.m. afternoon shift, have three days off, then work four days on the 10 p.m. – 6 a.m. overnight shift and have three days off.

The advantage of this schedule is that staff works shorter weeks consisting of only four eight-hour days and has time to adjust their sleeping schedule before the next shift starts. However, the 4-3 shift pattern may not be the best option if employees don’t want to work weekends. Depending on how the rotating schedule falls, teams will work three consecutive weekends before having one weekend off.

The benefits of using rotating schedules

Nearly 51% of employees in jobs with rotating schedules have stuck to their jobs for three years or more. Clearly, rotating schedules offer benefits that employees are willing to stick around for.

Some of these benefits of rotating shifts include:

Gives employees more exposure to different teammates and shifts

Businesses that use rotating shifts help employees get a complete picture of operations at different hours and on different days. This can help in training employees holistically, as they know what to do on different shifts, and can strengthen your team since employees get the chance to work with different teammates.

Provides equal opportunities to earn

In the restaurant industry, for example, evening shifts might be more lucrative in terms of tips than day shifts. Through rotating schedules, all employees get the chance to work during peak hours of demand, increasing their exposure to tips.

Provides flexibility and reduces burnout

Rotating shift schedules may improve work-life balance by giving employees time to get personal things done and recover from stress. For instance, the DuPont schedule includes seven days off for every 28-day cycle. Employees may also have time for running errands outside of normal working hours since they work across different days/time slots.

Whitepaper: How to Reduce Burnout of Hourly Employees

The challenges of implementing rotating schedules

Sixty percent of workers on a weekly rotating schedule said they’d rather work another schedule, showing their dissatisfaction with weekly rotating schedules. Some challenges associated with rotating schedules include:

Lack of consistency

Employees may not like the idea of rotating shift work. Some people like the consistency of fixed shifts and predictable work hours, and the rotating schedule may not allow for this. If a business is to deploy a rotating schedule, it’s essential to give employees notice of their shifts far enough in advance. Typically, at least two weeks is standard practice in a fair workplace – any less tends to harm employee retention.

Webinar: How to Retain Hourly Employees

Health risks

Working a day shift one week and then working a night shift the next week may disrupt the body’s natural clock (aka Circadian rhythm) and pose a risk to the employee’s health. According to a study by researchers at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, “people who rotate their shifts have a 42% increased risk for type 2 diabetes.” Canadian OSH identifies common medical issues in shift workers that include disrupted circadian rhythms, sleep disorders, gastrointestinal issues, cardiovascular disorders, and general exacerbation of existing health problems. There is also a documented association with increased cancer risk, which is still being studied.

More complex scheduling

There’s a lot going on with rotating schedules, especially since you have several things to manage, like creating teams, designing work schedules, and making changes to the schedule. Scheduling can take hours from your day, so you’ll benefit from the support of sophisticated employee scheduling software.

Steps to creating a rotating schedule

Creating a rotating schedule requires a step-by step-approach:

1. Divide the entire workday into shifts

To create a rotating schedule, you must create time slots or shifts that you can rotate employees through. Start by dividing the entire workday into shifts. For example, if your office is open 16 hours a day, you could consider setting up two eight-hour shifts.

2. Determine the employee coverage needed

Determine what skills you need for each shift and how many employees you need to provide full coverage for the shift. Sometimes you may require a different combination of skills or more employees to fill shifts. Alternatively, some shifts may require a specific skill set that only some people are trained for. Labor forecasting software can help you collect predictive data on sales, foot traffic, weather, and other factors that can determine upcoming demand and help you match your staffing levels accordingly.

3. Create teams*

You can create teams of employees, depending on how many people you need to cover each shift. If shifts require only one employee, though, you need not create teams. By creating teams, you’ll be able to rotate them through different shifts. Teams are great if you want the same employees working together. You can also switch teams up if you want different people working together. Creating teams is a skill in itself, as you might want to lump together people with complementary skills, differing levels of seniority, and different responsibilities.

*Note that in a union workplace, teams may be allocated by contractual obligation rather than by the company.

4. Design the rotation

Build your shift rotation based on the needs of your business. You may find that one of the examples above — DuPont, Pitman, 24/48, or 4-3 — works perfectly for you, or you might design an alternative specifically for your business. You’ll need to account for full-time and part-time employees’ hours and ensure coverage of all the positions needed for each shift.

You could rotate schedules within a week, have employees change shifts after a few weeks, or alternate weekends. You could also experiment with employee cohorts, putting part of your workforce on a fixed schedule and the other on a rotating schedule to see which one performs best for your company. Auto-scheduling software can easily populate your schedule once your rotation is designed, automatically accounting for hourly rates, staff qualifications, and availability.

5. Monitor and adjust

Your rotating schedule needs to be easily accessible and editable in order to account for irregularities and last-minute changes. Call-outs, shift swaps, and time off requests are all expected and are part of a regular workforce. Having schedules easily available digitally via a website or app will make it easier to account for unexpected changes.

It’ll be helpful to use software to track attendance so you can fill open shifts promptly when no-shows or emergencies occur. Look for tools that give your employees the ability to easily manage their own schedules by shift-swapping and give you visibility so you can see and approve shift changes easily.

Choose the rotation that suits your business

Try out different combinations of rotation schedules to balance your employee and business needs. Give as much notice to your employees as possible before you set your rotating schedule, so employees get plenty of time to adapt to it, and your rotating schedule system is ultimately successful.

Find out more about how to create rotating schedules by contacting us today, or try your hand at creating one right now with a free trial.

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9/80 Work Schedule: Pros & Cons + Examples

Summary

  • The 9/80 work schedule: Staff work four 9-hour days, one 8-hour day, and get one 3-day weekend over a two-week period

  • 9/80 work schedules are good for gaining more days off, boosting employee morale, and saving on labor costs

  • Proper employee scheduling software is needed to handle the transition to a 9/80 work schedule

Could compressing your work schedule increase the productivity of your employees?

Transitioning to a 9/80 work schedule requires experimentation, planning, and a methodical approach to implementation. While some employees may be fine with working a 9/80 work schedule, some may not be comfortable working an extra hour a day. Administering a different work schedule also requires a few adjustments by the employer. Managers should follow a process when switching to a 9/80 work schedule and remain flexible at the same time.

What is the 9/80 work schedule?

A 9/80 work schedule covers a two-week period and is made up of eight 9-hour days, one 8-hour day, and one three-day weekend.

During the first week, employees work four 9-hour days (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) and one 8-hour day (Friday), totaling 44 work hours. The first Friday is split between two 4-hour shifts, with the first 4-hours marking the end of week one and closing out the 40-hour workweek. The second 4-hour period spills over into the second week.

In the second week, they work another four 9-hour days followed by a day off on the second Friday, totaling 36 work hours for the week. Due to the additional 4-hours worked on the previous Friday, a three-day weekend is created every other week.

So, after everything, all workers fulfill 80 hours of work over a two-week period with this compressed work schedule.

Research shows that employees look for more flexibility around their work schedules post-pandemic; 54% of employees would consider quitting their jobs if employers did not afford some flexibility in where and when they work. The same survey revealed that 33% of respondents want a shorter workweek. And the 9/80 work schedule aims to provide these employees with the flexibility that they desire along with the shorter workweeks too.

The pros and cons of the 9/80 work schedule

Since the 9/80 work schedule comes with its fair share of both upsides and downsides, it is wise to consider all angles before implementing one across a workforce.

The pros of the 9/80 work schedule are:

Pro: Higher employee productivity & morale

Having an additional day off over a two-week period gives employees more time to dedicate to personal commitments and gives them time to recharge, making them more rejuvenated when they get back to work. Breaks allow employees time to rest, which makes them more productive on the remaining days when they are at work.

Microsoft’s division in Japan says it saw productivity grow by 40% after allowing employees to work for four days a week rather than five. While the company didn’t move to a 9/80 work schedule, its results are proof that four-day workweeks make employees more productive.

Pro: More flexibility, greater work-life balance

More time away from the office, in the form of 26 three-day weekends a year, reduces the instances of burnout. Employees get a guaranteed two extra days off in a month. More time for errands, hobbies, and personal commitments. According to a survey by Cornerstone, 87% of employees believed that three-day weekends are better for stress relief than long vacations.

Also, when employees are happy with their work environment due to flexible work schedules and shorter workweeks, they’re more likely to stay with the business for longer, which could reduce staff turnover costs.

Pro: Reduced costs for the business and employees

With employees working fewer days over a two-week period, businesses can lower their labor and overhead costs, since they would need to support employees over fewer days on-site.

When Microsoft Japan moved to a four-day workweek, the company reduced its electricity costs by 23%, simply because it only needed electricity for four days a week instead of five.

Fewer workdays also mean less commuting for employees, helping them save money on travel. If a company finances commuting costs, it saves the company money too.

The cons of the 9/80 work schedule are as follows:

Con: Longer workdays

It can be more tiring to work longer days, resulting in laziness and even burnout. Employees may only have time to eat and go to bed when they return home, which may reduce their morale and motivation to work.

Working anywhere from 30–40 hours per week, which is considered full-time, can hurt employee health and wellbeing. In fact, according to a study conducted by the Australian National University, work should be limited to a maximum of 39 hours per week.

Con: Scheduling problems

If an employee takes a sick day or vacation day on a 9-hour working day, he/she has lost 9 hours of pay, instead of the usual 8 hours under a normal schedule. It’s the same for public holidays that fall on 9-hour workdays. This might create scheduling problems since your scheduling system may be programmed to count sick days as eight-hour days.

There are also overtime complications in managing a 9/80 work schedule. If you track work hours on a weekly basis, rather than every two weeks, employees who work greater than 40 hours in a week may consistently hit overtime. Since employees can work up to 44 hours in the first week of a 9/80 schedule, some businesses could find themselves paying out increased hours of overtime every other week.

For businesses that require a continual presence (like a restaurant), it may be difficult to implement a 9/80 work schedule. They must organize their scheduling in a way to ensure staff is on duty to attend to customers every day of the week. With staff regularly taking three-day weekends, scheduling gaps inevitably appear, meaning managers will need to figure out simple shift replacement procedures.

Con: Other businesses and customers could be inactive during extra work hours

If your employees are working an extra hour a day, other businesses and employees could be inactive during those hours. So, if your employees work from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., your customers may be inactive between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., making it redundant for employees to work those hours. This, of course, is assuming you work in an industry where your customers’ working hours may fall outside of your working hours as a company.

How to implement the 9/80 work schedule

Adopt a step-by-step approach when moving to the 9/80 work schedule. Evaluating if it’s right for your business, communicating with leadership and employees, trialing the new schedule, and using scheduling software that enables you to make the switch are ways to make a successful transition.

Evaluate whether the 9/80 work schedule is right for your business

It’s a good idea to evaluate the perks and quirks of a 9/80 work schedule to determine whether or not it is right for your business.

Adopting the 9/80 schedule is typically easier when employees can work on the same weekdays and take the same day off every two weeks, so there can be a company-wide day off. 10. Also, a fixed day off for the whole company means the business can close fully for a day, which could result in cost savings in the form of reduced utility bills.

Examples of workforces where the 9/80 work schedule might be a good fit include software developers, business consultants, graphic designers, writers, and accountants. Their work is focused on deliverables, and they need not work on a certain day to meet customer needs. They could easily work the extra hour a day and remain focused on their deliverables.

On the other hand, industries like retail, hospitality, manufacturing, and logistics will find adjusting to this type of schedule very difficult, as they’ll have to manage a rotating schedule to ensure customers are always attended to. It requires significant effort and organization to implement different days off for each employee to maintain staffing levels throughout the week that match output. To do this, you may have to adjust which day of the week is your “flex” 8-hour day depending on customer demand or make that flex day different for distinct employee teams/groups/locations.

Not just that, for companies in these industries, it’s hard to schedule company-wide days off, which makes it tougher to implement the 9/80 workweek schedule. Employees may also be required to do physically demanding work, or have daily personal life obligations to attend to, making 9-hour workdays impossible.

Finally, businesses will need to assess whether or not their scheduling software and processes can handle the implementation of a 9/80 work schedule. Without the right tools and automation, adopting a 9/80 work schedule across an entire organization could prove quite tricky.

Get consensus from leadership and employees

Detailed consultation of your entire workforce is required to gather the thoughts and opinions of everyone involved. You need to pay heed to how, when, and where your employees work best and assess their shift preferences.

You need to figure out if staff are open to the 9/80 work schedule, if longer workdays might negatively impact their productivity, and what their preferred days off are during the two-week period.

You also need to train employees on the new schedule and educate them about its benefits.

Trial the new schedule with employee cohorts

A transition to a 9/80 work schedule need not happen suddenly. It can be done through experimentation and trialing the new schedule with team members. One cohort could be on the 9/80 schedule, while others could be on the traditional 9–5 schedule, and depending on how the 9/80 schedule makes employees perform, you can decide whether or not to switch to it for the entire company.

This process will teach you a lot about employee preferences and if you’re able to maintain the productivity of your employees by switching to the new work schedule.

You may also try different versions of the 9/80 schedule. For instance, making Monday the 8-hour flex day for half the employee base, while the other half have Friday.

Channel resources to make the shift to a 9/80 work schedule

Use scheduling software along with a payroll service that enables the transition. There are plenty of challenges in managing a 9/80 work schedule. You’ll need to switch to a two-week period for payroll, split the first Friday into two four-hour shifts, and keep track of sick leave, PTO, or vacation based on whether it was taken on an eight-hour day or a nine-hour day.

You’ll also need to create a 9/80 work schedule template for continual use week in and week out. This schedule should be easily accessible for both managers and employees on all devices, and management should be able to assign, approve, and edit shifts depending on frontline needs.

Moving employees to the new schedule also requires having an adequate number of staff to provide shift coverage on all working days, so no customers go unserved.

Remain flexible while implementing the new schedule

Each department may implement a compressed workweek differently. For example, the customer service department may need to work longer hours on most days, but the accounting department may not need to work long hours, especially during the off-peak season. So, it’s important to remain flexible while adapting to the 9/80 work schedule, bearing in mind that customer needs are paramount and that schedules should reflect customer and business needs.

Master the 9/80 work schedule with Workforce.com

To get the most out of a 9/80 work schedule, employee scheduling, time tracking, and labor compliance all need to be in sync. Additionally, accurate information needs to flow seamlessly into payroll.

Proper workforce management software does all this for you.

Build, publish, and edit 9/80 work schedules with Workforce.com. Use it to track overtime, labor costs, and weekly work hours, and approve ready-for-payroll timesheets in minutes.

Switching to a 9/80 work schedule may seem daunting at first, but it doesn’t need to be in practice. Learn more about how to accomplish your vision by contacting us today, or by starting a free trial.

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The Pros and Cons of 12-Hour Shifts

Summary

  • Knowing the pros and cons of 12-hour shifts can help scheduling managers determine if the model fits with the specific demands of their business and the availability of their employees.

  • The pros of 12-hour shifts are that they minimize shift handovers, reduce absenteeism, and save employees time and money.

  • The cons of 12-hour shifts are that they can increase labor costs and burnout while also making labor compliance more difficult.

Do 12-hour shifts make sense? Or is it better to schedule a standard eight hours a day per employee? Which one is for you?

Knowing the pros and cons of 12-hour shifts can help scheduling managers determine if the model fits with the specific demands of their business and the availability of their employees. Scheduling managers can set optimal hours for their employees, whether by following a scheduling pattern or scheduling employees according to user demand, while also ensuring they meet labor compliance requirements.

The Pros:

There are definitely certain advantages to 12-hour shifts, including:

Simple 24-hour coverage

For businesses that need 24-hour coverage, 12-hour shifts make schedules simpler since you only need two shifts per day to have total coverage (i.e. a day shift and a night shift). Because of this, 12-hour shifts tend to be much easier to routinely schedule than a multitude of smaller 8-hour shifts. Simplified 12-hour shift patterns can also be used, meaning administrative staff will spend fewer hours constructing schedules and filling shifts while dedicating more time to accomplishing more important tasks.

Fewer shift handovers

Working 12-hour shifts reduces miscommunication and variability between shifts while also allocating more time for employees to work on projects on a continuous basis. Focusing on projects for longer periods of time with less variability in the staff managing them means objectives get completed on time and to a higher standard, as opposed to a “too many cooks in the kitchen” situation.

Most importantly, 12-hour shift patterns mean fewer shift handover problems. In a hypothetical scenario, let’s say a building needs security guards to work 24 hours a day to ensure it’s secure. If there were three guards scheduled for eight hours each, all of them would need to be filled in on important events/information occurring outside of their shifts. But if only two guards are scheduled for 12 hours each, only the two of them would need to be briefed on the security issues surrounding the building. Reducing the occurrence of shift handovers in this way helps to minimize employee skill and cost variability. It also helps minimize issues that can occur between shifts like miscommunication, equipment mistakes, and wasteful meeting times.

Reducing employee absenteeism

Employees working 12-hour shifts work fewer days, meaning they are usually more likely to turn up on the few days they’re scheduled. Employees have more to lose by skipping a 12-hour shift than an eight-hour shift since they would be sacrificing a greater number of working hours and, consequently, accrued annual leave hours. Moreover, greater responsibility tends to come with a 12-hour shift, further reducing the frequency of no call, no shows.

The greater number of days off that come with working 12-hour shifts may also reduce absenteeism. Employees can put this valuable time towards family, running errands, or dealing with other personal matters that might typically conflict with a traditional 8-hour shift schedule. Moreover, it seems as if the workforce is increasingly moving in the direction of more time off. A whopping 92% of US employees want a four-day workweek, which has been found to reduce stress, improve work-life balance, and actually increase productivity.

Saving money

Working fewer days per week means employees can save on other costs, like travel costs to and from work. If they worked eight-hour shifts, five days a week, they’d have to spend money traveling to work five days a week, while if they worked three 12-hour shifts per week, they’d only have to travel to work three days a week, helping them save on travel costs.

As per Jerry, a car insurance company, each American spends over $4,500 every year commuting to work, and that doesn’t consider the opportunity cost of the travel time involved. The opportunity cost in itself averages nearly $1,700 per employee per year. Saving on these costs would be a massive benefit.

The Cons:

Deploying 12-hour shifts also comes with several disadvantages, some of which include:

Increased risk of burnout

Working longer shifts can be emotionally and physically exhausting and can lead to burnout. Most notably, longer shifts might mess up sleep cycles for employees which can negatively affect their health.

This is especially true for employees who work night shifts – they typically get two to four hours less sleep than usual. Moreover, it can be quite difficult for night-shift workers to sleep during the day. Over time, this can cause health issues like insomnia.

In healthcare, where most nurse schedules typically involve 12-hour shifts, working longer hours may reduce the empathy nurses have for their patients and diminish the standard of care they provide to their patients. In the hospitality industry, employees may not be able to provide the same level of service throughout their 12-hour shifts. For factory work that involves manual labor, working 12-hour shifts may be physically draining and impossible to sustain. This also negatively impacts employee morale since working long shifts can take its toll on their health.

Higher labor costs

Depending on overtime laws in your location, 12-hour shifts may lead to higher labor costs.

For example, in New York, any hours worked over 40 hours a week are eligible to be paid at the overtime rate (1.5 times the regular pay rate). So, if you schedule employees to work four days a week, working 12-hour shifts each day, that means they’d be working a total of 48 hours. Forty of those hours are paid at the normal rate, while the remaining eight are paid at 1.5 times the normal rate. Employers need to be mindful of these overtime costs and schedule employees accordingly.

Typically, switching from an eight-hour to a 12-hour shift schedule can increase wages by around 2%. Ensuring cost-neutrality when switching to 12-hour shift scheduling is quite difficult, especially when no plan is in place. Even the slightest rise in labor costs can be extremely detrimental to a business’s operations. However, purposefully planning and designing a new scheduling process for cost-neutrality with the right workforce management strategy may actually eliminate an increase in labor costs.

Labor compliance difficulties

Beyond the obvious administrative issues of manually creating a 12-hour schedule, errors in labor compliance and break scheduling are additional causes for concern. You need to be mindful of minimum wage laws and overtime laws to ensure you remain legally compliant.

Breaks, especially, are very tricky to administer when dealing with 12-hour schedules. While no federal law requires you to give your employees breaks, you still need to provide them to ensure your employees remain productive. Now, if these breaks are between five minutes and 25 minutes, they’d have to be considered paid work time, but if they’re longer than 30 minutes, you can make them unpaid work breaks. You’d have to manage which breaks are paid or unpaid, adding to the difficulty of managing breaks.

Monitoring overtime laws to ensure employees get paid at the right rate for the hours they’ve worked can also be an administrative hurdle. Every location has different overtime laws, so you need to be mindful of these.

Involve employees in their scheduling decisions

While there are pros and cons to 12-hour shifts, a good way to determine if they’re right for your business is to involve employees in their scheduling decisions. Doing this empowers your staff and helps you determine whether 12-hour shifts are right for your business. Changing to 12-hour shifts represents a major cultural change. Involving your employees from the outset might pay off in the long run.

A good place to start is with a survey or open meeting intended to identify your employees’ priorities. Management should encourage workers to rank the importance of issues such as days off, consecutive workdays, weekends, overtime, and family and social needs. Once these group criteria are determined, management can begin looking at 12-hour options that address workers’ concerns and satisfy the company’s business objectives.

Want to know what role employee scheduling software plays in all this? Contact us today. 

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