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Everything you need to know about shift working.
Training Seminars in the best way to manage your shift workers,
and,
Creating new shift patterns
March 2011

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Articles on Creating Shift Patterns

With the current economic crisis, every manager needs to think about how to reduce the impact of this crisis on their organisation. One of the best ways to mitigate the effects of a recession is to reorganise your staffing levels to match your changing workload. Restructuring your shift pattern could save you from the effects felt by everyone else. The rest of the world may suffer, but you don't have to.
For most of us it means there is a reduced demand for our product. But by meeting this fluctuation with an efficient shift pattern it means you can thrive whilst others perish. Now is an ideal opportunity to bring in a change to ensure your survival.

You need to know two things about your business, where you are now and where you want to get to.
In order to do this you need an analysis of your workload. The workload is the most important factor in any shift pattern. Understanding the workload is the key to an efficient shift pattern.
Once you have your workload you know where you want to be. Then you look at holidays, absence and training in order to calculate the number of staff you require. This is a very simple calculation, and if the number of staff you require is the same as your current staffing level then there is no change there.
Once you have the correct number of staff, the next step is to create an efficient shift pattern. By having your target workload for every hour of the day, everyday of the year, you can create a shift pattern to flawlessly meet this need.
Once you have your new shift pattern, you then need a migration pattern to move our staff from their current shift pattern over to the new one.

If you want to gain the benefits of an efficient shift pattern but do not want to lose staff in the process, there are lots of options available.
· Reduce overtime
· Annualised hours shift pattern
· Holidays included shift pattern
· Secondary work
· Improved equipment
· New methods and procedures
· Efficient shift pattern
· Change products
· Cross training
· Research and development
· Project working

These points are all interlinked, a reduction in output frees staff for Project Work (to improve your current products) and research and development (to create new products). It provides time to cross-train your staff to make them more efficient in covering for absences or leavers.

Gaining efficiency without losing staff

Once you have chosen your course of action the next step is to implement it. Creating an efficient shift pattern is covered in detail in our book "How to Manage Your Shift Pattern" as well as other useful and key advice for running your shift pattern. Alternatively for the personal touch we are running training seminars in how to create and manage your shift pattern in March 2009. We also do consultancy for any company wanting help in any area of shift pattern design and implementation.

CDT are leading consultants in shift pattern design since 1994. Our client list includes:
Prime Minister's Office, Novartis, Universities: Bradford, York, and Kent, Hospitals: Pinderfields and Nottingham City, Police: Warwickshire, and Staffordshire, RBS, Barclays, NPower, RWE, Scottish Power, Councils: Sutton, Glasgow, and Bradford City, ICI, BP, and Raytheon.

The next step

Example

Changing from 7day working to 6 day working.

Background:
Acme wants to reduce output by 15% due to a reduction in orders. Currently have 4 teams of 3 working Shift Pattern called "232 holidays excluded" where they are initially rostered to work 42 hours per week on average each. They are given 104 hours per year off in lieu in addition to their holidays, since they are contacted to work a 40 hour week. They want to change to working a 6 day operation with project work.

Step 1
Choose a day to remove.
The most expensive and unpopular shifts are the Saturday Night and Sunday day shift. Therefore these will be removed from the shift pattern. Staffing this then based on 6 days per week from the Sunday night to the Saturday day shift and shutdown for 24 hours in the week.

Step 2
Make the shift pattern nice to work on.
The above diagram shows they are working two single night shifts on Friday and Sunday, so we tag the Friday night shift on to the two night shifts worked on Wednesday and Thursday, and the two night shifts on Monday and Tuesday so that they are working 3 night shifts consecutively. This produces a much better pattern of working shifts.

Step 3
Reconciling the hours.
They were working a 40hour week, now they would be working working 36 hours per week on average, that is 144hrs per week divided by the 4 teams. So we add in 6, 8-hour project shifts (shown as P below) per week to bring them up to an average 40hour week.

Step 4
There are many different ways of organising the project shifts. Rearranging the Project shifts.
In two shift segments?

Or singularly?

Should all the project shifts be worked together?
This option also provides 7-day breaks for the staff which are in addition to their annual holiday entitlements.

Summary

All twelve valuable employees have been retained. Production has been reduced by 15%, and you now have a concentrated project time for developing new products and improving the current methods and products. Also the shift allowance has been reduced since the most expensive shifts are no longer being worked.