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Changing to new Shift Patterns |
The audience watching the show can see the artists, hardly ever do they think of the staff working behind the scenes and would probably be amazed that over 100 staff are needed. We were asked to help set up the staff roster for these staff, over 150 of them. They are the stage crews, aerial riggers, stage managers, operators, electronics, electricians, sound engineers, wardrobe and costume dressers, makeup and wig dressers, and any number of associated managers for lighting, props,etc.
Starting Point, The Workload
The starting point, as always is the workload, in this case, how many shows per day, and numbers of staff required to produce the shows. This varies during the year, but at the peak times, the table below gives the numbers of shows and the times of the shows.
Staff Categories
Each staff category will require separate staff rosters to ensure the correct staff are in place at the correct times, for instance, one team of riggers need to work overnight each day, whilst many staff need to be on duty 2.5 hours before the show and can be off duty 30 minutes after the last show has finished.
Shifts
An initial starting point to determine the number and length of shifts is a mixture of experience and guesswork. In this instance, the show times can be covered with either one or two shifts. Monday, Tuesday and Sunday have one shift, and Wednesday to Saturday have two shifts. Therefore, the weekly basic shifts total to 11 in all, seven starting in the morning and 4 in the afternoon, and each shift covered 2 or 3 shows, totalling 27 shows per week. Each category of staff requires similar breakdowns of workload into initial shift setups.
Staffing
The next step is to determine the number of staff, or teams of staff to produce 27 shows with one or two shifts per day. One option is to look at the elapsed time for the shows, per day and per week. Starting each day at 9am, means that the total cover required is about 80 hours per week, which splits nicely into a basic workload of 2 sets of shifts, each about 40 hours per week. Our previous calculation showed that 11 shifts were required each week, hence each team of staff would then be working either 5 or 6 shifts per week, averaging 11 shifts and about 80 hours per 2 weeks.
Shift Pattern
Now it is time to try out a shift pattern that conforms to the above calculations. The nomenclature used is always important, it should convey meaning and be as brief as possible, hence, I used M and A as standing for the Morning and Afternoon shifts and the number 2 or 3 to denote the number of shows performed during the shift. Hence, M3 = Morning Shift doing 3 shows at 11.30am, 2.30pm and 4.30pm. The relevant information is entered into Visual Rota and a possible shift pattern is setup in a few moments. This example is shown in the animation below. Many other shift patterns are equally applicable, and more often that not depend on the experience of the person who knows the staff.
End Point, The Workload Hours Planning Teams Shift Times
Having established a basic shift pattern, it is now necessary to see if
the staff working to this pattern can perform the work required to produce each show. This is necessary because, at each
step we have approximated the variables to fit. These might be small deviations in themselves, but the overall effect can
be to make the staff roster unworkable. For instance, we could examine the number of consecutive shifts.
The staff roster below shows the staff working 7 consecutive shifts, this
might be excessive for some staff, and when dealing with potentially fatal consequences brought
on by fatigue must be assessed. We could, for instance setup a shift pattern giving the staff 11 consecutive shifts and then 3
consecutive days off. Personally, I would deem
11 consecutive shifts as excessively fatiguing, in this situation. Hence, a limit is set, in this initial set up it is 7, but
experience may show that it can be more, or it should be less.
By setting up staff rosters in each staff category, the hours worked by the staff varies between 27 hours per week for Hydraulics, LX and Sound to 47 hours per week for Riggers, with most around 40 hours.
An exercise such as this would take one to two hours usually for each roster. For each variation of the parameters, a different staff roster is set up, so that this example showed the peak show time, other times of the year have fewer shows and these need the same amount of planning. A few hours of planning can save thousands of unproductive manhours. In this way, a series of staff rosters is prepared to cover the entire year.
At the start, I said that this roster was for over 150 staff, but because they work in teams, it is the teams that are initially rostered. Then, each team has its own roster to ensure that the correct staffing numbers and skills are always present. Changes within each team, or swapping personnel between teams is easy and does not affect the overall staff roster.
Show Times
M0NDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
SHOWS
11.30-12.30
11.30-12.30
11.30-12.30
11.30-12.30
11.30-12.30
11.30-12.30
11.30-12.30
2.30-3.30
2.30-3.30
2.30-3.30
2.30-3.30
2.30-3.30
2.30-3.30
2.30-3.30
4.30-5.30
4.30-5.30
4.30-5.30
4.30-5.30
4.30-5.30
4.30-5.30
4.30-5.30
7.30-8.30
7.30-8.30
7.30-8.30
7.30-8.30
9.30-10.30
9.30-10.30
hours/day
8
8
7+6
7+6
7+8
7+8
8
| SHIFTS REQ | 1/day | 1/day | 2/day | 2/day | 2/day | 2/day | 1/day |
| SHIFT TIMES | 9AM-6PM | 9AM-6PM | 9AM-5PM | 9AM-5PM | 9AM-5PM | 9AM-5PM | 9AM-6PM |
| 2PM-9PM | 2PM-9PM | 2PM-11PM | 2PM-11PM |
Shift Names
| SHIFT | M3 | M3 | M2 | M2 | M2 | M2 | M3 |
| PATTERN | A2 | A2 | A3 | A3 |
THE LETTER M=MORNING A=AFTERNOON
THE NUMBER AFTER THE LETTER IS THE NUMBER OF SHOWS PERFORMED BY THAT SHIFT
M3 = MORNING SHIFT DOING 3 SHOWS @ 11.30AM, 2.30PM, 4.30PM
Alec Jezewski
2005 Copyright. All rights reserved.
Tel: (00 44) 1636 816466 Fax: (00 44) 1636 816882 email: info@visualrota.co.uk
CDT website: www.visualrota.co.uk
The Old Vicarage, Station Road, Rolleston, Nottinghamshire, Great Britian, NG23 5SE
