In many instances, they are right. However, just as often, they are wrong.

From a pure tangible cost perspective, overtime probably is about 10% more expensive than straight time.  This means you can reduce overtime costs by adding more people (more straight time hours).  However, suppose you try to do this but overshoot the mark.  You hire so many more straight time hours that you now have more than you need.  You are overstaffed.

Being overstaffed is about fifteen to twenty times more expensive than being understaffed.  If you are understaffed you pay for overtime instead of straight time.  This probably comes to an extra couple of dollars an hour.  If you are overstaffed, you are paying full wages and benefits to hours you don’t need.  Depending on your hourly rate, this could be anywhere from $20 per hour to well over $40 per hour.

So back to the topic at hand.  When is high overtime appropriate.

The short answer is – when your workload is highly variable.

A longer answer would be – when your workload is highly variable and the skill set you require of your workforce is not readily available using any of the traditional workforce argumentors (i.e. part time and temporary labor).

If you staff to match peak workloads and your workload is variable, then you will find yourself overstaffed quite often.

If you staff to match you lower workloads, you will find yourself understaffed.  This means overtime.

The greater the variability, the more idle time you will incur if you staff to peak production and the more overtime you will incur if you staff to minimum production.  Since overtime is significantly less costly, you will pay less if your staffing tends towards the minimum production.

There are ways to schedule your workforce to closely match a variable workload.  The more predictably variable it is, the better the match becomes.

The answer is almost always, “Yes, in fact you already have multiple schedules being worked at this site.”

It would be a rare find indeed if a company was operating with its entire workforce on a single schedule. It would be even rarer if such a singular scheduling scenario was optimal from an efficiency perspective.

Consider your basic operation where there is a maintenance crew and a production crew. Quite often, these two disparate operations are on the same schedule in spite of the fact that one cannot do its job while the other is working. You can’t run a line that is taken apart for maintenance and you can fix a conveyor belt that is moving.

So different schedules are not only possible, but often necessary for the efficient operation of the facility.

Suppose that you have two different schedules but they are both in maintenance or both in production. It that feasible?

Certainly. If you have, for example, three identical production lines and you can only meet production demands if one of the lines is running 24/7, then it make sense to have one line run 24/7 while the others remain on a 5-day schedule.

While this is efficient, it can lead to complications when it comes to issues like overtime, absentee coverage and seniority. For example, if a 12-hour, 7-day schedule and an 8-hour, 5-day schedule both start at the same time and there is an absence on the 12-hour schedule, what do you do? Do you cover it by calling in a 12-hour person on their day off? Do you hold over an 8-hour person that is expecting to go home? If both options are available, who chooses which option will be used? Suppose there is a 12-hour person at home that wants to come in for the overtime but there is a more senior 8-hour person that wants to hold over; does seniority rule or does the person on the schedule get priority?

Suppose a person on a 12-hour schedule wants to take 2 weeks of vacation and an 8-hour person steps into the 12-hour schedule to fill the position, are there any policies that will be impacted? This seems like a simple issue until you understand that often pay and work policies for an 8-hour schedule do not work well for a 12-hour schedule.

The list of considerations goes on and on. Suppose there is a layoff on one product line on one schedule but not on another product line on a different schedule? If you lay off by seniority and a senior person stays but has to change lines and schedules and then wants to take vacation, will your policies work?

If you have one supervisor covering two lines and the lines are on different schedules, what schedule will the supervisor work? The more time he spends one one schedule with one crew, the less time he will spend with the crew on the different schedule.

Finally, different schedules have different levels of attraction. Are you willing to allow skilled employees to migrate to the more attractive schedule?

Multiple schedules not only work, they are often more beneficial to the company. However, be prepared for the complications that can arise from such a shift work structure.

Most shiftworkers on nights report getting less sleep than on any other shift. There are several reasons for this. First of all, if your circadian rhythms are set to keep you awake during the days and asleep at night, they will actually be working against you. Secondly, we don’t like to sleep during daylight hours because we have family and social opportunities that we don’t want to miss. Finally, there is the sleep environment itself. It is hard to completely isolate yourself from the lights and sounds of the day when you are trying to sleep.

All of this means we sleep less when working nights. The problem with 8-hour shifts is that there are a lot of them. This generally means that the more shifts in a row you work, the farther you fall behind in your sleep. At the same time, the more shifts in a row you work, the more able your body is to match your circadian rhythms to your new sleep pattern, thus improving sleep. So, on the one hand, more days in a row means more fatigue while, on the other hand, more shifts in a row means better sleep – eventually.

Now let’s consider 12-hour shifts. There are a lot fewer shifts to work if you switch from 8-hour shifts to 12’s. This generally means that you will only be working 2-4 night shifts in a row instead of 5-7 8-hour shifts in a row.

One popular schedule pattern is the 2-3-2. On this schedule, you work 2 or 3 nights in a row before getting a 2 or 3 day break. The good news is that you don’t work too many nights in a row so you never fall too far behind in your sleep. The bad news is that since you work fewer nights in a row, you never get a chance to adjust to the shift. Additionally, you only have a few days off between shifts (on some patterns) which means you may have trouble readjusting to days (on your days off) as well.

If you go to a 4-on-4-off pattern, you will work more nights in a row and thus, fall farther behind in your sleep. However, the more nights in a row means (1) your body will adjust better to the night shift than if you worked fewer nights in a row and (2) more in a row means fewer times that you need to readjust to nights when you return to work and finally (3) you have 4 days off in a row which gives you a chance to adjust to days on your days off.

A 2-3-2 pattern means that you have to adjust to night shifts 78 times a year. A 4-on-4-off pattern only has 46 adjustments to nights in a year.

So, what is best for you? It comes down to your own behavior. If you find that you cannot adjust to nights at all, it is better to work fewer night shifts in a row to limit your accumulated sleep debt. If you adjust easily to nights, work more of them in a row to minimize those difficult first couple of days that we all go through when making the adjustment.

There are several “Danger Will Robinson” issues associated with this idea. First of all, what you like may not be what everyone else likes. Secondly, what everyone else likes may not be what is best for your company.

Suppose you like to work the Day Shift and have all of your weekends off. It won’t be hard to find a schedule that provides this type of pattern. Now, suppose you work at a refinery that runs 24/7. If you have all day shifts, then others are having to work more non-day shifts. If you have all of your weekends off, then others will have to work the weekends more often. So you can see, satisfying your personal preference may not satisfy the preference of others.

Take this same refinery. Suppose everyone agrees that weekends off would be a good thing. You will have no problem finding a schedule that gives all of the weekends off and you will certainly have no problem getting a consensus that such a schedule is a good idea from a lifestyle point of view. However, a refinery must run on the weekends. Having a schedule that gives everyone the weekends off will not change that fact.

Here are a few ways that schedules differ:
amount of coverage
amount of overtime
scheduling maintenance
scheduling vacations
absentee coverage
product flow
health and alertness
shift length
number of days in a row
fixed or rotating shifts
fixed or rotating days
cross training
sanitizing schedule
shipping schedule
warehouse capacity and scheduling
seasonality
discretionary work
overtime pay and policies

This list can go on and on. Different companies, even within the same industry often need different schedules.

Take the time to do the research and find out what you should be thinking about for your situation. We are here to help. Call our office to discuss your situation with one of our shift work experts. There is no charge for the call so if you have a question, there is no reason not to ask for help.

Lean manufacturing  means to produce with the goal of zero waste.  So the question is, “What is waste?”  Waste can be inventories sitting in the warehouse not doing anything. Waste can be a downstream work center waiting while upstream work centers are falling behind. Waste can be time spent looking for tools because the workspace is a mess.

If it is not adding value, it is waste.

The shift work structure used in a Lean Manufacturing environment is extremely important. It would be a wild coincidence if every work center needed exactly the same amount of coverage every day.

In actual practice, companies try to do just that. They put everyone on the same schedule and then hope that the workload balances out. When it doesn’t, waste is created either by high overtime, high inventories or idle work centers.

Lean manufacturing works. Make sure your shift schedule works as well.

Our research has shown that employees starting at 7:00 am get about 20 minutes more sleep per night than those starting at 6:00 am. Before you run out and change your schedule, consider the following: (1) shiftworkers are typically locked into whatever start time you currently have. They will resist change. (2) The later the day shift starts, the later the night shift gets off. This is the trade-off. Ideally, a night shift would end early enough to allow the night shift to get home before the sun comes out. This means getting off earlier rather than later.

The obvious concern the company had was that they needed to qualify and quantify the problem before they could take action to fix it.

This is where we came in.  Our two-survey process accomplishes the following:

The entire workforce is involved.

One person, one survey eliminates the “squeaky wheel” issue.

The first survey finds the problem, the second survey narrows down the possible solutions

The surveys made sure everyone knows what is going on.

The results from the surveys are shared with the workforce making the process “transparent” and the results data-driven.

If you are planning a change to your shift schedule, regardless of how small and apparently inconsequential, get the workforce involved.  It is their schedule.  They have structured their lifestyles around it.  Any change will have an impact on them and their families.  Getting them involved helps them to understand what is happening, why it is happening and when it is happening.  It also lets them have some input into the final solution.

Let’s make it simple to start with.

The Good: Overtime represents a set of trained labor hours that can be used in increments needed to exactly match the job at hand. Cost-wise, overtime probably costs about 10% more than a fully loaded straight time hour. However, since it tends to be more productive, the cost per hour can actually be significantly lower.

The Bad: If there is too much overtime, the workforce will complain about not having any time off. If you try to reduce overtime, they will complain about lack of income opportunities.

The Ugly: High overtime can increase fatigue, turnover, absenteeism and safety incidences.

Well, that turns out to be a good question. Most of us have probably experienced the alertness boost resulting from a short duration nap. Studies have shown that both alertness levels and performance can improve when shift workers are allowed to sleep on night shifts. Here is one study that showed a strong positive impact, and another one that showed a positive impact – though not as strong as the first one. And there are many other similar results.

Unfortunately, most organizations have no provision for sleeping on shift. The concerns raised are often around the manageability of the naps. Questions like:

• How do we ensure people come back to work?
• How do we keep people safe while they are napping?
• How do we ensure the nap rooms are only used for naps?
• What about sanitation?
• You mean you want me to pay someone to sleep!?
• If someone doesn’t need a nap, do we have to give them an extra break?
• If one person takes a nap, and another doesn’t, is that fair?

I have some ideas for addressing some of these concerns, though not all of them. To the question about paying someone to nap, my answer is: If a person needs a nap, you can’t afford NOT to pay them to take a nap. A single mistake can cost much more than a 20-30 minute break for a nap. Especially if the 20-30 minute nap time is created by combining a break period and a nap period.

Let’s ignore the “mistake avoided” benefit for a moment and do some quick math:
• Assume that a person working a 12-hour night shift is given 15 minutes of nap time that can be taken in conjunction with either a normal break or a lunch break. The extra time can only be used in the nap room.
• If a person uses their nap break in conjunction with their 30-minute mid-shift lunch, they will come back to their workstation with 5.75 hours of work to complete before their shift is over. Since that 5.75 hours includes another paid break, assume that they actually only have 5.5 hours of actual work time remaining. 5.5 hours x 60 minutes = 330 minutes.
• A 15 minute investment for the nap will require a 15 minutes/330 minutes or 4.5% improvement in productivity to break even.

Is a 4.5% productivity improvement feasible? That probably depends on the situation. If the work is self-paced, tedious, or intellectually challenging, the answer is almost always going to be “yes”. In many cases, the improvement will be significantly more than 4.5%, and the shift worker will be happier and safer.