The Twelve-hour Solution

One of the major concerns for employers in 24/7 economy is the challenge of keeping shiftworkers motivated. The turnover rate for companies employing shiftworkers is significantly higher than those without round-the-clock operations. Factoring in the training costs, especially for highly skilled jobs, it is certainly in the employer’s best interest to reduce turnover as much as possible.

The fundamental question is how to establish and maintain operations efficiently while retaining workers. For the past several years, there has been a growing trend towards twelve-hour shifts. Having worked them myself sporadically, I was never in favor of them. However in my case, these shifts were necessary to cover work due to inadequate manpower. In other words, I was working them on overtime. After ten days of twelve-our shifts, it was zombie time for me.

Employers today are seeing many advantages of twelve-hour shifts for themselves and the workers. Although “shift premiums” have been used for years to reward or compensate workers, the actual amount was often nothing more than a token gesture. Companies now have discovered that it is possible to entice shiftworkers even more by emphasizing the time off that is built in to these systems. Many people consider extended periods of time of to be much more preferable than a little extra cash in the form of shift premiums.

For employers and workers alike, one thing to consider when planning twelve-hour shifts is the actual number of days off in your pay period (workweek, two-week period etc. depending on your payroll schedule.) I used to work on a bi-weekly schedule that included weekends. In that case, the objective would be to schedule 80 hours in a two-week period. One such schedule may be 3 days on, 3 days off, 4 days on, 4 days off. This would add up to 84 hours worked with 7 days off. Throw in one 8-hour day, in place of a 12-hour day, or pay 4 hours of overtime, and there you have it!

Another schedule may be a 4 on, 2 off, 3 on, 3 off, 3 on, 4 off, which is a 19-day schedule. This may be a little difficult for payroll purposes, but out of that 19 days, the worker gets 9 days off.

In both cases, the worker is off about 50% of the time. Not bad.

What’s the downside? One of them is having to work the twelve-hour shifts to begin with, but depending on the job, there are a few things the employer can do to help the worker. Some employees have Bar-be-Que. nights, or perhaps watch television during breaks. Other workers may have exercise rooms, or places to work on hobbies, study, or play trivia games. Some jobs obviously are more demanding and require total attention such as nursing, law enforcement, power plant operators, etc. However some jobs are less intensive such as call centers. If no one is calling, there isn’t much to do. These jobs lend themselves more to the task of finding things for the employee to do during these down times.

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