Shift jitter

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

So the tech supervisor's away and I've been tapped to co-organise the techs to cover two shifts next week. I figure that to minimise hassle for people, we could split the five-day week into a two-day and a three-day block, assign people to one of the blocks, then swap them to the other block when we do the same thing in six weeks. This way, people only have to change their personal schedules once during the week, right?

Except my co-co-ordinator seems dead set on splitting the week into Monday-Wednesday-Friday and Tuesday-Thursday. Thus making all the techs alter their schedules at least four times that week, not to mention resetting alarm clocks and other electronica.

Am I nuts? Is he? Would YOU want to change your shift every day of the week?

Comments

[plutherus.livejournal.com]

He's nuts.
I've had to work that kind of schedule. I hated it. Drove me crazy.
Even switching schedules once/week will be pretty hard on people - you might want to consider doing it on a monthly rotation or something.

If the goal is to reduce headcount, then your co-worker's plan would work. Though a layoff would be more honest.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

I've asked the local manager for years to switch away from a weekly change schedule, but he's adamant that the other techs "want it that way". My own preference would be for 6-week, 12-week or 3-monthly rotation.

I suspect that it's just because most of the techs are new, young and impressionable, and therefore are used to the crap scheduling and consider it normal.

[trayce.livejournal.com]

If its a change from mornings to evenings, it does sound insane. I swap from mornings to evenings every week and THAT is quite hard on me (so much so I'm probably about to resign). On the other hand, if its on;\ly for a week or so it might be manageable...I wouldn't want to do it had I the choice though!

[rhonan.livejournal.com]

That is when I'd ask them if they really wanted me to keep working there.

[jjjiii]

Are the techs mostly students by any chance? Classes are offered MWF and TTh, so that could be an influencing factor. Otherwise, it's a pretty fucked schedule to have to work.

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

Been there.

The stress made me say and do things that would have gotten me fired if the reason for the shuffling wasn't a recruitment freeze which had the helpdesk down to 1/3 of our nominal staffing levels.

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

Working an evening shift and then a day shift means working 16 hours out of 24. Seems like overtime to me!

[tjernobyl.livejournal.com]

But seriously, do a poll. What management thinks people want and what people actually want are often two entirely different things.

[said-by-me.livejournal.com]

That's when I would quit

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Nope. Full-time permanent employees, most with little or no external personal schedules.

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

For the sake of information:

The shifts he's talking about are one that starts at 8.30am and ends at 5pm, and another which starts at 10.30am and ends at 7pm. It's not like the "day shift", "evening shift" etc for a 24/7 coverage. Two hours difference. Not really enough to do a person's head in majorly on a regular basis. (Oh, and over the four shifts this desk runs, there's a grand total of three-and-a-half hours difference in start time).

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I work a shift similar to what you describe to to evening commitments. It's hell.

3 of my days I start @ 10:30am, 2 of them 8am, I don't know whether I'm coming or going and my sleep is interupted on some days (the dog prefers to go out at the same time in the morning regardless of when I have to wake up) and too short the other days. Give the employees a break and either scedule them one way for most if not all the week and then switch up.

[infy.livejournal.com]

Absolutely a wonderful idea...if you want to completely rotate your staff out of there. Expect a lot of people being late, confused, constantly overtired and completely aggravated at the twits in management.

My management did that to me in my previous job. No offense, but your cohort's an idiot if he thinks that's a feasible alternative. You may want to get feedback from your techs, since they're the ones who will have to work it. You could ask for volunteers for these shifts - you may find someone's inclined to the earlier or later shift.

Here's a suggestion - let him do that for the first couple of weeks along with them if he's dead set on it.

[sketchydave.livejournal.com]

What hours are the two shifts? Its not that horrible if 2nd shift ends at 9pm or is it a true 2nd shift that ends at 1am?

The only way to make a schedule like that work is to have it be 2 shifts with no rotation. You put your main guys on 1st shift and the new guys on 2nd shift which is traditionally slower. You may also want to look into paying 2nd shift a shift differential if you want to keep them. An increase of 50 cents an hour isn't much, but it shows that the company does actually care about the employee's time.

But chances are your hands are tied and you will be forced to implement something that sucks on all fronts.

[sketchydave.livejournal.com]

Thats lousy, but at least you can manage it. 2 1/2 hours you can deal with, like if you got up everyday at 6am you would be fine. I once worked at a place where I either went in at 8am or 4pm depending on the day. Its no fun when you leave work at midnight only to have to return 8 hours later!

That gets old real fast, but it was when I was on breaks at college so it worked out alright.

[sketchydave.livejournal.com]

oops, just read megpie71's post. I gots the times now

[sketchydave.livejournal.com]

How many people do they need on until 7pm? If they want full strength its really 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. I personally would want to stay every other day, because I go to the gym every other day and would just skip the gym the days I worked until 7. But if they only need say 1/3 strength then you rotate every 3 weeks.

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I manage because I have to. My evening commitments are life and death issues.