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Posted by Q Lane on May 07, 2002 at 22:04:37:Hi,
I work in a computer network monitoring centre, and I am posting here to seek advice on the best shift pattern we could use. I and my colleagues are lucky in that management would react positively to a well reasoned case for change. We are not so lucky in that the company is new to shiftworking and we have had to 'work it out for ourselves'. The constraints are:Provide 24x7x365 cover with 2 people working at the same time, using a total of 10 people, changeovers staggered by one hour to give passage of information.
Each person is contracted to work 37 hours per week and gets an average of 23 days holiday a year and 5 days training (in theory!). These days have to be covered - at no extra expense to the company. Any payment of overtime is avoided like the plague. A shift consists of 12 hours with 1 hour 'off' for lunch - which is invariably worked when it happens to be at 3 o'clock in the morning!!
Working time regulations state that a maximum of 48 hours a week may be worked over a rolling 17 week period.
What do we do?
There are 2 shifts of 5 people. Each person works a 5 week pattern of 12 hour shifts. The basic pattern is 3 days on, 3 days off, 3 nights on, 6 days off, but with 3 'cover' shifts in the middle of that 6 days off. If someone is on holiday or on training then you would need to work a cover shift. The 5 people start on a pattern with person 1 on pattern 1, person 2 on pattern 2, ....etc. Then after 5 weeks person 1 would move to pattern 4, then after another 5 weeks to pattern 2, then 5, then 3, before going back to pattern 1 after a total of 25 weeks. The other 5 people do the same but 1 hour offset i.e 7-7 and 8-8.
With no holiday or training we work 30.88 hrs per week, when you take into account holidays and training, we work 36.81 hours a week (we 'owe' management 9.88 hours a year). This is all very much in the 'ideal' world and for example we had 2 people on an extra 10 days 'paternity' leave this year.
Management currently thinks we are being a bit 'lazy' and instead of a requirement to work a cover shift when notified 5 weeks in advance (we are supposed to plan holiday and courses at least 5 weeks in advance) - they want us to be 'on call' for cover shifts i.e. if called one day, come into work the next day. This proposed 'on call' liability would take our working and 'on call' hours up to 46.33 hours. If our 'lunchbreaks' were included that would take it up to 50.53 hrs a week. I realise that is 'stretching' a point, but I also have a 1 hour each way commute for each shift done......
Ok, I'll stop winging. I also dont expect someone to do all the hard work and work it all out for me - but I'll welcome any suggestions given.
PS: on a personal level, I treat the 'days' as just a long day. I 'prepare' for nights with sleeping the afternoon before and the morning after the set of three. I find the way the weekends work out to be particularly frustrating (there is a 2 month period in every 6 when you work almost all weekends). I try to 'mess about' with times to give my family time at weekends. I find the 'nights' harder to do as time goes on. We have been soing shifts for a year. I am 43.
best regards 'Q'
- Re: Optimal Shift Pattern within constraints - UK the gardian 06:18 8/05/02 (0)
- Re: Optimal Shift Pattern within constraints - UK sleepTx 22:30 5/10/02 (0)
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