Work Schedules

[roadwarrior]

Our department currently has a rotating work schedule. All shift employees work every turn in this order: midnight-afternoon-daylight. Most of our force would rather go to a steady shift due to health and morale reasons. The thing is, we have to sell this to our Sheriff with minimal overtime. Right now, all shift employees get about 13 extra shifts a year or about 104 o.t. hours working the current system. Any ideas or examples of steady work shifts would be a great help. Thanks.

[BigDawg]

My favorite is the 12 hr schedule. If you switch to it you can cut one whole shift and absorb those Deputies into the remaining squads, hence more Deputies on the road. Plus for the Deputies you get every other weekend off, and only work 7 days out of every 14!! You can set it as a 7-7 or 6-6 etc.

Here is the schedule;

Work-- Monday and Tuesday
Off-- Wednesday and Thursday
Work-- Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
Off-- Monday and Tuesday
Work-- Wednesday and Thursday
Off-- Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Repeat above

This gives you 168 hours a month or 8 extra hours of OT. This equates to 96 hours per year, 8 less than your current system. So not only can you have more Deputies on the road, more time off per month, your Dept saves OT per year.

[Xiphos]

I agree with BigDawg. That's a fantastic schedule.

[Second Chance]

Thats my schedule to the tee...................

[2 Blue 4 U]

Our department currently has a rotating work schedule. All shift employees work every turn in this order: midnight-afternoon-daylight. Most of our force would rather go to a steady shift due to health and morale reasons. The thing is, we have to sell this to our Sheriff with minimal overtime. Right now, all shift employees get about 13 extra shifts a year or about 104 o.t. hours working the current system. Any ideas or examples of steady work shifts would be a great help. Thanks.

When I first came on the job in 1986 NYPD worked a rotating 9 squad chart. I actually did not mind it so much, over the weeks, you worked one set of midnights, two sets of days tours and 3 sets of 4X12's. Each set of tours was 5 days and the days off in between varied. The greatest thing about that chart is you got to work with everyone in the command, even if it was only for a few days. What is so great about that, well you knew who everyone was and morale was at its highest. Once the job went to steady tours, it was like it became 3 different precincts, each platoon was it's own. So if you are in a big command keep that in mind. The job also tried a scooter chart, where it had steady personnel working the first platoon and then three squads who flipped between days and 4X12's, always one squad off. That was not bad either. Forgot to mention, patrol tours are 8 hours and 35 minutes to cover change of tour and training.


BigDawg, That sounds like an awesome chart. Is it steady tours or are they flip flops, if they are steady how do they work out return dates for court trials, both traffic and criminal court for the ones on the late tour?

[TXCharlie]

I happen to be off tonight, but I usually have a 12-hour schedule most Saturday nights. Damn, that's a long time to be riding around, but I would love to have as many days off from my day job as our full-time officers get.

Rotating shifts suck, though - We were on a rotating shift at TI for a few months, until a group of us went to management and demanded that they restore the 15% shift premium rather than rotate everyone - An extra 15% salary seemed to balance things out, so people who normally don't like night shifts do it anyway to get that 15% bonus every paycheck.

We were able to convince them that the rotating shift caused a 10% loss in productivity for everyone, so the shift premium would actually cost them nothing.

[Xiphos]

We work that 12 hour rotation. Every 6 weeks we switch days and mids. Our scheduled court is on our day work schedule although sometimes you get subpoenas while on mids.

[BigDawg]

The Dept I originally worked for we flipped from days to nights or nights to days on our three day weekend off. That was really hard on everyone, its my understanding they are still doing that to this day. The Dept Im with now its the same schedule but its permanent shifts. The ones on nights get OT for court purposes as there is nothing that can be done about that. We also get a 5% shift differential for working nights.

[pgg]

When I first started we did a 12 hour shift schedule. It is still one of my favorites. You would work 4 then be off for 3 then work 3 then be off for 4. Now the guys that work the weekdays work 4 10 hour shift and have weekends off. I work weekends so I work 3 13.5 hours shifts and have 4 days off everyweek.

[ChesCopPodz]

I work 4 10's, permanent shifts. Every three months days we pick new days off. Senior guys are allowed weekends 3 out of 4 quarters. Us noobs get to pick one weekend set off out of the 4 quarters. I picked either wed, thurs, fri or tues,wed,thurs off for the rest of the year because my wife has wed, thur off. Everyone else loves me for it since theres an extra weekend off time floating out there that I didn't take.

[mavriktu]

We do the same 12s' as above except we rotate day/night every 2 freakin weeks,which totally destroys the body clock.

[countybear]

We do the same 12s' as above except we rotate day/night every 2 freakin weeks,which totally destroys the body clock.

... especially if your body clock is a sundial, right old man??

[gopherpuckfan]

... especially if your body clock is a sundial, right old man??

Haha! I tried to rep you, but I gotta spread some around first. Can anyone hit up cb for me?

[Second Chance]

We do the same 12s' as above except we rotate day/night every 2 freakin weeks,which totally destroys the body clock.

We use to run the switch every two weeks, which does screw with you. But command finally wised up and made it permanent shifts which is great for me.................straight days for three years now....................

[IndianaFuzz]

Our schedule isn't the best but is better than roadwarrior's. We work steady shifts, 8 hrs. a day. 5 on, 2 off. Every eight weeks, the schedule rotates your days off. For example, my last rotation was Monday and Tuesday nights off. Now I'm on Wednesday nights and Thursday nights off. Next I go to Saturday nights and Sunday nights off. Everyone works Fridays. But with the rotation, at least it is fair in that everyone gets weekends off at some point. But the flip side is it is 16 weeks between your 8 week stints with weekends off. But also, there is 0 overtime from scheduling. You actually have to work over your 8 hours in a shift or have a separate detail or court to get overtime. I think I'd rather have a 10 hour shift, working 4 on, 3 off schedule that does a rotation like ours every 4 or 6 weeks. That would still avoid overtime, which makes the administration happy.

[spd110]

We also work 12 hr shifts, but we work 4 days then are off 4 days. The days off are different by a day each week. Some months we catch all the weekends and some months we are off all the weekends. We never flip flop days to nights unless we have seniority and bump a new guy.

[roadwarrior]

Thanks for all of the input. I like Big Dawg's schedule. We currently have 4 shifts, with a turn commander, dispatcher and two deputies on a turn(small dept. for co. size). 10 hour shifts would be nice, but I don't think we have the manpower. It would be nice to implement the 12 hour schedule. We've had this current system all 13 years that I have been there and even beyond that. Now a lot of our Deputies and Dispatchers are younger and would like the 12 hour shift with more off days. Our corrections officers have a 12 hour schedule where they get 7 days off in a row once a month, with one week working 6 out of 7 days. A change will have to go to vote though.

[Wolven]

We have the same shift as BigDawg also. Each district (we have 4) has two permanent shifts (days or nights) and two shifts that rotate between days and nights every 3 months. We also have power shifts that work 3pm-3am for the busiest times of the day/night. I currently work days but think I am going to the power shift soon which I am looking forward to....more action.

It is nice to have the free time...time during the week to get things done when things are open. When I was a detective it was M-F 8-430. Couldnt get anything done withouth taking time off.

The 12hr shifts your corrections officers work for 6-7 days in a row...yikes. That is a lot...

[mack]

When I was a Detention Deputy we did the 12hr shifts, as did the Road Deputy's. Every six months shift bids came up and you could put in for days or nights, seniority helped but usually people wanted to stay on the shift they were on.

[Car 4]

Road Warrior....we fought this battle two decades ago. We also hired a real consultant to help us out. The unpleasant truth is that the straight 5 on 2 off shift schedule squeezes the greatest number of hours out of the available officers. Any variation of that decreases the hours worked but does increase the ability to put more units on the road at a given time. The 10 and 12 hour shifts maximize that ability but leave you often undestaffed at other times.

Of course, it is also better for the troops since you get more time off and often a more productive shift. We finally settled on a 5-2/5-2/5-3 schedule which gets you a three day every three weeks and has the effect of advancing you through the week at a reasonable pace so everyone on your squad gets a weekend.

When I left the department, we were putting out about 30 cars per shift per precinct...about 100 or more units county wide. This included patrol, street crimes, traffic and supervisors. Lots of admin or detective units also but they often didn't sign on the air so you never knew if you had that extra help.

I think they are trying to change the schedule again...but I don't know to what. We have a seniority bid for shift and by a vote of the individual precinct, it can be every three months or six months or each year. Most like the yearly change but it is up to the folks at each precinct since they are quite different.


Car 4