A 3-step guide to changing shift patterns

Changing your employees working hours needs a robust process

Changing shift patterns

In many organisations there are few topics more sensitive than changing shift patterns.

Shift workers build their lives around their working hours so, if handled poorly, the process of changing shift patterns can have a hugely disruptive effect.

The complex and sensitive nature of shift changes means some employers maintain shift patterns and shift work practices for many years, despite them no longer meeting the needs of the organisation or its shift workers.

Sticking with shift patterns that are no longer fit for purpose can have significant negative impacts on operational flexibility and resilience, job security and shift worker’s health and wellbeing.

It’s therefore important that you assess your current ways of working and see if different shift patterns could unlock significant benefits for both performance and people.

This article provides a brief overview of the key elements to focus on when changing shift patterns.

Shift changes…why are they needed?

In many cases changing shift patterns is vital to ensure your organisation’s resourcing model remains aligned to both operational requirements and shift worker preferences.

This is particularly the case in dynamic extended hours and 24 7 shift work environments.

Changes to processes, workforce demographics, shift worker preferences and demand (or all 3!) means reviewing and potentially changing employees working hours regularly is central to success.

Despite this, in our experience shift changes are often considered ‘too difficult’. The issues this inaction leads to can go unresolved for years and even decades.

Over this time most organisations experience significant change.

Demand changes. Processes and technologies change. Legislation and best practice changes. Employee preferences and expectations change.

So why don’t shift patterns change?

If you are wondering if changing shift patterns is necessary, consider if any of these apply to your organisation:

– High and unpredictable labour costs (overtime and agency)

– Underutilisation of labour resources and assets during quieter periods or shift times

– A reliance on overtime, goodwill and short notice requests to avoid capacity gaps

– Long hours, shift work fatigue risk and unpredictable rosters that impact personal lives

– Productivity, efficiency, error rates and service levels regularly below target

– Working Time Regulations compliance breaches and increased health and safety risk

– Employee relations issues which impact morale, productivity, recruitment and retention and employer brand

– A lack of flexibility, resilience and ability to adapt to changing scenarios and external factors

Shift Patterns

Finding shift patterns that balance the needs of your organisation and shift workers can be a slow and painful process.

optashift’s Shift Pattern Design service combines data science, expert insight and collaboration to create shift patterns that are fully optimised for your performance and people.

Shift pattern change law

Any initiative to introduce different shift patterns must consider shift pattern change law.

Whilst there isn’t yet legislation that specifically covers changing shift patterns, there are several laws and regulations that need to be followed to ensure any new shift patterns you implement are compliant.

These include The Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR), which stipulates that your shift patterns should not see employees work more than 48 hours each week on average.

Shift workers can opt out of this agreement, for example should they wish to work more overtime.

The Working Time Regulations also state that your shift workers should have at least 11 consecutive hours off between shifts.

This rest period and the provision of a day off every seven days is needed…or shift workers have a right to compensation.

The other key consideration when it comes to shift pattern change law is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

This states that your shift workers should given ‘advance’ notice of their shift pattern so they can ‘prepare’…but there is no legal minimum or maximum stated.

Shift work contracts

The main legal consideration when changing shift patterns are the terms within your employment contract.

Your shift work contract should set out hours of work, working patterns, shift allowance and what, if any, mechanisms are available to change shifts either at short notice (e.g. overtime and shift swaps) or more fundamentally (different shift patterns).

In our experience shift work contracts are highly variable in terms of what they stipulate regarding changing shift patterns.

Some terms and conditions of employment for shift workers are flexible and allow for shift changes with reasonable notice or consultation.

Others detail the shift pattern that employees are contracted to work. In this case, introducing different shift patterns would require negotiation.

If changing shift patterns is not a regular occurrence in your organisation, then you will usually need to factor changes to contractual terms and conditions into your approach.

It’s therefore important to seek legal counsel at an early stage to understand precisely what process should be followed regarding aspects such as notice of change and consultation periods.

Step 1 - Use data when changing shift patterns

It may be obvious that changing shift patterns is necessary…but don’t rush into it.

It’s important to assess your current shift patterns to understand what impact they are having on the organisation and shift workers…and what improvements could be made by changing employees working hours.

Shift work data analytics can help quickly identify where current shift patterns are creating a drag on operational performance, increasing risk and potentially impacting shift worker health and wellbeing.

Creating a data-led view of current ways of working is vital to help you prioritise and target benefits, establish a plan and build an evidence base to make the case for changing shift patterns.

It also establishes a baseline against which you can evaluate the benefits of introducing different shift patterns and will inform ongoing objective setting and continuous improvement plans.

There are a huge number of variables that can be captured and modelled using shift work analytics. Our experts use the optashift | Analyse tool to help you assess a wide range of data points and how they interact.

These span everything from productivity and shift work fatigue risk through to compliance and employee sentiment.

However, when changing shift patterns there are two fundamental areas your shift work data analytics model should initially focus on:

Demand

Identifying your ‘true demand’, how this fluctuates across the day, week, month or year and in what way this corresponds to available labour supply.

Capacity

Understanding how employee availability varies throughout the year and, when compared to demand, identifying the potential capacity gaps that lead to overtime, agency use and long hours working.

The insights generated by shift work analytics make a significant difference to your decision making throughout the process of changing shift patterns.

It also helps build an evidence base for the vital next step…

Shift Work Assessment

Optimising shift patterns and shift work delivers huge benefits…but complexity and competing priorities sees many organisations leave things as they are.

Our Shift Work Assessment is a streamlined process which quickly analyses all relevant operational and HR factors to give you a tailored plan for immediate improvement.

Step 2 - Engage your employees around changing shift patterns

Unfortunately some organisations neglect to fully involve Trade Unions and the wider workforce when changing employees working hours.

A lack of meaningful involvement in something which impacts people’s personal lives so profoundly can lead to a breakdown in trust.

This is partly why changing shift patterns can lead to industrial action if employers do not take the right approach.

It’s far better to ensure there is as much positivity and transparency as possible.

Help shift workers understand the need for change and that the process of identifying different shift patterns will take their views, preferences and demographics into consideration.

There are a couple of key areas you should think about when engaging Trade Unions and shift workers around shift changes:

Communications

When and how are you going to raise the prospect of changing shift patterns with the workforce?

Does the situation require contractual change?

With such a sensitive topic you need to be empathetic, ensure that you have an evidence-led rationale for change and a clear indication of both process and timings.

It’s important that there is clear and responsive two-way dialogue with shift workers.

Stakeholders need to cascade information up and down effectively, with concerns being recognised and false rumours tackled robustly.

Employment Terms & Conditions may need to go through a formal change process which could ultimately deliver benefits for all stakeholders.

Collaboration

In our experience the success of a programme to change employees working hours hinges on the meaningful involvement of your shift workers in the shift pattern design process.

Giving your shift workers the ability to understand the challenges, and influence the solutions, helps them feel truly engaged and empowered.

It’s important that the shift pattern design process is directly shaped by the collective preferences of shift workers and that the eventual solutions reflect this.

Taking a considered approach to employee engagement during the shift pattern design process ensures all stakeholders impacted can input insight and directly influence outcomes.

This will have a huge impact on the speed and success of your initiative and drastically increases the likelihood that the different shift patterns will be accepted, implemented and ultimately successful.

It also helps establish a proven and familiar approach that will support continuous improvement and make the process of changing shift patterns much easier in the future.

Step 3 - Shift pattern design

When changing shift patterns it’s important to be aware that there are a huge number and variety of different shift pattern options available.

It means you will be able to tailor the best shift pattern for your organisation and workforce.

But it also requires robust shift pattern design methodology and technology to accelerate the process and avoid any pitfalls.

Over the last three decades our experts have developed an efficient and fair shift pattern design process that balances a myriad of factors.

This approach to changing shift patterns focuses on:

Design rules

Given the sheer number of variables and interdependencies when it comes to shift patterns it’s important to establish a framework that informs and guides the shift pattern design process.

These rules can span:

– Operational considerations (shift patterns must meet demand, be within financial envelope etc)

– Compliance requirements (shift patterns must meet contractual hours, adhere to Working Time Regulations etc)

– Best practice (shift patterns must feature optimal rotations, rest days distribution etc.)

– Employee preferences (shift patterns must reflect ‘ideal’ runs of shifts, minimum and maximums of weekends/long breaks etc)

Establishing clear shift pattern design rules helps you immediately rule out irrelevant shift patterns and focus efforts on developing different shift patterns that can meet the required criteria.

These shift pattern design rules can be agreed by management, Trade Unions and employee representatives to ensure that the process of changing shift patterns is underpinned by trust.

Design ‘optioneering’

Once the design rules are established you can start to identify which relevant different shift patterns will provide ‘best fit’ for your organisation and shift workers.

We recommend taking an open-minded, creative approach to considering different shift pattern options that meet the requirements and which are practical to manage.

Our experts have developed a unique shift pattern design tool called optashift | Plan to help with this.

It speeds up the process of shift pattern identification, assessment, comparison and iteration.

It allows you to quickly arrive at a set of different shift pattern options that meet the objectives identified within your data analysis and adhere to the established design rules.

Collaboration

For all aspects of shift pattern design best practice, it’s always a good idea to take a collaborative co-design approach to achieve a consensus when changing shift patterns.

This means involving key stakeholders such as Trade Unions in the creation and agreement of both the rules and the different shift pattern options.

Co-design provides you with an engaging and transparent approach that ensures all relevant stakeholders have meaningful involvement in the development of different shift patterns.

Crucially it means they have a good understanding of how and why solutions have been developed, which is important when changing shift patterns.

In many organisations the final step of the shift pattern design process is to put forward several alternative shift pattern options for shift workers to express their preference.

This can take the shape of a vote to ensure fair and democratic selection.

Following this approach when changing shift patterns means employees can help shape and ultimately exercise agency over the shift patterns they work.

Other considerations when changing shift patterns

It’s important you don’t lose sight of the potential impact changing shift patterns has on other aspects of a business (operations, HR, finance etc.).

Each organisation is different but it’s worth you considering:

Shift work policy – Will different shift patterns require changes to things like your shift swapping rules, shift premia or benefits? Are your revised contractual Terms & Conditions developed with one eye on potential future requirements for changing shift patterns?

Workforce Management (WFM) Systems – How will the new shift patterns be managed? Is your workforce management (WFM) software capable of handling the different shift patterns? Will changing shift patterns require adapting processes such as rostering, holiday management, shift swapping, overtime allocation, time and attendance etc?

Facilities – Will the change to shift patterns have an impact on aspects such as security access, catering and transport? Bear in mind interdependencies that exist whereby changing employees working hours would necessitate different shift patterns for other teams so they remain aligned.

Shift worker support – Now you’ve optimised shift patterns is it worth looking at other aspects of shift work best practice? Is the risk of shift work fatigue being managed effectively? Do you have health and wellbeing support in place which helps shift workers manage rotational shift work effects?

Data analytics – Are you able to monitor and evaluate the performance of new shift patterns? This is crucial to help you identify opportunities to continuously improve shift patterns and ensure they respond to changing demand, capacity and other operational and HR factors.

It’s a good idea to monitor key performance data like overtime use, throughput, shift swapping and absence rates to identify if minor adjustments need to be made once you have implemented the new shift patterns.

Also ensure you continue engaging shift workers to collect feedback and sentiment and maintain an accurate demand and capacity model. This way your shift patterns remain aligned to both changing organisational needs and employee preferences.

Shift Work Health

The effects of shift work on physical and mental health are clear…so responsible employers need to provide shift workers with tailored support across sleep, nutrition, exercise and social issues.

optashift will help you deliver a programme that blends strategic, operational, practical and technical solutions that are designed in collaboration with your workforce.

Looking for help changing shift patterns?

Changing shift patterns is something optashift has helped hundreds of organisations do over the last 40 years.

Our shift work experts use data and collaboration to help you design, implement and manage shift patterns that will unlock a huge range of benefits for your performance and people.

Get in touch if you’d like one of our experts to assess your situation and identify the best way to go about changing shift patterns.