10-hour shifts are best suited for organizations whose workload varies by time of day
10-hour shifts are extremely popular with employees. After all, they provide more days off than 8-hour shifts, and the workdays are a lot more tolerable than 12-hour shifts. Unfortunately, they are not a good choice for many organizations.
10-hour shifts are a good alternative to 8-hour shifts when there are only one or two shifts a day. Many office jobs, for example, can be handled with a compressed work week schedule consisting of four 10-hour shifts a week, Monday through Thursday. With this pattern, employees get a 3-day weekend off (Fri-Sun) every week.
If the organization must maintain the same level of coverage Mon-Fri, employees won't be able to take every Friday off. Instead, the extra day off will change each week (see example below):
Crew/Week | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Hours |
A / Week 1 | - | D10 | D10 | D10 | D10 | - | - | 40 |
B / Week 2 | D10 | - | D10 | D10 | D10 | - | - | 40 |
C / Week 3 | D10 | D10 | - | D10 | D10 | - | - | 40 |
D / Week 4 | D10 | D10 | D10 | - | D10 | - | - | 40 |
E / Week 5 | D10 | D10 | D10 | D10 | - | - | - | 40 |
The way this schedule works is that each of the five crews is initially assigned to one of the five weeks in the schedule (A to week 1, B to week 2, and so on). After they finish their first week, they move down to the next week of the schedule, and continue doing this until they complete Week 5. After that, they rotate up to the first week of the schedule. This way, all five crews work the same 5-week pattern and share equally in the 4-day weekend off (which only occurs once every 5 weeks when transitioning from week 5 to week 1).
This pattern requires the staff size to be a multiple of 5 people (e.g., 5, 10, 15, etc.). Four of the 5 crews will be working each day, Monday through Friday. A different crew will be off each day of the week. The biggest downside from the organization's perspective is the reduced coverage, as only 4 crews are working each day rather than all 5 crews. Or, stated another way, it takes 5 crews to do what 4 crews can do with 8-hour shifts.
For organizations that operate 24/7, 10-hour shifts are best suited for variable workloads. Good examples are police and communication centers that need more employees on duty during high-activity periods such as the evening rush hours or when the bars close. When you squeeze three 10-hour shifts into a 24-hour period, the shifts will overlap one another for 6 hours. If you align the overlapping shifts with the busy period(s), you will increase the coverage when the workload is heaviest. If the busy period lasts longer than 6 hours, you can extend the overlapping shifts by creating two separate schedules that are six hours apart or by adding a fourth shift. This can get pretty tricky, and may require an expert's guidance.
10-hour shifts are NOT a good choice if your workload stays constant throughout the day. Why would you want double coverage for 6 hours every day if your workload is always the same? Even though the employees would be happy, the organization would have to make too many sacrifices, as described below:
Because of these limitations, the design of an effective 10-hour shift schedule may not be something you can do on your own. Figuring out how to make the schedule work or how to get around the six limitations described above is not simple. If your busy period lasts more than 6 hours a day or if you have more than one busy period per day, you will probably need the assistance of someone who specializes in this.
If you would like more information about 10-hour shift schedules, we suggest you check out the following articles:
You also may want to read some of our blog posts about 10-hour shift schedules: