Shift work requires that enough people are working at the right time all the time, with the right skills for those hours, and with the right skills for the job during those hours.
For the most basic operations, a simple roster where every worker works the same hours day after day will suffice.
For larger and more diverse operations, simple rosters are nowhere near sufficient, nor are they flexible enough, and nor are they cost effective.
If a company operates during normal business hours, this is a relatively simple thing to roster.
If the company operates during extended business hours (e.g., 8am to 8pm), this gets slightly more complex. Most shift workers will only be at work for 8-9 hours, of which some of that time will be taken up by breaks and other activities.
If the company operates 24/7, this very quickly becomes much more complex. Is there a permanent night shift worker? Are the workers rotated through the roster? Do the workers have their own particular shift pattern? Are some workers only available during daytime hours? And so on.
So far, all of these scenarios make the implicit assumption that each worker is fully skilled and a full alternative to all other workers. This is not always the case.
For example,
- a nurse may not be trained for a particular responsibility, and thus cannot attend to all patients
- a call centre operator may be fluent in Japanese and trained to promote products A and B, but not product C or D
- a casual supermarket checkout operator may only be available for 4 hours starting from 5pm, on Monday to Friday, and every 3rd Saturday
- a security officer may need to patrol different areas on different days, but can only patrol the areas for which they have a security clearance
Differently skilled workers can only be rostered to work during certain hours or days, and may only be able to perform certain activities during those periods.
In addition to the previous requirements, there are often needs to have on-the-job training (OJT) for new workers, skills upgrading, team days, administrative days for supervisors, audit days, etc.
People also have different types of leave which needs to be consume each year. For some places, or under some agreements, workers may only be able to consume their annual leave in minimum sized blocks.
Within a particular shift, a worker has numerous activities which they may be required or expected to do. These activities could be (but not limited to):
- reading corporate communications
- participating in surveys
- doing other administrative work
These non-operational activities affect the amount of operational time a worker has where they will actually "be doing work".
At this stage, it is possible to do a basic calculation of the number of workers required to provide the required services for any particular hour of the day and week. Starting with the maximum number of operational hours possible per person, and the total number of hours required to be serviced per day, a simple multiplication will yield the number of people required per day. Extend this to every day in a week, and you have the required number of operational people for a week.
Remember that some workers will be on leave as well (non-operational), while the rest of the team is still working (operational). So, taking the number of required number of operational workers, multiplying by the number of days of leave, then dividing by the number of weeks in a year, the result is the number of days of leave which need to be consumed in any given week. For each multiple of a week (rounded upwards), this will be the required number of "leave lines", when 1 or more people should be on leave during that week.
This is only just brushing the surface of the basics for rostering and basic resource planning.
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