The modern workforce is ever-changing, and one significant trend that has emerged is the shift towards more flexible working arrangements. This movement has sparked a debate between traditional shift patterns and flexible working patterns. This is particularly true in sectors traditionally staffed almost exclusively by employees working shift patterns; many in these sectors are considering more flexible working patterns. These include manufacturing, warehousing and food production. There is less debate in sectors where flexible working patterns have dominated, such as retail, leisure and hospitality.
In this article, we look at why managers are considering more flexible working patterns and the pros and cons of shift patterns and more flexible alternatives.
What are Traditional Shift Patterns?
Traditional shift patterns refer to the fixed hours employees are expected to work, often in 8-hour blocks. These shifts might be during regular business hours or spread across different shifts like morning, afternoon, and night and in patterns such as 4 on 4 off, the 3 shift pattern and the continental shift pattern.
Shift patterns aim to provide adequate coverage and man-hours for any business. They are a fixed set of rules that reduce the need for complex scheduling tools because the work patterns have been worked out in advance and documented. They work well in factories and other large venues where the workload is relatively static, but coverage is needed for more than 8 hours per day.
The Pros and Cons of Traditional Shift Patterns:
Pros
- Predictability: It’s easier to schedule tasks and coordinate teams when everyone works the same hours. Staff can often predict their working days many years in advance.
- Clear Expectations: Employees know exactly when they are expected to be present and working, which can reduce confusion.
- Simplifies Management: Managing staffing levels is often easier with fixed shifts, as you can quickly see where gaps might exist. No need for expensive employee scheduling software:
- Staff satisfaction: Many employees like these routines, especially if they have been working them for many years and many non work routines get built around the expected days off.
- Easy to comply with Working Time Directive: The shift patterns can be designed to comply from day one, and breaches are rare.
Cons
- They make it difficult for a business to evolve with change: As supply chains become ever more complex and buyers are expecting more flexibility and less commitment, employers need to change with buyer expectations. A flexible workforce makes this easier to achieve.
- Demand is not always static: Whilst it is often easy to increase staffing levels through overtime and agency staff, it is often hard to reallocate that cost from quiet periods. This means that costs are nearly always above budget and never below.
- Lack of Flexibility: Some employees may find rigid schedules challenging to reconcile with their personal lives or commitments.
- Potential Burnout: Back-to-back shifts, especially in stressful environments, can lead to employee burnout and decreased productivity. This is especially true of people on permanent night shifts.
- Leave is often less flexible for employees: with factory closures and other enforced time off, staff often have less flexibility when they can take a break.
- Managing absence: Often sickness and other absence goes unfilled in the shift because all of the other employees have their fixed shift patterns and are on their off period.
What are Flexible Shift Patterns?
These involve two key elements: flexible contracts and flexible shift patterns. Employees can often work a different number of hours each week and different shifts each week.
These arrangements are most often found in retailers and other businesses where the level of demand for customer service varies throughout the week.
What is the difference between a flexible working pattern and a flexible contract?
A flexible contract might see someone with a 32-hour contract working an average of 37 hours. This means the employer is contractually obligated to pay for 32 hours of work per week but can call on extra hours to manage demand. Flexible shift patterns mean the employee has no or limited shift patterns and can work different hours each week.
The pros and cons of flexible working
Pros
- It will generate higher sales for the same staff spend: Matching staff more accurately to changing levels of demands ensures customers are served when needed and staff aren’t sitting idle during quiet periods.
- Leave and other absences are easier to manage: If someone is off for planned or unplanned reasons, it is easier to offer their hours to someone else without breaking a regular shift pattern.
- It is easier to reduce costs during quieter periods: With accurate AI forecasting, demand can be predicted, and staff need not be scheduled during quiet times.
- Shift patterns can still be incorporated into a flexible schedule: for example, an employee could have half of their hours fixed to certain days or shifts in a week with the flexibility being around the other half of the week such as weekends.
Cons
- It requires more management time: A shift needs building and approving each week. Software can help a lot but managers need to review the output.
- It is more likely to breach Working Time Directives and other compliance rules: Changing shift patterns is more likely to lead to a breach without software to monitor each rota.
- It requires sophisticated software to manage: the full benefits of flexible working can often only be delivered whilst staying compliant if you use workforce management software with AI-powered forecasting and scheduling.
Hybrid solutions
We are seeing employers who have traditionally worked exclusively in fixed shift patterns more to flexible working patterns because demand is no longer static and they need to adapt to changing business needs.
What sort of hybrid solutions exist?
We are seeing three main types of flexibility being introduced. We are seeing companies change entirely from fixed shift patterns to flexible working, instead, we see the introduction of hybrid models.
- New employees on flexible contracts – existing employees on shift patterns: This allows a floating pool of staff to support an existing shift. As the team that works fixed shifts reduces in size over time, flexible staff are available to fill in the gaps during busy times or leave them empty during quieter periods/
- Some departments on flexible scheduling: We have seen factories where the production lines are still on shift patterns, but support services such as cleaning, maintenance and transport are moved to flexible working patterns.
- Hybrid shift patterns: These might see employees guaranteed 3 fixed days of shifts that don’t vary and flexibility on the fourth and fifth day and an increased reliance on overtime.
Conclusion
As the business world becomes more complex and factories become more responsive to demand, we are seeing more hybrid working patterns that mix flexible working with traditional shift patterns. Employers often need support in implementing these changes and employee scheduling software to be added to their time and attendance software but these tend to pay for themselves because of the benefits of operating with a more flexible workforce.
