If told to work an alternate shift, how would you deal with it?

[Cdubneeddeal]

For years my department has been working nothing but straight days and occasional Saturdays but management is pushing me to have people work an alternate shift, ie Tues-Sat, swings, etc. Almost all of my employees have families and spouses that work straight days so I know how important it is for them to come home near the same time.

Now, if you were the employee, how would you feel about working Tues-Sat or swings? Would you look for another job? Would you just deal with it and compromise?

Input please.

 

[jlee]

You're talking to a guy who works anything from 7a-3p and 2p-10p to 9p-7a, sometimes one day off, sometimes four days off. No sympathy here.

Tues-Sat isn't bad, though..have Sunday/Monday off? :thumbsup:

 

[BurnItDwn]

Push management back? See if they will work some sort of comp time or maybe 4 day work weeks or something for people who work on weekends? Some type of compromise where they get what they want, and your people will hopefully get something worthwhile as well...

 

[jlee]

Having four 10hr shifts is awesome...only two hours/day extra, and you save the commuting time/etc from the 5th day.

 

[SacrosanctFiend]

How about you survey your subordinates' opinions on an objective rating scale, calculate the perceived loss/gain in productivity and present the numbers to management? It's easy to throw out scheduling ideas, but what are the reasons for the change?

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Originally posted by: SacrosanctFiend
How about you survey your subordinates' opinions on an objective rating scale, calculate the perceived loss/gain in productivity and present the numbers to management? It's easy to throw out scheduling ideas, but what are the reasons for the change?

The reasons from management is this: Production is running 7 days a week so they would like my department and a few others to match the times they work. Basically, i'm a shipping supervisor for a corporation that is currently in a hiatus. We brought in a new business system that is taking quite some time to get used to so all of our scheduling has been delayed up to three months. To combat the delay, management has upped production. They want my people to still package parts 7 days a week.

 

[rivan]

Originally posted by: Cdubneeddeal

Originally posted by: SacrosanctFiend
How about you survey your subordinates' opinions on an objective rating scale, calculate the perceived loss/gain in productivity and present the numbers to management? It's easy to throw out scheduling ideas, but what are the reasons for the change?

The reasons from management is this: Production is running 7 days a week so they would like my department and a few others to match the times they work. Basically, i'm a shipping supervisor for a corporation that is currently in a hiatus. We brought in a new business system that is taking quite some time to get used to so all of our scheduling has been delayed up to three months. To combat the delay, management has upped production. They want my people to still package parts 7 days a week.

Ask for volunteers. Pay a differential. Offer flex time.

Work it out with your employees - give them the goals you need to accomplish and tell them they can either come up with a plan to help you meet those goals or you'll come up with a plan for them.

There are lots of ways to get this done, especially if it's just temporary, to catch back up to production.

 

[Jeff7181]

I work from 1 PM to midnight 4 days a week. Sometimes if you want to keep your job, you just have to be flexible to meet the needs of the company.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: rivan

Originally posted by: Cdubneeddeal

Originally posted by: SacrosanctFiend
How about you survey your subordinates' opinions on an objective rating scale, calculate the perceived loss/gain in productivity and present the numbers to management? It's easy to throw out scheduling ideas, but what are the reasons for the change?

The reasons from management is this: Production is running 7 days a week so they would like my department and a few others to match the times they work. Basically, i'm a shipping supervisor for a corporation that is currently in a hiatus. We brought in a new business system that is taking quite some time to get used to so all of our scheduling has been delayed up to three months. To combat the delay, management has upped production. They want my people to still package parts 7 days a week.

Ask for volunteers. Pay a differential. Offer flex time.

Work it out with your employees - give them the goals you need to accomplish and tell them they can either come up with a plan to help you meet those goals or you'll come up with a plan for them.

There are lots of ways to get this done, especially if it's just temporary, to catch back up to production.

Some good ideas here.
I've had to work some fucked up shifts over the years, but the worst was rotating shifts every week. day, swing, graveyard. Your body never gets used to it, and never knows if it's time to eat, sleep, shit, or just go crazy. I usually end up dragging up those jobs for one with "normal shifts."
Working maritime construction, there's lots of "tide work" where your shift has to adjust to certain tides for one reason or another. That can mean different hours every day, but usually the same core shift hours.
Some people may jump at the chance for alternate shifts for a wide variety of reasons, while others will scream bloody murder.
I've never worked any job that didn't pay a decent shift premium, whether it was 10-20% extra pay, work 7 hours for 8 hours pay, and variations of both. IMO, if you're gonna try to get your staff to make the switch, you'll need to make it attractive in some way for them to do it without much complaint. Sure, they could always be fired for refusing...but then you'll have to train replacements...

 

[Vehemence]

For me, like said in this thread, it'd depend on incentives. If there was no incentive other than not being fired, I'd be annoyed, unless I had worked there a good while and pretty settled in. If I was there only a year or so and they offered no incentive to choose an alternative shift that didn't accommodate my personal situation, I'd say fuck it.

 

[miri]

Customer service? unfortunately working weekends is the norm

I finally got a job out of customer service, so unusual having weekends off

 

[episodic]

Can you rotate it so 1 person isn't stuck doing it all the time?