Cost Reduction
CIRCADIAN’s comprehensive study of over five hundred 24/7 facilities has shown that working extended hours is associated with elevated employee costs compared to the daytime workforce. The good news is most of these costs are readily addressable.
Absenteeism
For shiftworkers, only one-third of days taken as sick days are for personal health reasons, resulting in increased overtime, inefficient production, poor communication, and overall loss of production.
Employee Turnover
With many shiftwork populations facing retirement of large percentages of their employees, attracting, and retaining employees is becoming an increasing problem.
Healthcare
Increased health risks can lead shiftworkers to use unhealthy coping substances and food to help them compensate.
Overtime
Miscalculated staffing levels and sub-optimized shift schedules cause excessive overtime, often coupled with underutilized employee capacity.
Safety & Legal Liability
Fatigued employees make more errors, and when they fall asleep on the job the accidents can be disproportionately severe. It is not by chance that the most notable industrial accidents in the past 30 years – Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Bhopal all occurred between midnight and 6AM.
The cumulative effect of night work and extended hours can lead to fatigue-impaired employees unless proactive steps are taken to reduce the risk.
Increased substance abuse co-exists with fatigue in 24/7 operations, often as an inappropriate attempt to self medicate the effects of chronic fatigue.
People are most likely to make mistakes and cause production errors in the pre-dawn “window of circadian low”. Errors of inattention can be costly or even deadly.
The work hours and sometimes extended time without sleep create a vulnerability to lawsuits and punitive damages when accidents occur.
Errors & Accidents
24/7 operations present special safety challenges, and risks of employee inattention are increased The cumulative effect of night work and extended hours can lead to fatigue-impaired employees unless proactive steps are taken to reduce the risk.
Scheduling Shifts
People who work shifts and 24/7 schedules care deeply about their work schedules.
Choosing Shift Schedules
Finding the best shift schedule for your facility is hard, because there are so many stakeholders with strong opinions.
Adjusting to Shiftwork
Without proper training employees often find it hard to adapt to working non-traditional hours.
Educating Managers
Managing a 24/7 schedule is an art they don’t teach in business school. It pays to have your managers understand the best 24/7 management practices.
Reducing or Expanding Operations
Whether reducing from 7 days to 5 day schedules, or increasing from 5 days to 7 days, it is critical to bring employees into the process of designing work schedules to achieve fuller capacity utilization.
Efficient 24/7 Utilization
The competitive advantages of 168 hour-a-week utilization of facilities and equipment, or providing seamless 24/7 customer service may seem obvious. But workload often fluctuates, creating pockets of inefficiency and overload, so that proportional staffing of 24/7 operations may be needed to maximize efficiency. In this world, predictive models, creative staffing strategies and optimized scheduling become the key to continuous optimization. Furthermore people who work shifts and 24/7 schedules care deeply about their work schedules and the timing of days off. Unlike machinery and equipment they are not naturally designed to work at night. 24/7 workforce optimization requires a sophisticated understanding of how to protect employee performance and morale, health and safety.
Corporate Shiftwork Strategy
It is vital to develop policies and systems to manage the special challenges of employing a 24/7 workforce. This is a very different world from 9-5 daytime work.
Expanding to Seven Days
To get the benefits without aggrieved employees it is critical to bring them into the process of designing work schedules to achieve fuller capacity utilization.
Staffing Levels
Whether your operational workload fluctuates or is steady, finding the right balance of staffing and workload is critical.
Training
Finding the best shift schedule for your facility is hard, because there are so many stakeholders with strong opinions.
Union/Labor Issues
Without proper training employees often find it hard to adapt to working non-traditional hours.
Work Life Balance
Without proper training employees often find it hard to adapt to working non-traditional hours.
Regulatory Burdens
Hours of Service
U.S. trucking hours of service regulations have been a political and legal football over the past four years with multiple federal agency and court-ordered revisions. CIRCADIAN helps companies steer around the debris and gain exemptions based on sound science and risk management practices.
FMLA
The Family and Medical Leave Act has created an opportunity for absenteeism abuse which can be very costly and disruptive unless this issue is carefully managed. CIRCADIAN is expert at routing out the causes of excess absenteeism and keeping the costs at bay.
Work Hours Arbitration & Litigation
CIRCADIAN’s unparalleled expertise in work hours, overtime risk and fatigue provides the needed authoritative scientifically expert opinion and testimony to resolve complex working hours challenges.
