I am interested in getting an idea of the variety of shift scheduling patterns that other departments use and your experiences with them.


What are the various ways the Company based system is used?  For example, I am familiar with the 3 Company based calendar, with 24
hour shifts.  Like, today (March 18) is
Company B, tomorrow is Company C, then Company A etc.... 


My questions are, are there different company based systems that use different shift lengths, or start on different days?  I know there are 48 hour Company based days (so, each company has 2 days on, 4 days off)...  Is there a standard date set for those days?


 

 

Thanks


Allen

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There are several different shift rotations. The Chicago schedule (24 on, 48 off) the California (24 on, 24 off, 24 on, 24 off, 24 on, 4 days off) the 48 and 96 as you mentioned, there are split shifts where you work 10 hour days, 14 hour nights on a rotation and so forth. It comes down to the preference of the dept. In WI many depts use the California and there are some that do the Chicago, I don't think there are any doing days and nights. All have pros and cons.
The city I work EMS in has a paid dept. It's one of the ones John mentioned. They work two 10 hour days, 0700-1700...then work two 14 hour nights, 1700-0700....then are off 4 days I believe. That's actually a pretty common schedule in paid dept.'s in Pennsylvania.
Do the same group of people work the same shifts (except when there are vacation days, sick days, etc...)?
Yep. One gets assigned a shift and that is when they work. Some places, like us, we can "bid" for spots and we do a couple dept postings a year where retirements, etc open some spots. We can switch to another station and another shift if we want. Not all dept do this though.
There certainly is a lot of variety, isn't there? So, basically, in many of these cases, there really aren't "Company Days", as in a regular repeating pattern where each member is assigned shifts based on their companies.

From your experiences, how is this managed? Do you use software, or a printed calendar, or is it just easy enough to manage because it is the same people on the same shifts? (with the exception of the "Random 24's")

A typical shift calander, this is for the California schedule, you are assigned a shift "A", "B", "C" or some places go by the color, red, green, black.


We use Telestaff to manage the roster as well as any changes. The roster will tell you where you are going on a given day and what rig you will be working on, because this can change. We can also put trades in if we work for someone else, or they work for us, take vacation or sick days etc. So basically the shift calander tells you when you work, the roster says where you work.
Our workweek begins on a wednesday. We work 24on/24off but on fridays we work a 12hr shift. we do this for about 2 weeks then we go on a long week off (7days). We have 3 shifts, ABC
Depends on how many hours your employer's has for the work week. For example, we have a 42 hour work week, which works out to a 168 hour FLSA period. My schedule is 24-72, or 1 day on, three days off, then repeat. We have 4 shifts, A, B, C, & D.

A friend has a 56 hour work week and does 1 on, 2 off.
We run 3 shifts (A, B, and C). Our hours are 6a - 6a. 24 hours on, 48 hours off.
in baltimore we do 2 10s and then 2 14 and then 4 days off the official time is 7am to 5 pm 5pm to 7am but most members relieve up to 2 hr early so on a normal day I would go in at 530 and get out at 230
We have up too 6 members on a company on a shift every one gets a kelly number 4 people are always in company 1 person is detailed to another company or a medic and one person is on vacation our numbers come up about every 6 weeks and we have the option to take vacation we can also opt not to take vacation and trade or give our number away to some one elese.
It seems a pretty safe bet to assume these are all career or combination departments? My guess is that staff schedules at combination fire departments, for the volunteers, would be more oriented to "n number of days/period" (example: 2 shifts per month).

Does your staff scheduling software, if you use one, cover these varying shift types?
Volunteer depts really do vary. The one closest paid on call to me does have a duty crew where those scheduled respond for the calls, like the alarm sounding, wires down type of thing which are easy to roll back over and fall back asleep to. Their monthly schedule is filled by seniority and those who work night shifts and then every one else picks the days they will do the duty. If you don't pick, you are assigned. Many still rely on the pager response to get people and coverage can really vary depending on call and time of day.

All these schedules and rotations can be also used in a volunteer setting as well, there really is no set rule how to set up a rotation. Your initial question seems to be directed more at those career type of departments than volunteer.

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