Posted: 7/10/2007 11:24:08 AM EDT
| How many of you work 8 hour shifts? I currently do ,but the chief is going to take a vote on 12's. I think it would be 3 on 2 off, 2 on , 3 off. Every other fri,sat,sun off.I don't have kids and think this would work well for me. I know 12's can make for long days but only working 15 days a month would be nice. Thoughts? |
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I have worked all of them. The patrol shifts are on 10's currently. 4 on 3 off with rotating days ever 8 weeks. (Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun or Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs) Every other department and our traffic unit are on 12's. I am on the traffic unit currently and the 12's are nice. We do Sun, Mon, Tues and ever other sat or Wed, Thurs, Fri and every other sat. Cons: Court sucks bad if you work the night shift. Any overtime after a shift is a really long day Nothing can be done on the work days, especially if you have a drive. Pros: Lots of extra days off Extra pay (if you get straight time for the extra 4 hours) Better coverage More days off for less vacation time. ( our sched you get 10 days off for 36 hours on the short week) Better coverage means more approved vacation time There are others. I like the 12's and hope to have the entire department on them. I don't like using a short day per pay period. Try for straight pay (the best), then straight comp and if that doesn't go a Kelly day. (1 extra day off per 6 weeks) FWIW our dispatch uses the sched you mentioned and they like it a lot. 24 hours gets you 7 days off. I have researched 12's extensively as I am on our negotiation team. Email me if you have any questions. Joe |
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I have been working the 12 hour shift for nearly 4 (or is it 5?) years now since we switched from the old rotating 8's and 1 year of a really fucked up 8 hr schedule. Works like this... S M T W H F S And then repeats exactly like that every 2 weeks. There are two patrol companies (A and B) When A works, B is off, etc. Each company has a day and night shift. (on days about 2/3 our guys start at 0530 the other 1/3 at 0630. Nights start times are evenly spaced (1/3 of the shift at each of 1630 1730 & 1830 hrs.) This gives overlap for shift change. You always work with the same officers every shift, all year long. (I almost never see the opposing dayshift team guys). Sergeants (by seniority) pick their company/shift first, and then there are X-amount of allotted slots on each shift and under each Sgt. Officers then (by seniority) choose where and for whom they want to work. With the exception of VERY new officers just out of field training who tend to get bounced around every few months, everyone works a permanent shift all year long. the 7, 12 hour days in a 2 week period make it very easy for finance departments that work with a 2 week (or multiple thereof) payroll. It technically gives you 84 hours of scheduled time but there is some leeway with what you can do with that extra 4 hours. What we chose to do is pick a day during each payroll period to either start 4 hours late or leave 4 hours early. This results in an 80 hr schedule. Anything beyond is obviously O/T. Other options could be to just work the 4 extra hours as overtime every pay period (a nice benefit) or possibly working out some agreement to get comp time for it... If however we have a vacation, training, sick time, etc, scheduled during any 2 week period, you do not get your 4 hours on a work day, but must take it in conjunction with a day off. Easy example you have vacation on 5 of the days and work the other 2. Instead of using 60 hrs vacation time, you burn 56 to get the days off, and the remaining 2 you work 12 hour shifts to make up 80 hrs. One very important thing we do with regard to our vacation picks. We can schedule full "weeks" of vac. for the entire year, before the year even begins. For purposes of vacation scheduling only, "Weeks" are considered to start on Monday. If you take a good look at the schedule you will easily figure out why. This prevents an officer from having to finish vacation on Saturday and begin work the next day (sunday) only to have 2 more days off. "for the most part" the vast majority of officers who originally voiced opposition to the 12 hour shifts are now much in favor of them. Some are still opposed to them mostly because of a conflict with family scheduling, a spouse who works 8's or young children who need cared for. The alternating 3-day weekends are very popular. Our "Patrol" is the only unit who works 12s at our dept. Detectives, traffic officers, school officers, etc, are all still working 8's. A couple have commented how nice it would be to come back to the road simply because of our schedule. Court: we have a fairly fixed court schedule that is easily adjusted if need be. Our regular criminal court arraignment/appearance/dui etc dates are on alternating Tuesdays. If you work nights, your court day is assigned to the weeks you are off mon/tues. If you work days, it's assigned to the weeks you work on mon/tues. That way you are not inconvenienced. Traffic court is every 4 weeks either in AM or PM and that can also be set up as to not conflict w/ your work schedule. As we all know, most cases never go to trial, so in that rare event you just find some way to deal with it if it conflicts with your schedule. The overtime money is a nice  for those who might be inclined to whine about how court time ruins their life!  If you want I will be more than happy to talk with you more about the schedule via email or phone. send me IM or email if you have questions. We have about 78-80 or so officers that work this schedule, not counting supervisors. There are about 19 ofc's per shift overall. Count in vacation & training time and there are almost always enough on the schedule to cover our shift minimums. It works out very well for us. |