Shift work is an employment practice designed to keep a service or production line operational at all times. The practice typically sees the day divided into shifts, set periods of time during which different groups of workers perform their duties. The term "shift work" includes both long-term night shifts and work schedules in which employees change or rotate shifts. In medicine and epidemiology, shift work is considered a risk factor for some health problems in some individuals, as disruption to circadian rhythms may increase the probability of developing cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment, diabetes, altered body composition and obesity, among other conditions.
Shift schedule and shift plan
The shift plan or rota is the central component of a shift schedule. The schedule includes considerations of shift overlap, shift change times and alignment with the clock, vacation, training, shift differentials, holidays, etc., whereas the shift plan determines the sequence of work and free days within a shift system. The most common plan for eight-hour workdays is the three-shift plan, where each day is divided into three eight-hour blocks, with the first shift beginning in the morning, and each worker works during the same block every workday. Rotation of shifts can be fast, in which a worker changes shifts more than once a week, or slow, in which a worker changes shifts less than once a week. Rotation can also be forward, when a subsequent shift starts later, or backward, when a subsequent shift starts earlier. Evidence supports forward rotating shifts are more adaptable for shift workers' circadian physiology. One main concern of shift workers is knowing their schedule more than two weeks at a time. Shift work is stressful. When on a rotating or ever changing shift, workers have to worry about daycare, personal appointments, and running their households. Many already work more than an eight-hour shift. Some evidence suggests giving employees schedules more than a month in advance would give proper notice and allow planning, their stress level would be reduced. The 42-hour work-week allows for the most even distribution of work time. A 3:1 ratio of work days to days off is most effective for eight-hour shifts, and a 2:2 ratio of work days to days off is most effective for twelve-hour shifts. Eight-hour shifts and twelve-hour shifts are common in manufacturing and health care. Twelve-hour shifts are also used with a very slow rotation in the petroleum industry. Twenty-four-hour shifts are common in health care and emergency services.
Management
The practices and policies put in place by managers of round-the-clock or 24/7 operations can significantly influence shift worker alertness (and hence safety) and performance. Multiple factors need to be considered when developing optimal shift work schedules, including shift timing, length, frequency and length of breaks during shifts, shift succession, worker commute time, as well as the mental and physical stress of the job. These practices and policies can include selecting an appropriate shift schedule or rota and using an employee scheduling software to maintain it, setting the length of shifts, managing overtime, increasing lighting levels, providing shift worker lifestyle training, retirement compensation based on salary in the last few years of employment (which can encourage excessive overtime among older workers who may be less able to obtain adequate sleep), or screening and hiring of new shift workers that assesses adaptability to a shift work schedule. Mandating a minimum of 10 hours between shifts is an effective strategy to encourage adequate sleep for workers. Allowing frequent breaks and scheduling 8- or 10-hour shifts instead of 12-hour shifts can also minimize fatigue and help to mitigate the negative health effects of shift work. Even though studies support 12-hour shifts are associated with increased occupational injuries and accident (higher rates with subsequent, successive shifts), a synthesis of evidence cites the importance of all factors when considering the safety of a shift. Algorithmic scheduling of shift work can lead to what has been colloquially termed as "clopening" where the shift-worker has to work the closing shift of one day and the opening shift of the next day back-to-back resulting in short rest periods between shifts and fatigue. Co-opting employees to fill the shift roster helps to ensure that the human costs are taken into account in a way which is hard for an algorithm to do as it would involve knowing the constraints and considerations of each individual shift worker and assigning a cost metric to each of those factors. Shift based hiring which is a recruitment concept that hires people for individual shifts, rather than hiring employees before scheduling them into shifts enables shift workers to indicate their preferences and availability for unfilled shifts through a shift-bidding mechanism. Through this process, the shift hours are evened out by human-driven market mechanism rather than an algorithmic process. This openness can lead to work hours that are tailored to an individual's lifestyle and schedule while ensuring that shifts are optimally filled, in contrast to the generally poor human outcomes of fatigue, stress, estrangement with friends and family and health problems that have been reported with algorithm-based scheduling of work-shifts.
History
The shift work system in modern industrial manufacturing originated in the late 18th century. In 1867, Karl Marx wrote on the shift work system in Capital, Volume 1:
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