Information about Work Shift

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Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of the 24 hours of the clock, rather than a standard working day.

A related yet different concept, the work shift, is the time period during which a person is at work.

A day may for example be divided into three shifts each of eight hours, and an employee works just one of those shifts; they might for example be 00:00 to 08:00, 08:00 to 16:00, 16:00 to 24:00 (times are given in the 24-hour clock). Generally, "first shift" refers to the day shift, with "second shift" running from late afternoon to nightfall, and "third shift" being the night shift. On occasion, more complex schedules are used, perhaps involving employees changing shifts, in order to operate during weekends as well, in which case there will be four or more sets of employees. A good example comes from a modern steelworks. Four sets of personnel are used, who work consecutive days in one twelve hour shift (06:00-18:00 and vice-versa). Shift A will work days, and shift B nights, over a 48-hour period, before handing over to shifts C and D and taking 48 hours off.

Shift work was once characteristic of manufacturing industry, where it has a clear effect of increasing the use that can be made of capital equipment, and allowing for up to three times the production compared to an eight-hour day. It contrasts with the use of overtime to increase production at the margin. Both approaches incur higher wage costs, in general; shift work, requiring workers to live on a time-shifted schedule for extended periods, is unpopular, and typically pay must be at a premium. It is common in heavy industry, particularly automobile and textile manufacturing and is becoming more common in locations where a shut-down of equipment would incur an extensive restart process. Food manufacturing plants, in particular, have extensive cleaning programs that are required before any restart. The use of shift work in manufacturing varies greatly from country to country.

Service industries now increasingly operate on some shift system; for example a convenience store will normally each day be open for much longer than a working day. Shift work has been traditional in the armed forces: for example sailors must be available to handle a vessel around the clock, and a system of naval watches organised to ensure enough hands are on duty at any time. This is shift work by another name. Shift work is also the norm in governmental and private employment in fields related to public safety and healthcare, such as police, fire prevention, security, emergency medical transportation, primary healthcare center urgencies and hospitals. Companies working in the field of meteorology, such as the National Weather Service and private forecasting companies, also utilize shift work, since weather needs to be constantly monitored.

The swing shift, also known as "second shift", is an employment schedule during the afternoon and evening, such as 4 p.m. to midnight or 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. According to John Frehse of the labor management firm Core Practice Partners, this swing shift is the least desirable of all three possibilities. As a matter of fact, graveyard is preferred twice as much as swing.

The graveyard shift means a shift of work running through the early hours of the morning, especially one from midnight until 8 am. There is no certainty as to the origin of this phrase; according to Michael Quinion it is little more than "an evocative term for the night shift ... when ... your skin is clammy, there's sand behind your eyeballs, and the world is creepily silent, like the graveyard."^[1]

Health consequences

Main article: Shift work sleep disorder

The February 15, 2005 issue of American Family Physician noted that shift work has been associated with cluster headaches.

The consequences of disturbing natural circadian sleep rhythms has been investigated also.

A study by Knutsson in 1986 found that shift workers who had worked in that method for 15 years or more were 300% more likely to develop ischaemic heart disease. Ethan Franklin, Senior Partner at Core Practice Partners, points out that most companies blame shift length for health issues. "This is absolutely the wrong way to look at it," says Franklin. "These health challenges are directly attributed to circadian issues and not length of shift. Companies do an extreme disservice to their workers by limiting alternative scheduling options."

The studies indicating higher rates of heart disease associated with shift work may have been caused by the factor of higher increases in smoking among the sample as later studies do not show this result.

Unusual work times (hours during evenings, weekends, or nights) may be associated with poorer mental health in parents and more social and emotional difficulties in children. Families where fathers work non standard hours show worse family functioning and more hostile and ineffective parenting. When it is mothers who work these hours, there is also worse family functioning, more hostile and ineffective parenting, and more parent distress. The most problematic family environments occur when both parents work nonstandard hours. It cannot be conclusively determined as of now, however, if these traits are brought about by shift work, or if people who are attracted to shift work are simply predisposed to possessing these tendencies.

See also

• Split shift
• Rota (schedule)
• Circadian rhythm sleep disorders
• Timebar scheduling

References

• Knutsson, A., Okerstadt, T., Jonsson, B. G. & Orth, K. G. (1986) 'Increased risk of ishaemic heart disease in shift workers'. Lancet, 2(8498), 89-92.