Shift
Work
Shannon
D. Gibson
Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University – Worldwide
Submitted
to the Worldwide Campus
In
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of
Masters
of Aeronautical Science
February
9, 2015
. Looking
at this schedule, I would have several questions as to the needs of the
operation and mission. Also not taken into account often by leaders is, what
exactly are the suggestions given by those personnel actually working the
shifts? More often than not, the answer is right in front of you, all you have
to do is simply ask for input. Although the short description relays that they
give 24/7 support, 365 days a year, in my experience, some shifts are busier
than others. In stating that, the night shift may not need the same amount of
people that the day shift needs on station. I would also take into account that
some positions could also be on an “on-call” status, for instance a tech to fix
any equipment issues. If they are forward deployed to a combat zone, they will
never be far from the ground control station, and the sleeping and eating
facilities would most likely be close by, if you had two techs assigned to a
crew, then possibly one could be on station and one could be on-call and work a
day on/day off schedule. Having said this, not everyone in the crew might need
to have the same working days and days off. The techs may have one rotation in
the crew and the pilots another. Keeping to a “strict” schedule that everyone
has the same exact schedule offers no flexibility. Also not annotated in the
example is the typical “day-workers”, leadership and administrative support are
typically not in a shift, they are usually in a 0700-1600 shift and days off
are given on a routine basis or for some, such as a Officer in Charge, they
rarely have a day off when forward deployed. However, those don’t seem to be
the focus in this example but burnout can happen all the same.
First thing I would do is take away the fourth crew
and add those personnel, divided evenly, to the other three crews. Then I would
keep them on the same schedule for an entire month. The additional personnel
added would then give the ability to give days off to their respective crew. It
might even add additional days off and create more flexibility. Hard to
forecast this without knowing exactly what qualifications (quals) are mandatory
and how many of each qual is needed. Perhaps they could go into a 3 on/1 off
schedule. When deployed I have noticed that it isn’t as important to have two
days off in a row. Without outside distractors, a person can have more
flexibility.
Also note, with a constant month of having the same
schedule, the crew members would better be able to conform to a more natural
circadian rhythm and daily schedule. For example, working the 23:30-0800 on a
constant basis would allow a person to go to the gym at the same time every
day, eat at the same times, and sleep at the same times. Rotating this schedule
with a week on each would defeat the ability to have normalcy.
