A n issue that increasingly stands out as a major one in Shiftworking industries, is that of the pros and cons of 12 hour rosters. As promised in the last issue, this edition of The Bulletin is dedicated to providing information to assist those individuals and organisations who are considering the shift to 12 hour continuous operations.
T here is no 'best' pattern that suits all.
T here are probably another 3000 roster patterns that are theoretically elegant yet practically useless. T his does not mean that all shift roster patterns are equally good - or bad. All of these shift patternswere variations of the 8-Hour Shift pattern. A further 6 had implemented variations of the 12-Hour shift pattern and conceded that 'they were not working' and therefore 'they do not work'. T hese are very seldom peak load.