Night shift rotation

Dear Harikrishnan,

If you are planning round the clock operations then better to deploy more people in to shift operations and keep very few senior officials in General and the shift pattern should be    4 + 2 with staggered weekly off. Ex:

                             A  A   A   A    C   C   w.off 

        B  B   B   B    C  C  w.off

                  A   A    A  A  C  C    w.off

I believe  " A" will be for first shift in normal case it could be from 6 am to  2 pm and "B" is second shift ie., from 2 pm to 10 pm   & " C" is for night shift and it is 10pm to 6 am.  In this scenario employees will be comfotable and for every week they will be working for 2 days in night shifts & generally after second night shift weekly off follows and it may not be very difficult scenario.

Regards - kamesh 

not a legal question

Hi Kamesh,

Thank you for your feedback. I have planned the shift pattern. What actually concerns me is that how often do I shift people from 1 shift to another. I have only day shift & night shift each of it being 10hr shift. My concern is whether I shift the day team to night team and vice versa every 1 week or every 2 weeks or every month? Is there any law or act stating that a person can do only these many days continuously in night shift after which he/she has to be changed to day shift?

I have heard that there is a ruling my one of the courts in Karnataka which states a person can work only a max of 15 days in night shift after which he/she has to be put in day shift so that disorders/dieseases related to continuous night shift is avoided.

Kindly help me on this.

Regards - Harikrishnan

Fundametally / legally your 10hrs working is wrong and if you wants to deploy people then you have to opt for 8 hrs shift timing and A, B & C mode only. 

Even you are able to manage the violation of the actual working hours part ie., 10 hrs / 8hrs, you need to plan 12 hrs duty so that proper shift handing over & relieving to happen. As far as continuous night shift for more than 2 days it will be difficult for any body and if you continue for more than that there is every question on productivity / safety / discipline.

Regards - kamesh

Hi Kamesh,

Thanks for the reply. 0ur 10 hr shift have breaks amounting to 1 hr in between and 5 days a week means a person works only 45 hrs in a week. So thats legally correct since a person is not allowed to work more than 48 hrs in a week. Also there is no shift handover takeover system and hence 10 hrs is dot 10hrs. Nothing more nothing less. Incase by any chance it exceeds 10hrs (actually 9hrs) we will pay OT.

My concern is if a person is put in night shift which means say he wroks from 7pm to 5 am with breaks amounting to an hr in between, for how long can I keep him in night shift is it 1 week or 2 weeks or 1 month? Is there any law or act or guideline on this?

Regards - Harikrishnan