ATCO Shift cycling

[vintage ATCO]

My roster is . . .

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ZZzzzzzzz

They were starting to tinker with roster, 0600 starts, 2400 finishes. Doesn't match my body clock. Time to leave . . . .

[chevvron]

I wish I'd had £100 for every time I've declined the offer of a posting to the college, no way judging by the material they send out to operational units (not their fault I admit - they can't be blamed for not selecting the right material to train).

[PPRuNe Radar]

I guess it all depends how you want to measure it in NATS. Some like to measure oranges, some like to measure apples. They are both different things.

On one hand, you could measure the number of days attended and find that some people do attend more days than others (Mon-Fri workers first, then non 24 hour units, then H24 units). On the other hand, the true measure that NATS uses is the number of hours worked and we are all contracted to do the same over the year regardless of the number of days we have to personally attend to cover that.

Not really related but one thing that NATS seems to do to enhance things for some shift workers is to give 110% pay to those who are always liable for night shifts (e.g certain supervisory grades at Swanwick, and Oceanic Controllers, to name a couple).

[Bright-Ling]

I wish I'd had £100 for every time I've declined the offer of a posting to the college

So how much would you have, £200??!!??

Get down there and get yrself back up to ATCO deux for yr pension.

[vintage ATCO]

Yes. Whatever you need to do to enhance your pension, do it.

[WhatUMean]

is the ATCO roster (let's say at NATS unit where the 6/4 pattern is in place) a steady 6/4 throughout the year so that you can predict what you going to be doing at any time, or is it still subject to availability / operational needs / last minute changes (apart from overtime or voluntary reshifting ?)

thanks

Ivor

Not always, it is pretty much 6 and 4, but where it varies at some is that instead of say MMAANNERRR (E being a day off but the morning you get home from nightshift) you might Work MMAADDRRRR so there you can still plan the days you be off, but then it may go onto MMAARDDRRR so technically on a D shift when you would have been coming home from a nightshift, this can throw the plannin out of thinking you were off because of the normal MMAANNERRR.

Its on the whole a generally good shift pattern, but everyone has there favourites being either mornings or afternoons, some strange people even prefer nights over days!!! Strange lot!

[jangler909]

Here's a bit different roster; we have no standard pattern (35 hours / week). Benefits: you'll get days off when needed/requested (well in advance), easy to change shifts with colleagues, one can do extra hours and use them later as off days (e.g. to extend holidays)...

M: 0530-1230
D: 1130-1830
E: 1800-0115

DDEEDDMxxxEEDMDMMExxx

another example:

EEDMxxxEEDDMxxxxDDEDM

or perhaps even:

xxxxDEDMEDDMMxEEDMxxx

[Gonzo]

jangler909,

Going from E to D, you finish at 0115 and then back into work that same morning at 1130?

[badnerk]

Over on this side of the pond we work a 36 hour work week. Our schedules are produced every 56 days and we work 34 of the 56 days (plus overtime days).
We work 5/3(on/off) six times and 4/4 once OR (6/3 5/4 6/4) x2 OR (6/3 6/3 5/5) x2.
We normally work compressed work weeks. My last cycle was:

DAY
1 1345-2215
2 0815-1645
3 0530-1400
4 0000-0830 (starts 10 hours after end of day 3 shift)
5 2200-0630

Then off for days 6, 7 and 8.

Occasionally we get scheduled blocks of day shifts or evening shifts, but in my unit we never get blocks of midnight shifts.

Interesting to see all of the variation in schedules out there.

[jangler909]

"Going from E to D, you finish at 0115 and then back into work that same morning at 1130?"

Exactly. Regulations say we need to have at least 9 hours break between shifts, and that equals to 10h15min - haven't got any problems with that...

[garp]

"Going from E to D, you finish at 0115 and then back into work that same morning at 1130?"

Exactly. Regulations say we need to have at least 9 hours break between shifts, and that equals to 10h15min - haven't got any problems with that...

Wait till you're 40 iso 26, than we'll talk again.

[Gonzo]

Jangler909,

We have a minimum of 12 hours between shifts...and even that is pushing it sometimes to get decent rest, especially if we finish an afternoon at 2200 and then back in for 1000 the next morning.