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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:14 pm
Time: 11:14 pm
Results for police officers, shift work (u.s.)
2 results foundAuthor: Amendola, Karen L. Title: The Impact of Shift Length in Policing on Performance, Health, Quality of Life, Sleep, Fatigue, and Extra-Duty Employment Summary: Most law enforcement agencies have traditionally deployed their patrol officers based on a 40-hour workweek in which personnel work five consecutive, 8-hour shifts, followed by two days off. In recent years, however, an increasing number of agencies have moved to some variant of a compressed workweek (CWW) schedule in which officers work four 10-hour shifts per week or three 12-hour shifts (plus a time adjustment to make up the remaining 4 hours of the standard 40-hour workweek). While this trend towards CWWs has been moving apace, there have been few, if any, rigorous scientific studies examining the advantages and disadvantages associated with these work schedules for officers and their agencies. In this report, we present data on the prevalence of CWWs in American law enforcement in recent years and provide results from the first known comprehensive randomized experiment exploring the effects of shift length (8- vs. 10- vs. 12-hours) on work performance, safety, health, quality of life, sleep, fatigue, off-duty employment, and overtime usage among police officers. We implemented a randomized block experiment in Detroit (MI) and Arlington (TX), in which the blocks include site (i.e., Detroit, Arlington) as well as shift (day, evening, midnight) in order to examine the effects of the three shift lengths on various outcomes. Work performance was measured using both laboratory simulations and departmental data. Health, quality of life, sleep, sleepiness, off-duty employment, and overtime hours were measured via self-report measures including surveys, sleep diaries, and alertness logs. Fatigue was measured using both objective, laboratory-based instruments, and subjective reports of sleepiness. The results revealed no significant differences between the three shift lengths on work performance, health, or work-family conflict. There were, however, important differences where the other outcomes were concerned. Officers working 10-hour shifts, for example, averaged significantly more sleep and reported experiencing a better quality of work life than did their peers working 8-hour shifts. And officers working 12-hour shifts experienced greater levels of sleepiness (subjective measure of fatigue) and lower levels of alertness at work than those assigned to 8-hour shifts. The results suggest that CWWs are not likely to pose significant health risks or result in worsened performance, and that 10-hour shifts may offer certain benefits not associated with 8-hour shifts, whereas 12-hour shifts may have some disadvantages over 8-hour shifts. Importantly, those on 8-hour shifts averaged significantly less sleep per 24-hour period and worked significantly more overtime hours than those on 10- or 12-hour shifts. As such, a 10-hour shift may be a viable alternative to the traditional 8-hour shift in larger agencies; however, caution is advised when considering 12-hour shifts due to increased levels of selfreported fatigue/sleepiness and lower levels of alertness. Indeed, researchers have noted that individuals tend to underestimate their levels of fatigue, so officers may be more fatigued than they reported while working 12-hour shifts. Additionally, past research has shown increased risks for accidents with increasing numbers of hours worked. It is for these reasons that caution should be exercised when agency leaders consider adopting 12-hour shifts. Finally, the reduced levels of overtime usage for those working 10- and 12-hour shifts suggests the possibility for cost savings for agencies employing compressed schedules. These findings are consistent with many past findings; however, the lack of randomized controlled trials has limited the utility of past studies. Details: Washington, DC: Police Foundation, 2011. 201p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 1, 2012 at: http://policefoundation.org/pdf/Shift%20Length%20Full%20Technical.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://policefoundation.org/pdf/Shift%20Length%20Full%20Technical.pdf Shelf Number: 123923 Keywords: Occupational Safety and HealthPolice Officers, Shift Work (U.S.)Police Performance Work Schedules, Police OfficersPolice Stress |
Author: Amendola, Karen L. Title: The Shift Length Experiment: What We Know About 8-, 10-, and 12-Hour Shifts in Policing Summary: Ever since the earliest police forces were established, the schedules and hours that police officers work have been an issue of concern to officers and chiefs. Driving these concerns have been issues of safety, health, performance, quality of life, fatigue, and efficiency. Traditionally, police departments have relied on a five-day, eight-hour scheduling framework with three standard shifts (day, evening, midnight) in each twenty-four-hour period. However, since at least as early as the 1970s, law enforcement agencies have adopted alternate schedule configurations. Compressed workweek schedules (CWWs), in which the workweek is shortened and the length of the day is extended, have indeed been popularized in the last several decades in many industries, including policing. The traditional five-day, forty-hour workweek did not become the U.S. standard until approximately seventy years ago. Labor unions strongly opposed long work hours that were common in the late eighteenth century but often to no avail. By the turn of the century, however, a number of industries had begun to implement eight-hour workdays (Dankert, Mann, and Northrup 1965). Following the Great Depression and subsequent legislation associated with the New Deal (the WalshHealy Public Contracts Act of 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938), more changes became possible such that private firms began to implement traditional five-day, forty-hour workweeks. Around that same time, a few corporations even began experimenting with a four ten-hour day schedule. By the 1970s, CWWs had gained in popularity, and the Federal Employees' Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act was enacted into law in 1978. During the 1970s and 1980s, tremendous attention was paid to CWWs. Almost thirty years ago, in a National Institute of Justice-funded study of work scheduling, researchers surveyed 160 agencies regarding their practices and reported that almost 25 percent of departments had implemented 9-, 10-, 11- and even 12-hour schedules for one or more shifts (Stenzel and Buren 1983). Because no national data have been reported since that time, the Police Foundation conducted surveys with a random sample of law enforcement agencies in 2005 and 2009. The results of our national surveys seem to suggest that there is a great variation in shift schedules employed in U.S. law enforcement, but there have been little available data on the advantages and disadvantages associated with these shifts. Over the years, there has been considerable research to examine the impacts of CWWs and long working hours across industries, particularly in 24/7 and high-risk operations (e.g., hospitals, production and power plants, utilities, and transportation). Yet, Axelsson (2005, 17) noted that while management and employees believe the advantages of longer work days outweigh the disadvantages, "it could, perhaps, also be argued that the drawbacks of extended work shifts are largely unknown or ignored by these groups." While research on CWWs in policing is quite limited, there has been considerable conjecture about the benefits and drawbacks of CWWs and long work hours among law enforcement personnel. Not surprisingly, law enforcement personnel frequently claim that CWWs offer far more advantages than disadvantages. Among the many benefits espoused are the ability to increase coverage during peak hours of activity, improve officer job satisfaction and morale, increase performance, reduce response time, reduce crime, reduce costs for officers and agencies (e.g., commuting, overtime, and sick leave), limit fatigue, improve teamwork, allow for increased in-service training during periods of overlap, increase days off for personal pursuits/family activities, and reduce accidents and complaints against officers (see, e.g., Brown 1974; Cunningham 1982; Durrett 1983; Fournet 1983; Jacques 2010; Strunk 1978; Sundermeier 2008; Vega and Gilbert 1997; Vila, Kenney, Morrison, and Reuland 2000). Many of these purported benefits, however, are far from firmly established in the research literature. Due to a belief that such schedules may improve efficiency, many law enforcement executives have considered or implemented CWWs (Oliver 2005; Sundermeier 2008; Vega and Gilbert 1997). Nevertheless, Cunningham (1990) noted some managers in Canadian law enforcement agencies were concerned about potential disadvantages associated with CWWs in terms of reduced opportunity for communication with staff, citizen complaints, potential costs, lack of investigative continuity, and lessened identification with the police profession due to time away from the job. In addition, Melekian (1999) noted potential drawbacks associated with CWWs, such as increased fatigue, reduced communication across shifts, lessened ability to deal with neighborhood problems, and, most importantly, disengagement from the job and reduced ability or time to establish and maintain relationships with the community, thereby detracting from community policing and job involvement. In the absence of empirical evidence, agencies as well as police unions/associations have occasionally conducted their own research, albeit often without the benefit of rigorous scientific methods. As such, when agencies make decisions about scheduling, they often do so without sufficient scientifically acquired knowledge. Researchers have routinely noted the many unknown potential impacts of CWWs (e.g., deCarufel and Schaan 1990), and scientists and practitioners have called for additional research on CWWs and optimal shift lengths in law enforcement (e.g., Melekian 1999; Vila 2006). Moreover, scientists have cautioned about the use of extended and long work hours in positions where public health and safety could be threatened (Armstrong-Stassen 1998; Knauth 2007; Macdonald and Bendak 2000; Rosa 1995; Scott and Kittaning 2001). Due to widespread knowledge of the impact of fatigue on safety, policies and requirements have been modified in many federally regulated industries. Indeed, according to Vila and colleagues, the well-known impact of fatigue on safety has led the federal government to regulate the work hours of private, for-profit workers - train engineers, truck drivers, commercial pilots, and nuclear power plant operators - but surprisingly not the police, "the government's most public, sensitive, and routinely controversial service provider" (Vila, Morrison, and Kenney 2002, 7). Yet, while law enforcement is fraught with considerable risks to officers and the public, examination of the impacts of CWWs in policing has been less frequent and often less rigorous than that conducted in other industries. Furthermore, much of the research across industries, including policing, has been limited by the research designs employed, the methodologies used, and/or measurement problems, often leading to contradictory or inconclusive findings. In an effort to comprehensively address the many potential effects of CWWs in policing in a systematic way, the Police Foundation conducted an experiment in which officers were randomly assigned to shifts (8-, 10-, and 12-hour). We examined the independent effects of shift length, taking into consideration the time of day worked and the variations associated with specific agencies. Because past studies have tended to focus on a limited number of potentially important managerial and individual considerations, we examined a broad array of outcomes important to the officers themselves and the organizations, including officer stress, sleep, fatigue, health, and quality of life, off-duty employment and overtime, and a variety of performance and safety measures. In this report, we begin by presenting the key findings of our experiment and then describe the methodology, the comprehensive array of measures employed, and the results of the analyses conducted in the experiment. Subsequently, we examine cross-industry research on compressed workweeks, including that from policing and its connection to our findings. Details: Washington, DC: Police Foundation, 2011. 62p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 26, 2017 at: https://www.policefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Shift-Length-Experiment-Practitioner-Guide.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: https://www.policefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Shift-Length-Experiment-Practitioner-Guide.pdf Shelf Number: 124323 Keywords: Occupational Safety and HealthPolice Officers, Shift Work (U.S.)Police StressShift Work |