Moving the warehouse night shift to four ten-hour days
Proposed by the shift supervisors, resisted by scheduling, and measured for six months before a permanent decision. The pilot design mattered more than the change itself.
The decision timeline
Three moments, kept separate. What became known later sits in its own column so it cannot be read back into the reasoning.
Known at the time
- Night attrition 34% annualised against 12% on days
- Supervisors proposed the change; scheduling objected on weekend cover
- Ten-hour pattern approached but did not breach working-time limits
- A pilot did not require works-council agreement; a permanent change did
Decided, and why
- Six-month pilot on one team, because no other option produced evidence before commitment
- Pre-registered success criteria agreed with the works council, to settle in advance what would count as success
- Hard safety and error-rate gates with a standing commitment to revert
Known later
- Pilot attrition fell to 15%; error rate unchanged
Members see the full outcome.
Trust and provenance
What we checked, and what we did not.
The decision context
| Problem | Night shift attrition was 34% annualised against 12% on days. Supervisors proposed four ten-hour nights instead of five eights. Scheduling objected that it would break weekend cover. |
|---|---|
| Deadline | None imposed. The decision was taken deliberately slowly. |
| Stakes | Moderate |
| Decision-maker | Operations Director, with a works-council consultation and supervisor input. |
Constraints
| Budget | Cost-neutral requirement: no change to total paid hours or to the overtime budget. |
|---|---|
| Time | None imposed, which was itself a choice — the pilot ran six months. |
| Information | Attrition data was good; fatigue and error-rate data had to be collected from scratch. |
| Authority | A permanent change required works-council agreement; a time-limited pilot did not. |
| External | Working-time regulations set a maximum on consecutive hours that the ten-hour pattern approached but did not breach. |
Alternatives
Options considered, and the stated reason each rejected option was rejected.
Evidence, reasoning and outcome
The remaining six field groups — evidence, reasoning, action, outcome, reflection and transferability — are available to members.
- Two years of attrition data by shift and tenure
- Recruitment and training cost per replacement hire
- Cost-neutral on total paid hours
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Membership opens the full library: the evidence available at the time, the decision criteria, the measured outcome and what the creator would do differently.
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Rights and licensing
Published terms for this case.
| Consent | Creator confirms permission to publish in redacted form. No individual employee is identifiable. |
|---|---|
| Licence | Non-exclusive, perpetual licence to publish and monetise. |
| Anonymisation | Employer and site redacted. |
| Compensation | Eligible for the creator revenue pool under the published allocation rule. |
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