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An Interview with our Founder, Richard M. Coleman, PhD

Moderator: How did Coleman Consulting Group get started?

RMC: I was the Co-Director of the Stanford Medical School Sleep Disorders Clinic, where we conducted research at a chemical and mining company. We changed the shift work schedules to help employees feel more alert. It was successful among employees, and we also measured an increase in productivity of nearly 20%. The study was published in the Wall Street Journal, which brought awareness to U.S. companies about the benefits associated with improving their work schedules. Recognizing this opportunity, I left Stanford in 1994 to form Coleman Consulting Group.

Moderator: When you started the consulting business, what was the most common shift work schedule the USA?

RMC: There were several, but the most common 7-day schedule was one called the “Southern swing”. We actually classify it as a 168-42, 4 crew 8-hour weekly rotating with long weekends. It looked something like this:

Although the schedule covered all 168 hours in the week, it gave employees only 91 days off a year and was exceedingly difficult for sleep and alertness. There were limited days off to recuperate, and the rotation to earlier hours was counter to how the biological clock worked.

Moderator: What are the most common reasons companies contact you today?

RMC: One of the major issues companies struggle with is employee turnover. Employees are often attracted to jobs for the wages, but if the schedule is poor, they will often leave quickly at a high cost to the employer. The work schedule affects their entire family/social life and also has a big impact on their health, sleep, and alertness. This is especially true if their new schedule is a 12-hour fixed night shift. Below is a common schedule that new employees will face, sometimes called a "zombie" schedule. It forces employees to invert their biological clock by 180 degrees every two or three days which is nearly impossible, thus leading to high turnover:

Turnover is expensive. The Society of HR Managers has estimated that each turnover is equivalent to 60% of an employee’s annual cost (this is due not only to the cost of recruitment, but also the impact a new employee has in errors, downtime, and reduced productivity). For example, if a facility has 100 employees turning over in a year, and the annual cost of an employee including benefits is $80,000, then the annual cost of turnover for management would be $8 million.

Moderator : What other reasons cause businesses to contact Coleman Consulting Group?

RMC: Another big issue companies face is how to match changing workloads. Many facilities move from 120 hours of operation (3 crews each working 40 hours per week) to 168 operating hours (4 crews each working 42 hour per week). However, it turns out that many facilities need to be operating somewhere in between these two extremes. For example, some plants should be running 130, 140, 150, and so on. For facilities with seasonality, the schedule needs to flex up and down as needed, or sometimes two different schedules may be necessary. If a facility is running a 168 but the workload is often less than that, it can be a huge idle time cost to management. That’s because the cost of overmatching the workload is much greater than the cost of overtime. In addition to lower workloads, idle time can occur for a variety of reasons: shift change, lunch and break policies, waiting on maintenance, downtime, etc. If a plant has 500 employees who are being paid but not on the equipment 15% of their scheduled hours, the cost in a typical plant would be around $7 million annually. An emphasis in our work with clients is helping to reduce idle time and how to use overtime strategically.