At my last job, my work days consisted of 4 days followed by a 4-day weekend which meant my overall workweek lasted 8 days. Every consecutive first day of my workweek started one calendar weekday later than the last and my employer called it a “rolling” work schedule. If this week’s first day started on a Monday, the first day of next week’s work schedule started on a Tuesday. The week after that was Wednesday and so on. Sometimes my workweek was Monday through Thursday where I would be able to spend time with my family on the weekend. On other weeks, the schedule would start on a Friday and end on a Monday, and I would not be able to spend time with my family on the weekends. It all depended on how it rolled through the weeks in the calendar. My workday lasted over 12 hours each shift. I was scheduled from 7 to 7:15, but each week was different. My schedule changed from day shift to night shift. They called this a “rotating” shift. If I worked on the dayshift this week from 7 am to 7:15 pm, next week I would work nights from 7 pm to 7:15 am. The week after that I would have to then switch back to days from 7 am to 7:15 pm, then back to nights, and so on. Imagine having to deal with a 12-hour jetlag every workweek.
My job was difficult, and I felt lost, to say the least. But this was not because of my rolling/rotating schedule, it was because I thought the job description for my position was too vague and my supervisor or management neglected to update it regularly. This was a challenge for employees because when reviews came around, it seemed employees never had good reviews. It always seemed the goalpost would get moved further no matter how much we learned or how hard we tried at doing our job well. This affected employee satisfaction and morale. One of the challenges of maintaining a good job description was that our facility did not have an HR office. One of the company’s HR offices was located in California and the main HR office was in Pennsylvania. Another challenge in maintaining the job description was our supervisors who were the plant engineers. Because we were a 24/7 working facility they had to spend most of the time designing, installing, and fixing things around the plant. Most did not have the time or the people skills to be supervisors, much less maintain the job description. Their reviews were pretty much a copy and paste of last year’s review with one added comment. Usually, something that happened within the last month. Most businesses focus on the bottom line, and this had left the plant understaffed. There was not enough manpower dedicated to maintaining this document. I believe this was a contributing factor to the plant’s terrible culture and eventually, employees and the plant as a whole would suffer because the plant is now closed. One way to overcome some of the challenges faced by the employees and the plant would be to dedicate the resources necessary to maintain this document. The company should have hired an HR representative and stationed them at our plant. This person would need to work with supervisors in developing and maintaining this document at least once a year. They would need to work with the engineers so they could become better supervisors who would then be better equipped to motivate their employees to want to work as effectively and efficiently as possible. Lastly, by having a job description that is maintained and well-defined, supervisors can set expectations for their employees and employees know what to expect during their next reviews. This would boost employee morale and job satisfaction and maybe the plant would still be open today.
