Questions to ask before taking a shift-work job

People interviewing for shift jobs ask about pay, the team and the work. They rarely ask in detail about the schedule, which is the thing that will determine most of their quality of life.

These are worth the small awkwardness of asking.

About the pattern

1. What is the exact rotation? Not “shifts” — the pattern. Four-on-four-off, three 12s, Pitman, rotating watches. Ask for the name and the shape.

2. Does it rotate between days and nights, and how fast? Slow forward rotation is considerably easier than fast or backward. A pattern switching every two days is a different job from one switching every three weeks.

3. How many consecutive shifts, maximum? Including whether overtime can extend it. Three 12s and five 12s are not the same job.

4. What is the minimum rest between shifts? And does the schedule ever produce a clopen?

About predictability

5. How far ahead is the rota published? The single best predictor of whether the job is liveable. Four weeks is workable; four days is not, whatever the hours.

6. How often does it change after publication? And who decides?

7. Is there a request system, and how much does it actually get honoured? Ask the second half. Every employer has a request system; they differ enormously in whether requests survive.

About the edges

8. How often is overtime mandatory rather than voluntary? Mandated overtime is the difference between a schedule you can plan around and one you cannot.

9. What happens if a shift runs over? Paid, taken as time, or absorbed?

10. How is the holiday rotation decided? Christmas, New Year, the school holidays. Ask when you find out, because that determines whether your family can plan.

About the exit

11. How do people move off nights? If everyone in the job has been on nights for eight years, that tells you something about how easy it is to stop.

12. What is the turnover on this rota? The most informative question on the list and the one people are least comfortable asking. High turnover on one specific pattern is the clearest signal available.

How to read the answers

Precise answers are a good sign. A manager who can describe the rotation exactly is one who thinks about it. Vagueness — “it varies”, “we’re flexible” — usually means the schedule is decided reactively, which is the version that is hardest to live with.

Ask to speak to someone working the pattern. Reasonable to request, and more informative than anything a manager says. Ask them what they would change.

Ask what a bad month looks like. Everyone describes the good version. The question that gets past it is “when it’s short-staffed, what happens?”

The thing worth weighing most

If you are comparing two jobs, weight predictability more heavily than you instinctively will.

The research on shift work and family strain consistently finds that unpredictability does damage independent of hours — and it is what shift-working families report from the inside. A demanding rota published two months out is easier to live with than a lighter one published on Thursday for Monday.

Salary is easy to compare and gets all the attention. The notice period on the rota is what you will actually feel.