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York Minster

York Minster - Modern Rostering in a Medieval Setting

York Minster is one of the great cathedrals of the world. The Minster building encompasses vast spaces, filled with music and revealing the human imagination at work on glass, stone, and other fabrics. Visitors from all faiths and cultures come to the Minster, to see for themselves the life of a centre of Christian belief. York Minster is loved not only by people in the United Kingdom and Yorkshire, but by countless people across the globe.

Working Time Solutions Ltd were delighted to offer assistance and become involved in such a prestigious project at such an outstanding and widely renowned and respected location.

Background

Working Time Solutions were tasked with finding more efficient working time arrangements for the York Minster Police Service.

The prime role of a York Minster Police Officer is the security of the Minster itself and the surrounding buildings and areas that form the entire grounds of the Minster, such as the Police Office, St Williams College, the library and shop, Deans Park, the Church House and the Stoneyard. The Officers provide a response service to a wide range of potential issues and incidents.

• Further duties included in the role are:
• Ensure the smooth running of the various events that take place on a regular basis.
• Cash movement and uplifts from various departments and cash boxes.
• Control of all access keys for the Minster.
• Monitor security cameras.
• Perform opening and closing procedures.
• Perform security checks alarm investigation, roof searches etc.
• Accept deliveries for book shop and library via Police Office.
• Accept all mail deliveries and distribute.

Other duties when required as called upon by Minster departments.

The Minster Police also work in conjunction with security companies, North Yorkshire Police and Fire Service as required. They are all trained in first aid and deal with various first aid issues that take place with visitors to the Minster.

There is a vast amount of public relations work required in the role. As the Minster is a place of worship, issues with the public require sensitive handling. It is critical that the quiet relaxed atmosphere is not affected by any situations that may arise. The various visits that take place can be from Church Leaders to famous celebrities to members of the Royal Family, security then takes careful planning and requires a professional approach.

All of the Officers we talked with are proud of the role they do and enjoy the community spirit within the Minster, they are all from a Forces, Services or Security background and have all shown great flexibility in helping to cover each others shifts when required.

The Issues

After meeting all staff there were a number of common issues raised:

• Predictability – changes to shifts are made with only two days notice sometimes less.
• Cover – there are issues around cover, no slack in system often work too many days due to absence or holidays. The Head Police Officer is supposed to work 9 – 5 which gives extra cover but often he has to cover absent shifts.
• Quick turnarounds – there is a late shift followed by an early in the shift pattern.
• Consecutive shifts, 6 or 7 on at a time – 6 shifts on often becomes 7 due to covering on overtime, very tiring.
• No holidays can be taken on nights – due to the grouping of the night shifts.
• Weekend distribution – consecutive working of weekends e.g. 5 consecutive.
• Overlap – the 1 hour shift overlap is not required
• The working shift pattern week runs Sunday to Saturday would rather see Monday to Sunday.

The Solution

A shift pattern was created featuring rostered holidays, thus guaranteeing time off, previously leave could be refused due to lack of cover. The holiday entitlement is two weeks off in every nine week cycle. Extra cover is available by using a mix of shift length 8, 9 and 12 hours supplying more time off and allowing the two week break to be sacrosanct.

The number of consecutive shifts were also reduced and there are no quick turnarounds in the pattern. There are less weekends worked in the pattern and they are more fairly distributed so that they are not all worked consecutively.

Manning was reduced to the required level of two officers per day reducing to one overnight and this then enabled a reserve or bank of hours, which were paid for up front and could be used to call in cover for sickness absence or training or even to increase the manning level for special events. With more time off in the shift pattern there is more opportunity for cover, no extra cost is incurred as using the reserve of hours to take employees up to their contracted yearly total, does not attract an overtime premium.

The Benefits

The benefits are firstly for staff more time off, guaranteed holidays and cover for absence, training or special events. There are shorter runs of shifts, therefore causes less fatigue than the previous pattern. There is predictability in the shift pattern as the greatest cause for changes to the pattern was holiday cover.

For management, less administration is required, no authorising of holidays needs to take place and cover is easier to find if required. Overtime costs are greatly reduced and rules were put in place around calling in staff using the reserve of hours.

The pattern met the required business demand, met the aspirations of the staff and adheres to legislation around Working Time Regulations and finally is easy to manage so there is a reduction in administration and management time.

Catherine Bourke HR Manager York Minster commented:
“Working Time Solutions were of invaluable assistance to us through every step of the process. They were consistently detailed, reliable, helpful and professional. We would be happy to recommend their services to any company considering changing shift patterns.”

To find out more about the many services available from Working Time Solutions – including consultancy, software and Lean-ER itself – then please don’t hesitate to contact us or submit an information request and we shall be happy to find out how we can help. All our solutions start with talking and listening: we look forward to beginning the conversation soon.