Third shift hours

What is third shift?

Third shift is the overnight shift in a business that runs around the clock. In most US workplaces it runs from 11pm to 7am, after first shift (7am to 3pm) and second shift (3pm to 11pm). It is also called the night shift, the overnight shift or the graveyard shift, and 3rd shift is the same thing written as a number.

The name comes from cutting the day into three eight-hour blocks and numbering them from the morning. That numbering is a convention: no US federal law defines third shift, so each employer's policy or union contract sets the exact start and end times. British workplaces use the term less, and UK law speaks of night time and night workers instead.

Third shift hours: the common schedules

An eight-hour third shift usually starts between 10pm and midnight and ends between 6am and 8am. Longer night shifts start earlier in the evening and replace part of second shift.

The start time follows the handover. A plant whose first shift begins at 6am runs nights from 10pm. A hospital ward on 12-hour shifts changes over at 7am and 7pm, so third shift there is simply the night half of the day, and second shift does not exist as a separate block.

1st, 2nd and 3rd shift hours across a 24-hour day

Three eight-hour shifts cover all 24 hours with no gap and no overlap. These are the usual times; many employers move the whole pattern an hour earlier or later.

Some employers add a 4th shift. It has no fixed meaning: usually it is a weekend crew working long shifts from Friday to Sunday, so the weekday teams get their weekends off, and sometimes it is a short shift that overlaps the busiest hours. How the evening block works is explained under 2nd shift hours.

What counts as third shift when the hours overlap

A shift from 9pm to 5am, or from 7pm to 3am, is partly second and partly third shift. In the US the employer's policy has to say which one it is, and that matters as soon as third shift pays more. Two rules are common. Under the first, the whole shift counts as third shift when most of its hours fall in the night window. Under the second, only the hours inside the window count as night hours and the rest are paid as an ordinary shift. The federal government applies the first rule to its wage-grade employees.

UK law draws the line itself. Under regulation 2 of the Working Time Regulations 1998, night time is 11pm to 6am unless a written agreement sets another period of at least seven hours that includes midnight to 5am. A night worker is someone who, on the majority of the days they work, works at least three hours of their daily working time in that period. An employee on 7pm to 3am has four hours after 11pm and is a night worker. Someone on 3pm to 1am has two, and on that schedule alone is not.

Who works third shift

Overnight work exists wherever the work cannot stop, or is easier to do while customers are away. Warehouses and distribution centres pick overnight so orders leave in the morning, and plants run three shifts to keep expensive machines busy. Hospitals, care homes and emergency services staff around the clock, and hotels keep a night auditor and security on site. Retail and hospitality run smaller night crews: shelf fillers who restock before opening, and cleaning teams who do stores and offices after closing.

For the employer the trade-off is the same in each sector. Night crews use buildings and equipment that would otherwise stand still, and finish work before the day starts. They are also harder to recruit for, need their own supervision and cost more wherever nights carry a premium.

Does third shift pay more?

Nights often pay more, but in the US no federal law requires a premium. The Department of Labor states that the FLSA does not require extra pay for night work and leaves it to agreement between employer and employee. Employers that pay a premium do so through policy or a union contract, usually as a shift differential of a fixed amount per hour or a percentage of the base rate. Once it is paid to a non-exempt employee, the differential is part of the regular rate on which overtime is calculated.

The UK has no legal night premium either. The National Minimum Wage applies to every hour, night or day, and anything above it comes from the contract or a collective agreement, usually as a night shift allowance.

Third shift hours that cross midnight: workweek and overtime

A third shift starts on one date and ends on the next, which raises a question day shifts never do: which week do the hours belong to? The FLSA workweek is a fixed and regularly recurring period of 168 hours that may begin on any day and at any hour (29 CFR 778.105), and each workweek stands alone for overtime, so hours cannot be averaged over two weeks (29 CFR 778.104). A shift that runs across the start of the workweek puts its hours into two different weeks.

Take a warehouse whose workweek starts at midnight between Saturday and Sunday. A picker on $20.00 an hour works four nights from Monday to Thursday in week one, which is 32 hours. She picks up an extra shift from 11pm Saturday to 7am Sunday, and in week two works five nights from Sunday to Thursday, another 40 hours.

Booking the whole Saturday shift on its start date hides 7 overtime hours, worth 7 × $10.00 = $70.00 in overtime premium for one employee in two weeks. Many employers therefore start the workweek at an hour no regular shift crosses, such as 7am. The same regulation allows a change of start time when it is meant to be permanent and is not made to avoid overtime.

The night the clocks change

Twice a year a third shift is not eight hours long. The Department of Labor's Hours Worked Advisor takes a shift from 11pm to 7:30am with a 30-minute break: when daylight saving time ends in November, the employee works 9 hours instead of 8, and when it begins in March, 7 hours. The FLSA requires that employees are credited with all hours actually worked, so the November night is paid as 9 hours and all 9 count toward the 40 for overtime. Whether the hour missing in March is paid anyway is up to the employer's policy or contract.

A schedule that shows both nights as 11pm to 7am hides the difference, so the clocked hours for those two nights are the ones to check before they go to payroll. UK clocks change on different weekends from US clocks, with the same effect on a night shift.

Night work rules in the UK

UK employers of night workers have duties on top of the general rules on rest breaks and weekly hours. According to GOV.UK and the Working Time Regulations 1998:

• Night workers must not work more than an average of 8 hours in each 24-hour period, usually averaged over 17 weeks, or up to 52 weeks by agreement. Workers cannot opt out of this limit. Regular overtime counts toward the average; occasional overtime does not.

• Where night work involves special hazards or heavy mental or physical strain, the limit is 8 hours in any 24-hour period, without averaging. A risk assessment has to identify that work.

• Employers must offer a free health assessment before someone becomes a night worker, and regular assessments after that. The worker may decline. Records are kept confidential for 2 years, including the dates an assessment was offered.

• Workers aged 16 or 17 may not work between midnight and 4am, and usually not between 10pm and 6am (11pm to 7am by contract), with exceptions in sectors such as hospitals, hotels and catering, and retail.

• Every worker gets 11 hours of rest between working days, 24 hours off a week or 48 hours a fortnight, and a 20-minute break in a working day of more than 6 hours.

The rest rule is where moving someone onto nights goes wrong. An employee who finishes a day shift at 3pm and starts a night shift at 11pm the same day has had 8 hours off. Shift workers who cannot take daily or weekly rest when changing shift are entitled to compensatory rest of the same length, so a change of rotation is easiest with a day off in between.

The US has no federal limit on how many hours an adult works at night or how many nights in a row. Overtime after 40 hours a week applies whatever the time of day, and state law can add rules, so check the state where the site is.

Staffing a third shift

Night crews are smaller, so one sick call leaves a bigger gap with fewer people to cover it. Night work also costs sleep: NIOSH links sleep that is too short or out of step with the body clock to errors, vehicle crashes and chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. Three planning decisions make the most difference.

The first is fixed or rotating nights. A fixed night crew can keep one sleep schedule, days off included, and suits people who chose nights. A rotating shift spreads the nights across the team, but asks everyone to switch sleep times, and every switch needs the rest described above.

The second is the handover. At 7am the night shift goes home with whatever happened overnight, and the day shift often starts without a manager who saw it. A short written note at the end of each third shift (what is unfinished, what broke, who called in sick) saves the first hour of the morning.

The third is the minimum crew. Decide per night how many people and which skills have to be on site, for example a first aider or a forklift driver, and schedule those shifts before filling the rest. A missing skill on a night shift is usually noticed at 2am, when replacing someone is hardest.

Scheduling nights in Shiftbase

In Shiftbase employee scheduling, a third shift is a shift type with its own start time, end time, unpaid break and rate card, set up per department. Required shifts set how many people each night needs, and a counter shows the nights where someone is missing. A night surcharge on the rate card adds a percentage for the hours in its time window, and approved hours go to payroll with the surcharge as a separate pay component. Employees see their nights in the app as soon as the schedule is published.