My first week as assistant chief of Emergency Operations coincided with the implementation of a new collective bargaining agreement with our operational staff. As part of the contract, the fire chief and labor representatives worked creatively and innovatively to develop a new shift schedule that included a fourth platoon. The group selected the 24/72 shift schedule as the desired outcome, with firefighters working 24 hours (1 day) on duty followed by 72 hours (3 days) off duty.
That first week became much more complicated when I was charged to lead the D-shift project with a tight nine-month timeline for full implementation. I knew immediately that this project would need a talented and dedicated team from across our department to reach our goal.
| NEXT: Aren’t we tired of this? Sleep and shift work in the fire service
The push for 24/72
The fire service is seeing a surge of departments moving to a four-platoon system or D-shift model for several reasons, primarily the projected health and wellness benefits of a consistent third day off. Fire service researchers have identified myriad health concerns associated with traditional firefighting schedules, including sleep disruption, adverse cardiovascular effects, mental health challenges, increased cancer risks, and work-life balance issues (Jahnke et al, 2024; O’Dare, 2025). As such, the momentum toward a fourth platoon shift schedule would indicate that, collectively, fire department administration and labor leadership teams are understanding and acknowledging these mounting health risks.
Another reason for this momentum is the 24/72 schedule aligns with contract negotiations. The budgetary implications of adding a straight D shift can be tremendous, and likely include hiring additional firefighters, internal or external promotional processes, and structural/functional facility upgrades. However, many fire departments already have schedules that include Kelly Days (prescheduled off days on a rotation that vary in number based on contract language), and most fire departments that implement a D shift require firefighters to work a predetermined number of extra days throughout the year (debit days). Debit days help mitigate the substantial cost of adding a fourth shift, and the equation of leveraging the elimination of Kelly Days, the addition of debit days, and adjustments to vacation accrual can help narrow the gap to an agreement.
The challenge
The challenge was to transition away from a 1/3/2/3 (24 hours on/72 hours off, 48 hours on/72 hours off with 10 Kelly Days) to a 24/72 D shift model with 13 debit days.
To say we had to rapidly develop a plan for the design, construction, implementation and evaluation of the 24/72 shift model is an understatement. The transition team worked at what felt like breakneck speed to execute a change of this magnitude within such a short time frame.
We immediately created a taskforce to lead this work and identified major components to consider throughout the process. We needed to determine how many additional FTEs would be required as well as how many promotions were needed for the leadership structure of the fourth platoon. We addressed how special team-certified personnel (water rescue, ARFF, USAR, hazmat, aerial operator) would be reassigned across the fourth shift.
Additional planning was required to determine payroll challenges and help identify necessary facility upgrades, including additional locker space and kitchen amenities, and create an estimate for how much all this was going to cost. In short, we needed to hire, train, budget and build.
The plan: Use change management
We weren’t just trying to add a D shift in 9 months; our goal was to execute the change process in a way that built trust with employees and saved us time (and resources) in the long run. So, we designed and implemented the project using a structured change management approach and incorporated tracking methodology to identify everyone’s responsibility on the project. To ensure success, we focused on each piece of the project in priority order, set and met deadlines, and reported progress and sticking points regularly. Adhering to a tight process helped us remain aligned as this very large initiative moved forward.
Here we’ll review four main steps in our change management process and highlight what went well and what we learned along the way:
Step 1: Is there a problem?
The first step in any change management process is to identify whether there is a problem that needs to be solved and, if so, if it’s a problem that needs to be dealt with now. In our case, a collective bargaining agreement launched our 24/72 schedule into reality. Although the overall project was destined to move forward based on that agreement, we could still apply this lens within the project to determine which pieces should be tackled now and which components are better left for a time when we had more capacity, resources or information.
Step 2: Preparation
When designing a change process, strive to clearly articulate a shared vision for what needs to be accomplished. Identify who’s going to lead the process, who’s going to build it and which stakeholders need to be involved. In our case, with an effort of this size and so many subject-matter experts working on different parts of the project (operations, staffing, training, admin support, payroll, facilities), it was essential to clearly outline each person’s responsibilities.
We created a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consult, Inform) chart (Figure 1) to help team members keep track of their engagement points. Some team members were responsible for developing and implementing program areas within the total project, while others had a consultation role or simply needed to stay informed. This kept each team member focused on their part of the work and allowed team members to bypass meetings that did not impact their work area.
- Essential stakeholders. Making a list of internal and external stakeholders helps identify conversations that need to happen and concepts that may need to be strategically introduced. It also ensures that necessary parts of the equation that may create irreversible damage to your process are not missed. It is essential that elected officials, municipal leadership, board members, contractors, payroll specialists and other work groups that could touch the project in some way have an understanding of where you are heading and how they fit in. They should be included in communications to create alignment and identify any potential obstacles early on.
- Our department is fortunate to have cultivated positive relationships between labor and management. Both groups understood how important finding common ground was to the on-time implementation of the project on such an expedited timeline, and this played a tremendous factor in the successful implementation of this large-scale, complex change. There were numerous decision points that came up through planning and implementation phases. Many of these did not have a clear “right” or “wrong” answer; rather, there were pros and cons based on different perspectives. Both groups acted with positive intent, realistic expectations and compromise when needed. Where possible, management tried to act in the spirit of supporting the workforce, reducing forced overtime and working within budgetary constraints. These approaches helped us build trust and expedited decision making as we moved through challenges.
- Meeting cadence. Because of the accelerated timeline, we set our meeting cadence at a two-week interval. This gave us the opportunity to ensure progress was being made and understand where we were lagging. From the outset, the expectation was that significant work would occur between the meeting dates and we would use the meeting time to address items that needed broad discussion and agreement. We limited the information share and status updates and focused on building the framework and executing in stages.
Staffing considerations. The heart of any planning initiative that expands staffing to a fourth shift is reassigning and hiring employees, and understanding which skills are needed to create strong, balanced teams. We have worked to develop a strong team of battalion chiefs, and two of our most detail-oriented took on the challenge of solving this staffing puzzle. One developed an innovative matrix that encompassed employee tenure, EMS certification and special teams skills. This matrix helped us assign crewmembers across shifts and gave the process a measure of objectiveness and fairness, which helped ensure continued trust between staff, labor and management as we moved through the process.
Building a fire department schedule that accounts for all variables is incredibly complex and requires advanced expertise. This part of the process requires someone highly skilled in interpreting complex patterns, taking into account constantly changing variables like leave types, certifications, minimum staffing levels, overtime rules and team dynamics. It is important to recruit someone on your team who has extreme attention to detail and who can see not only what is needed now but can strategically predict future staffing realities due to projected promotions, retirements, and other attrition. The battalion chief who took this on spent untold hours entering the nuts and bolts of the new shift into our staffing program and was crucial to the success of this initiative.
- Development leading to promotions. Our fire department has a long-standing reputation for delivering rigorous and comprehensive year-long career development programs for company officer, engineer/operator and battalion chief ranks. A major challenge with the D shift initiative was the need for leadership across all four shifts, and understanding how to develop employees into promoted ranks using a potentially modified approach. The planning team concluded that creating a hybrid program using peer development in the field, followed by an 80–120-hour development academy, would position our candidates most similarly to our valuable legacy programs. We realized good success with this hybrid approach, and participants gave valuable feedback through their participation that will help us refine future offerings. There was a significant cost to using this model and departments should prepare for the financial reality beforehand.
- Communication strategies. Clear, consistent communication is a piece of change management that can make or break the success of a planned change. The need for clear communication spans all aspects of the project, such as stakeholder connections and planning meetings previously mentioned, but also needs to exist in broader communication with staff. While resistance to organizational change is often a reality, this aversion “can be addressed … resulting in successful cultural acceptance before, during, and following organizational change initiatives” (Hubbart, 2023, p. 1). Our department addressed change discomfort by overcommunicating through the 24/72 build-out using several different mediums.
We embedded line battalion chiefs into the planning process. They then shared information out at the line level. The fire chief spoke openly and candidly about the process in a department-wide weekly update. When attendance at these updates was low, the battalion chief group reminded crews to attend, ensuring the information that was being shared was being accessed and utilized. D-shift planners held an information session at the union hall to explain the process of vacation and debit day selection and answer questions. The D-shift task force also used a numbered formal memorandum system that linked all D-shift communications together and made them easier to locate.
In short, we knew communicating solely via a handful of emails was not going to distribute the information effectively, and multiple angles and mediums would be required to help saturate the messages into the department culture.
Step 3: Implementation TIES the project together
The TIES (training, implementation, evaluation, support) acronym is a reminder that the work does not stop the day the project is officially rolled out. While some change processes require heavy work in the implementation step, this change was frontloaded in the planning and preparation phases to make implementation smoother. Much of the training needed for implementation was accomplished during the nine-month preparation period before the official start date.
- Implementation. In many changes processes, implementation is where most of the work is. But this phase goes relatively smoothly if the planning phase is executed appropriately. Full implementation amounted largely to moving personnel to different shifts and the coordinated promotion of engineers, officers and battalion chiefs. It was also connected to vacation picks for the upcoming year. While those pieces were planned, logically they needed to be timed as close as possible to the onset of the new shift start date. A smooth implementation was mostly a product of incredible planning and back-end work by everyone involved with the project.
- Evaluation and support. What we evaluate has a lot to do with how we measure success. Adding a fourth shift with a reduced workweek can create unintended consequences, and the goal was to identify these impacts early and continually. Pieces to watch for when adding a fourth shift include:
- Reduced on-duty training opportunities
- Debit day staffing issues
- Overtime impacts
- Leave impacts and trends (sick leave, vacation, and FLMA)
- Forced overtime metrics
- Injury and accident tracking
- Newly promoted employee performance
- General employee satisfaction
Employee satisfaction is a more nuanced metric. This qualitative assessment is tied to change support and often comes in the form of visiting stations and listening to people’s experiences. While many employees landed in an ideal spot, I have extra appreciation for those that did not get their preference in station or crew assignment but are supporting the mission and maintaining positivity. I believe the way in which the D-shift task force managed and communicated the change helped create an environment where folks could trust that the process was fair and we were heading in the right direction.
Step 4: Embed into culture
Often the forgotten step, fully institutionalizing the change in policy, training delivery and culture will help it to take hold. When adding a fourth shift, this includes reviewing SOP/SOGs to make sure the new schedule is accurately reflected. Traditional training schedules spread across three shifts will certainly be impacted and thought needs to be given on how to lengthen training cycles to produce more offerings. Departments may want to consider hybrid training approaches using peer trainers online to fill training gaps. Consideration will also be needed around how shifts and crews are expected to communicate with each other as A/C shifts and B/D shifts will not cross paths at shift change.
What did we learn?
For those departments in the process of moving toward a D shift, my strong advice is to recruit a handful of people in your department that are fluent in your workforce dynamics. They should understand teambuilding, employee skills and certification, and be ready to make recommendations based on a combination of best practices and your unique circumstances. It is also valuable to reach out to peer organizations to learn from their experiences. We were fortunate that our peer departments shared their valuable insight with us.
Some lessons we have learned (or continue to learn):
- Creating an objective employee skills and experience matrix helps articulate the need to move certain employees out of preferred locations.
- Annual vacation selection can be processed several different ways when adding the debit day into the equation. Assess the pros and cons of each scenario.
- Have primary and contingency plans for employees working back on their debit day. Budgetary constraints may make this decision for you.
- Partner with labor when possible, both to share decision making when appropriate and keep them informed through the change process.
- New crews and newly promoted officers will make mistakes. This is an incredible opportunity to lead, mentor, guide and set expectations to establish strong foundations for the future of your department.
- Special team skill dilution across four shifts is a very real challenge. Taking steps to upskill early in every conceivable category (water rescue, hazmat, USAR, ARFF, truck and tower, etc.) will ultimately give you more assignment flexibility.
- While we were able to open the doors on a fourth platoon, moving large numbers of employees into different positions imbalanced our workforce in different ways. We were over hired in some places and under hired in others. Our projection is it will take over two years to fully stabilize ranks, skills, and certifications in the way we are accustomed to.
Final thoughts
The advent of the 24/72 shift schedule is an exciting development in firefighter health and wellness and is part of the larger movement to “prioritize firefighter well-being through structural and cultural reforms (O’Dare, 2025, p. 161). While there are many ways to achieve this schedule, it will require a thorough planned change process to address the many different aspects of the change. We aim to create four strong, balanced shifts that disperse talent as equally as possible, with the ultimate goal being a department where employees enjoy more rest, greater work-life balance, and the ability come to work each day with a renewed sense of service to the communities they serve.
REFERENCES
- Hubbart, J. A. (2023). Organizational change: The challenge of change aversion. Administrative Sciences, 13(7), 162.
- Jahnke, S. A., Jitnarin, N., Haddock, C. K., Kaipust, C., Poston, W. S. C., Hollerbach, B. S., Crisp, C., & Naylor Metoyer, B. (2024). Meta-analysis of incidence and mortality of firefighter cancer: An update on emerging science. Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention : APJCP, 25(3), 801–811.
- O’Dare, K. (2025). A call to rest: Mitigating the impacts of the extended firefighter workweek. Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being, 10(3), 161–166.
- Paskett, C. (2025). A practical blueprint for leading successful fire department change. FireRescue1.
