Penn Hills police switching to 12-hour shifts

The eight-hour workday soon will be a thing of the past for Penn Hills police.

Starting March 31, officers will work 12-hour shifts as Chief Ronald Como and other municipal officials search for any kind of edge in the ultra-competitive realm of police recruitment.

“You got to change with the times, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Como said.

He conceded an uptick in applications is far from assured. That’s why the municipality and the police union have agreed to a one-year pilot of the new schedule.

Officers currently work six days straight, followed by two days off, with long weekends scattered throughout the year.

Under the new system, they’ll be on for two days, off for two, on for three, off for two, on for two and off for three before the cycle starts over. Put another way, officers will work seven days in a given 14-day cycle.

Feedback from officers likely will inform the shift length baked into the next union contract, which has yet to be negotiated. The current one runs through 2026.

Police union head Adam Lawrence said officers voted 48-6 in favor of the trial after extensive conversations with departments that have implemented 12-hour shifts.

“You hear a lot of the same things from people — that it reduces sick time use, it cuts overtime back and there’s just a cost savings factor to it,” Lawrence said.

Fatigue is one possible concern Como addressed in an interview with TribLive.

“We’re going to watch,” Como said. “That’s why we’re doing a trial.”

Not only will officers be working 12-hour shifts, but in the event of mandatory overtime, they could be on duty for 18 consecutive hours.

Right now, the standard overtime shift lasts 16 hours.

Under the new system, an officer who makes an arrest in the 17th hour of their shift could end up on duty for close to a full day.

Como said he will make adjustments as needed to ensure officers can get some sleep before clocking back in.

Like Lawrence, Mayor Pauline Calabrese touted the move as reducing overtime by giving officers more time to recharge between shifts. That, in turn, will result in fewer call-offs.

Como is less certain. Regardless, overtime spending was not a major motivator for switching to 12-hour shifts, Calabrese said. In fact, overtime was down last year.

But officials only expects hiring difficulties to intensify going forward as part of a broader trend in Western Pennsylvania.

While the department has more money at its disposal than many of its peers, it also has a target complement of 57 officers — likely the largest of any force in the region other than Pittsburgh.

There currently are 53 officers working for the department.

Younger officers want a better work-life balance, Calabrese said, and some have gone to other departments for scheduling reasons.

In another bid to maintain close-to-full staffing, the department recently dropped its tattoo and beard bans.