Toyota Rotating Shifts: Questions About Fatigue, Safety, and Respect
Toyota rotating shifts raised questions for me during a January 2018 visit to the San Antonio plant. We were told that production team members alternated two weeks on days and two weeks on nights. I admired much of what we saw, while wondering how that schedule affected fatigue, safety, and life outside work.
The tour details and employee reviews below are historical observations, not a statement of Toyota's current schedules at every plant. Anyone considering a job should confirm the hours, rotation, and overtime expectations for that specific position.
Concerns About Toyota's Rotating Shift Schedule
During that 2018 San Antonio tour, we were told about the production team members being on rotating schedules. The day shift normally starts at 6 am and runs until 3:15 pm, I believe. Team members work a job for two hours, get a ten-minute break, and then switch to a different job… between the rotation and breaks, they get 45 minutes for lunch. Job rotation is a good thing for many reasons.
The Toyota tour guide pointed out that break areas are intentionally all throughout the plant, so team members don't have to walk far to sit and rest, maximizing their break time. That's good for the team members, but the guide pointed out that being fresh helps prevent safety problems and improve quality.
At the time, we were told there were two hours of “mandatory overtime” each weekday before the next shift starts at 6 pm. They sometimes have to work a Saturday, which gets communicated in advance, they said.
She also added:
The team members work two weeks on the day shift and then switch to the night shift for two weeks, and then the pattern repeats.
Even as a fanboy (and not as any sort of expert on circadian rhythms), I was wondering how tough it would be to switch back and forth from days to nights, back and forth. When I worked at manufacturing companies, including GM, someone was always on the day shift or the afternoon shift, without switching back and forth. I did not know how common the approach was at other plants.
Fairness, Flexibility, and the Human Cost of Rotation
Is it difficult for Toyota to find people to always be on the night shift? Working nights works for some people – due to their body clocks, child care situations, etc. (the same is true in healthcare).
The rotating shifts are fair in a way… everybody does it, and Toyota says they made it clear to applicants that this is what they're signing up for. But what if somebody underestimates how hard it would be to switch back and forth?
The Toyota guide said the rotating shifts can actually benefit team members because “they can make doctor's appointments or do things that need to get done during the day.” When someone asked the guide about rotating shifts during the Q&A period, the guide said the company provides recommendations to team members on how best to prepare for the shift change.
She also said that working on the first shift half of the time gives everybody equal opportunity to get the exposure that could lead to promotions. I guess managers and engineers don't have the same shift rotations. In my life, I've known some people who LOVE to work second shift because they get “left alone” by management and engineers (and I say that as an engineer with an MBA… I get it… and I hear the same things in healthcare, too).
During our debrief at the KaiNexus office, one of our colleagues raised rotating shifts as a real negative. He pointed to online reviews posted about working at Toyota, and while there are many positives, many of the reviews he showed us said the rotating shifts were annoying, if not dangerous, or a reason to quit.
In Toyota-speak, there might be a “big vague concern” we share about the rotating shifts. But the next step would be to investigate whether there's really a problem and, specifically, what it is.
What employee reviews can and cannot tell us
In the Glassdoor reviews I read at the time, employees praised pay, benefits, job stability, and opportunities to learn. Many also described difficulty with rotating schedules, family responsibilities, and feeling rested. I estimated that about two-thirds of that set of reviews mentioned the schedule.
That was not a representative survey. I could not verify every reviewer's employment or determine whether those comments reflected the broader workforce. The reviews were reasons to ask better questions, not proof of the prevalence or cause of a health problem. The original discussion and additional reader experiences remain in the comments below.
Study fatigue as a work-design issue
NIOSH explains that nonstandard schedules can disrupt or shorten sleep, and that fatigue can affect attention, reaction time, memory, and judgment. It calls for employers and workers to address fatigue risks together. That supports investigating a schedule rather than simply telling employees to cope better.
The research paper cited in the original post discusses rotating schedules for emergency workers. Its context differs from automotive manufacturing. I would not treat any one rotation pattern as a universal answer without understanding the tasks, hours, recovery time, and people involved.
Listen, investigate, and follow through
A past employee vote is useful information, but it does not settle a scheduling question permanently. Preferences, staffing, production demands, and evidence can change. Leaders can ask what is working, what is difficult, and which alternatives employees would want to evaluate.
Look at safety events, near misses, fatigue reports, overtime, turnover, and quality over time. Involve occupational health expertise and employees in evaluating changes. Retention alone is not proof that a schedule works well; people may value a job while struggling with part of its design.
This is a practical test of respect for people. A concern about fatigue should receive an investigation and a response. The SQDCM priorities provide a reminder to consider safety, quality, delivery, cost, and morale together.
Employees also need confidence that raising a concern will not bring punishment or humiliation. Listening does not require accepting every proposed solution. It does require taking the reported problem seriously and explaining what happens next.
Explore learning and accountability
Read a free preview of The Mistakes That Make Us to see how the book approaches learning, accountability, and improvement before deciding whether it is right for you.
LinkedIn Comments
Jack Parsons (formerly of Honda):
“Honda tried rotating shifts in their Greensburg Indiana plant and it did not go so well for the obvious health and safety reasons. Management to their credit listened to the complaints of the workers and finally did away with the rotating shifts.” [It lasted several years.]
Brad Shelton:
“TMMK in Kentucky do not rotate. You work days or nights as a temp, based on need, and when you get hired in you go to nights. Seniority dictates when you get to come to days. As stated, there are pros and cons to both. Being on nights can last several years, your most experienced workers are on days, but when promotions come up some do not apply because the new team leaders or group leaders go back to nights and the experienced rotate back to days. Management for my company (tier one Toyota supplier) has assistant managers on nights and managers on days. We are like Kentucky and either days or nights without rotation. Which is better? I’m not sure. I see benefits of both.
By the way Mark, our company has 4 plants in Japan and they rotate EVERY WEEK! NUTS!”
Bruce Andersen:
“Saturn in TN rotated three shifts every week. People I knew that worked there said it aged them and they didn’t like it. It was a union environment and even though the majority (I heard) didn’t like the rotation the majority wanted to be on days so the union insisted on keeping it. I don’t know what they do now.
I personally think it is bad for safety, health, and quality of life but those are only my opinions after working in and around automotive for almost 50 years.”
I would agree, Mark. My initial reaction is that it must be difficult to adjust to a different shift every couple of weeks. If you’re working in an automotive plant in which the day shift ends at 3:15, you typically have an hour or two to still conduct personal business after work before businesses close.
As difficult as this might seem, there are several automotive plants that now follow a 3-crew/2-shift scenario, in which the A Crew works four 10-hour day shifts Monday thru Thursday, the B Crew works four 10-hour night shifts Tuesday thru Friday, and then the C Crew works two 10-hour day shifts Friday and Saturday and then shifts to two 10-hour night shifts on Sunday and Monday nights. While they don’t rotate people from crew to crew every couple of weeks, I have to believe that working that C Crew really messes with your circadian rhythms.
Saturn,rotating shifts weekly,circadian rhythms,High family disruptions,husbands and wives employed at Saturn were not allowed to work on the same crew.
Mark, did you mention why toyota went to rotating shifts?
No shift premium.
So much for respect for people.
Mike – how do you know that to be true that there’s no shift premium?
Thanks for another good post. It points out that while Toyota does many things very well they have opportunities to improve. And I am sure they agree they have a huge number of things to improve.
I agree, this rotating shifts seems like something important to try and improve. One of the things that happens in many organizations is that working on this are going to make lots of people mad is often avoided. This rotating shift work seems like something like that.
Even if you worked on improving it, likely during those PDSA cycles many people would be annoyed. And if you were working on it, you could get blamed, you could be tarnished as someone people didn’t like and didn’t appreciate. If, on the other hand, no one is making significant efforts to improve even if people are annoyed it is at some amorphous policy and usually doesn’t stick to 1 person. If the dis-satisfaction does accumulate toward 1 person (say the plant manager) that person then often will push through to deal with it – or assign someone to deal with it and stay on them to make sure they do the difficult work (even if doing so will make that person’s life much more difficult).
Now I would hope Toyota is better managed than that and doesn’t shy away from important work just because the people that would take the lead have strong reasons to avoid doing so.
There are often so many things to improve that it isn’t too hard to shift the focus away from something that no one wants to take on. Sometimes though things are so important they must be taken on. Usually those would be more direct and short term obvious problems. Systemic problems that cause great damage but in a less visible way (such as rotating job shifts) are less likely to be addressed.
Coping with this issue (of avoiding unpleasant, systemic and long term rather than acute problems) is one of the things that separates great corporate culture from decent or bad corporate culture.
If there are fairly obvious or fairly easy improvement those would likely be taken care of. There are, rarely, but still sometimes, instances where the vocal or politically powerful who would lose out in a fairly obvious improvement will prevent action.
I am pretty sure Toyota doesn’t have fairly easy improvements on this issue that they must realize is important that they are just not getting to. I am a bit less confident that Toyota isn’t avoiding trying to find solutions using a PDSA type effort because it would be really hard and risky work for whoever takes it on. Also Toyota can try to rely on the good will built up through their many efforts to expect enough employees to say that they will accept suffering for the good of the everyone.
I am not convinced there are not ways to improve the situation. And I am pretty confident it is important enough to try. And I believe (though I might be wrong) with a concerted effort of knowledgable people improvements that would make a big difference in the quality of life could be achieved. I am not so certain those people involved in leading the effort would be seen in great lights. People are much more likely to remember negative consequences to them personally even if they gain much more than they lost overall. And certainly if they lost only a little but overall the gains were much bigger many will hold onto feelings that they were harmed by those that took action.
All of that nonsense and you would not rotate.
LOL, I think I may have become a Mark Graban fan boy, some here at Franciscan Children’s might agree.
Seriously, thanks for a really rich post, rich in consequences and challenge, and opportunity. I would be very interested to read any response to this from Toyota in San Antonio. I’m hopeful they’re aware of the staff reaction and are amidst PDSA cycles considering what to do. At Franciscan our Nursing staff are mostly on 12-hour shifts, 3 shifts per week is the norm. I’ve honestly not heard a lot complaints but I’m also not sure I’m in the best position to hear honest feedback.
This reminds me of a recent public discourse in Boston from the public school system which announced they would soon change school hours with one aim being to reduce road traffic congestion due to bus traffic. With all schools starting at similar times the traffic and congestion was maximized, so they wanted to try starting elementary age school an hour earlier, the view being that high school kids need to sleep in later (my kids are out of school, but would have agreed). Maybe the littler ones just don’t complain as loudly? In the end, Boston canceled this experiment over parental feedback — impacts not only on their kids, but on their own parental schedules including their jobs and other responsibilities (and maybe their own sleep?). Perhaps Boston rightly viewed this feedback as coming from their “customers”, vs. at Toyota San Antonio it sounds as if they’re not paying as much attention to their employees. It doesn’t sound respectful, but again I would hope and even assume that Toyota is aware of this and that most employees would feel Toyota is working toward a better solution.
I’d also assume that any real impacts would show up in their staff retention and hiring metrics, and if those don’t show a reduction in retention or other worsening, then they can probably live with the comments on Glassdoor.
I think the staff retention issue is important, but there’s also the possible impact on health and safety that should be considered in as scientific of a way as possible.
Let’s say these are GREAT jobs for the San Antonio area. Pay is really good. Job security is fantastic. Maybe people say in the job even though they’re unhappy with the shift rotation. Maybe they stay even if they think it’s not great for their health.
I think that’s something else to consider.
In healthcare, there are studies that show 12-hour shifts aren’t the safest thing (errors increase in the last two hours), let alone longer shifts and other sleep-deprived conditions for residents and some physicians. I’ve heard that 12-hour shifts are a staff preference (commuting to work just 3 days instead of 4), but what about patient safety?? Hospitals say “patient safety is always our top priority.” But is it?
Hi Mark,
I worked for a man at one time who used to remark that “opinions are not data, no matter how many of them you collect.” It would be useful to know some facts about those workers who posted negative things about the shift changes. Were they high-seniority people who felt they should have been given 100% day shifts? Were they married or single, children or no, young, middle aged, or older? I have never had to work “swing” shifts, but I know people who have and they did not all hate it. When I was in ops management I had 3rd shift folks who couldn’t stay awake at work but would not transfer to 2nd shift due to their need, (desire) to take the children to school, etc. If I was a low-seniority employee I think I would love the opportunity to work half my time on 1st shift, but if I were a long-service person–probably not.
From my notes, visiting the Toyota Tsutsumi Plant in Japan, for comparison:
2 shifts:
o 6:25 to 3:15
o 4:10 to 1:00 am
o OT up to 45 minutes
o 10 min break (get them every 2 hours)
o More breaks after lunch every 90 minutes (due to fatigue)
When I visited the Takoaka plant in Japan, they mentioned the same shift hours.
I asked if day shift people are always on day shift, and I was told that they rotate from days to nights EVERY week.
But, I wonder if working “afternoons” (4 pm to 1 am) is less disruptive on the body clock compared to a shift that goes from 6 pm to about 6 am? There’s a difference between “staying up late” and “staying up all night?”
When i worked in a UK steel works, we worked a “reverse continental”.
6am – 2pm, 10pm – 6am (quick change), 2pm – 10pm, off. 2 days each except what ever you did on friday (i think) was for 3 days. 4 shifts in total. The quick change was tough, come off nights and then on afternoon same day.
I currently work at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi in Blue Springs. I work in maintenance and rotate 3 shifts every two weeks 3rd, 2nd, 1st. Everyone on our 50+ maintenance team hates, really hates the shift rotation. We have lost a lot of good team members because of it and can’t get the experience needed to run the plant. Now our maintenance group is made up mostly of kids just out of school or guys with less than 3yrs experience. And because of this, the plant leans hard on the experienced guys and now they are over worked and looking for new jobs. We are very interested in what Mazda Toyota Manufacturing U.S.A does. I know that if they don’t rotate, many will want to transfer including myself. I’m always tired and almost never feel well anymore. Something has to change…
Thanks for your comment, Alexander. I wonder when Toyota leaders will see the effect of that approach? Will they adjust?
Hi Mark, I work for TMMAL in Alabama, I’m a veteran of 14 years and we were the first plant in the USA to rotate 2weeks on days and 2weeks on nights. The rotation is very difficult on the body and the lack of getting anything done at home or even having the energy to do anything with the family, in my opinion that’s not fair.
We have what round table meetings were the executives and team members meet on company issues, some ideas work but when the issue about rotating shifts come up “which is a lot” the president of the company doesn’t want to hear about it! We a dead last in quality in our umbrella of manufacturing plants and I honestly believe it’s due to the lack of sleep, over worked and a BIG lack of leadership.
I completely understand everyone is trying to make a living and we all know what we signed up for BUT the lack of love and compassion that goes into those engines is no longer there and that bothers me because Toyota isn’t built on that type of culture! I love this company and the engines we build but I can’t speak for everyone.
Our managers and executives always preach safety and quality are our two main pillars but I personally don’t believe it anymore, it’s about the number for the shift and making sure it gets hit by the 10 hours allotted. Myself personally if Toyota wanted to pursue the rotation give night shift a incentive 10 hours 4 days a week, I believe that would help with the fatigue and morale. Just my thoughts!
Robert – thanks for your story.
It’s VERY disappointing to hear that Toyota leaders might not be listening to feedback from employees. That doesn’t seem like “The Toyota Way.”
Hopefully, somebody from the company sees these comments and can do something.
Ky Toyota employee here. What Robert is describing is the American version of Toyota. The people who move into the top positions at American Toyota plants do not follow the Toyota Way. They only give it enough lip service to maintain their newfound standard of living. Hard work gets you nothing at Toyota in USA, only con artists are promoted now.
Some good discussion here:
Fast forward to 2024, the two week rotating shifts are still there in Alabama. I see Toyota hiring all the time, and I am tempted until I see the rotating shifts. Absolutely not. Whoever put that into place is a fool. An other-wise decent job becomes BRUTAL. Factory work is already monotonous and tiring.
You mentioned Toyota’s “no layoffs” commitment. It’s true, they haven’t laid off any full time employees, but they have laid off many temporaries back in 2008, in their Kentucky plant. Actually they just ended their contracts. Some of these people had worked at Toyota for several years, right along side of full time Toyota workers, with a lot less pay and very few benefits, and more expensive insurance. Temp. Services are nothing more than modern day slavery. To me they rank right up there with payday lenders. If you can’t decide, in 6 months, whether a person will make a good employee, you are just abusing them as desperate, cheap labor. Not that Toyota is the only company guilty of using temps., but they should shut up about their “no layoffs ” commitment.
I know this article is over a year old but the effects of rotating shift is the reason I search for and read this piece.
I’m a current employee at Toyota Mississippi and in two hours from now my first day of dayshift starts. I haven’t any rest—couldn’t sleep if I had taken a sleep aid. And this is the routine the best suits me to keep from oversleeping.
– Drowsiness usually hits me around 1pmish while at work.
– After my shift, I will go straight home(6:30pm) and sleep after eating.
– Wake up sometime around 1am and stay awake until I leave for work again.(4:45pm)
– by Friday night I’ll be going to be at 9pm or earlier.
This is no good! This is hard for me and I’m single and without children. I can’t imagine the strain it has on families. Work-life balance goes out of the window when working two hours overtime, because you’re too tired to attend family functions and fight through traffic to get to them. I’d prefer a night shift.