Living & Working in Great Places

Beware of Split Shifts

This is something I've run into in the past with both Xanterra and DNC. It's such a critical issue, it should be considered as a deal-breaker when you are considering working for one of these companies.

In an environment such as a national park, split shifts are, to put it simply, abusive. If you work, for example, 4-on, 4-off, 4-on, for a 12-hour split shift, where do you go and what can you do for those intervening four hours? The answer: nothing, and nowhere. You can eat a loooong lunch, or maybe read a book, but you don't have enough time to hike, or go fishing, or take a ride to town. Especially since you're still wearing your uniform.

The worst part is that after your twelve-hour work day (for that's what it is; it's just that four of those hours are unpaid), you will have no energy left to do anything but stagger back to your shack and collapse. If you are lucky enough to have two days off, that will be your only free time, some of which you will have to devote to doing laundry or shopping for groceries, since your split-shift workweek didn't allow you any time to do that before or after work.

Split shifts provide a small bit of added scheduling convenience for the employer at a HUGE expense of time and inconvenience to the employee. It is my--and many others'--position that split scheduling, aside from being reprehensible and abusive, is actually illegal, as it lengthens the actual workday beyond legal limits.

I STRONGLY urge EVERYONE to demand from their prospective employers a guarantee that they will NOT be assigned split shifts, except in case of emergency, and then only temporarily. If the park concessioners cannot find anyone who will tolerate this abusive practice, then they will eventually have to stop doing it.

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by jackie morris on October 19, 2009 at 9:25pm: I strongly disagree i and alot of my friends love the split shifts! were servers and the break helps alot.
i worked in yellowstone and on my 4 hours off i went shopping in west or gardiner. you can drive the upper or lower loops in plenty of time, or do your laundry! The employers are not going to stop this, it is the only way for them to cover everyones lunch or suppers. you are working for these people they are not here for your convenience!!!!

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lewis on October 20, 2009 at 1:23am: That's fine if YOU love the split shifts, but NO ONE should be FORCED to accept split shift work. And both DNC and Xanterra FORCE their employees to accept split shifts.

And don't be silly---split shifts are not "the only way" to cover scheduling problems. Tens of thousands of service industry employers nationwide manage just fine without imposing this abusive practice. DNC and Xanterra get away with it because they hire third world foreign employees who don't feel that they have any rights, college kids who haven't ever been in the world of work and thus don't have any idea of when they're being treated like dirt, and people who are so glad to be in a national park that they'll put up with any kind of crap just to be able to live and work there.

And actually, neither party is there for the others' convenience--they are there to execute a business agreement--between employer and employee. DNC and Xanterra, as many other posts and threads show, routinely abuse that agreement.

Concessioners exploiting their unique and advantageous positions in the national parks is something that's more than a century old. I suppose it's only natural (but disappointing) that exploitative labor practices---WHICH WOULD NOT BE TOLERATED ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE UNITED STATES---are so common there.

Permalink Reply by jackie morris on October 20, 2009 at 8:39am: DNC tells all there employees BEFORE they are hired that u will work split shifts.
when u work for any ANY employer in the united states you will Will work whatever shift that they need u to work!!! please silly me

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lewis on October 20, 2009 at 12:30pm: Yes. And in the United States, the practice of forcing employees to work split shifts has become obsolete, because it is exploitative and abusive. And "you will work whatever shift they need 'u' to work" doesn't mean that you are on call 24/7.

I repeat, however, if you are perfectly happy with working split shifts, more power to you. DNC and Xanterra can continue to abuse their employees for exactly that reason--there are some people who are willing to put up with it.

Permalink Reply by Rick Peterson on October 20, 2009 at 12:45pm: Kevin, just because you don't like split shifts doesn't mean they are abuse. If you don't want to work split shifts, take a position that doesn't require them. Unfortunately there are many reasons why split shifts are needed in certain locations and positions.

I think the wise thing to do is ask about split shifts in the interview so you know what you are getting yourself in to. If the employer lies about them, yes, that is very wrong.

With all seasonal work, regardless of shift, you still have to remember that you are there to work. The ability to tour and see stuff on your own is a priviledge that comes with it. To me it sounds like you are not upset about the work structure, just the inability to go hiking. While enjoying the parks is great, it is not the companies responsibility to make that easy on you at the expense of the company. Especially at this time in the tourism industry, without split shifts in these locations there might not be shifts at all.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lewis on October 20, 2009 at 1:17pm: I would be more inclined to consider your argument if there were any real reason why split shifts are "necessary". I've worked in supervisory positions many times, and while breaking everyone's work day in half makes it EASIER to schedule people, that doesn't mean that scheduling can't be done without split shifts.

The simple, undeniable fact of the matter is that split shifts are an inconvenience imposed on the employee in order to make the employer's life easier. Anyone with a reasonably sized staff and a rudimentary intellect can schedule full shifts to accomodate the needs of the business. The proof of that? Virtually every business in the US does NOT use split shifts. Somehow, they manage!

The true abusive nature of a split shift is to extend the employee's work day from eight to twelve--or sixteen--hours, with NO compensation to the employee. And as I've said before, the park concessioners get away with it because they deliberately hire people who don't know how to stand up for themselves. Why do you think that there are dishwashers from Croatia and busboys from China working in the parks? Because it's EASIER to hire such people than US citizens? No--it's because they're more DOCILE, and can be kept in line via the threat of firing them and sending them 8000 miles back home.

Permalink Reply by Rick Peterson on October 20, 2009 at 1:28pm: I really think you are venturing in to territory you don't want to go now. It is never wise to assume that you are smarter than everyone and have all the answers, which you are kinda doing. You are also putting down all the people who take these positions by saying they can't stand up for themselves. Lastly you are stereotyping other ethnicities in a poor way. None of that is productive.

I'll try to give you a couple real world examples of split shifts that occur at my location. We have restaurants that are open for breakfast and dinner only. Breakfast is from 6am to 9:30am. Dinner is from 4:30pm to 9pm. Do you want people to work a 3.5 hour day only. With many seasonal areas the flow of customers is much different than in the lower 48 and a regular work environment. The customers are out on tours in large groups and then come to eat in large groups because their timing overlaps. We have 4 restaurants on our property, we need them all for dinner, 3 for breakfast, and only 2 for lunch. And you don't get the same level of service by asking a person to be a professional server at 4 different venues and learn the ins and outs of 4 different restaurants.

If the employer is up front in the interview about the shift conditions, I don't really see the complaints after the fact. You don't have to take the job if you don't want to work those shifts.

Lastly, I have many friends from Europe who have come to the US to work in the summers. I wouldn't call them docile. They work hard but also stand up for themselves just like anyone else would. As for hiring Americans, I am a hiring manager, and every year we discuss new ways to attract more American employees, but the FACT is that we cannot find enough Americans to come and work as room attendants and dish washers and bussers to meet the need. That is why International employees are used. You can dispute this if you want. I have 5 years of hiring experience at 5 different lodges to support my case.

Permalink Reply by reggie on October 20, 2009 at 1:33pm: to add what rick says to this they will tell the severs upfront about the spilt shift that way the can answer questions about the tours and give them info about the company by saying that people dont have time to do things yes they do have time plus u have your days off

Permalink Reply by jon youngblood on October 20, 2009 at 2:23pm: split shifts are a necessary part of doing business. like rick says, are you going to have restaurant staff work for 4 hours a day, that would mean that you would need twice as many employees, and each employee cost money (housing, insurance, work-mans comp, etc) and the profit margin for concessionaires is very small. i know that were i worked this summer that they tried to accommodate employees, but with limited housing some split shift were inevitable. i know that employees that didn't require housing did get preferential schedules. its not like the managers are sitting together in a office thinking up ways to screw with people for the fun of it.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lewis on October 20, 2009 at 5:59pm: First of all, I wasn't "stereotyping" any "ethnicity". Please don't be P.C.-silly. I was simply pointing out that someone who comes from a different culture, and is 8000 miles from home, is at the tender mercy of his or her employer.

And your examples are likewise silly. Are you REALLY saying that during the period from 9:30-4:30, there is NO work to be done? That a morning person couldn't, for example, come in at 5 and work until 1? Or that an evening person couldn't come in at 2 and work until 8? There are a hundred tasks to be done in a restaurant other than directly serving food.

Furthermore, DNC and Xanterra impose split shifts on ANYONE they wish to, not just restaurant servers: they split-shift gift-shop cashiers, grocery clerks, cooks, etc. And they are anything but up-front about that; their website says that you "may" be "asked" to work split shifts, but that differs a bit from the reality that you WILL be FORCED to work CONSTANT split shifts. The prospective employee who has traveled hundreds--or thousands--of miles and is just now being told that his job will involved five twelve-hour days a week is in a terrible position, which, of course, is why they don't inform him of the terrible realities until it's, from his point of view, too late.

And I strongly dispute your contention that you can't hire Americans--not in THIS economy, anyway. Make the working and living conditions halfway decent--you don't even have to make the PAY halfway decent--and you'll never have to hire someone from Bangladesh again. What you're REALLY saying is that you can't find American workers ready to tolerate subminimum wage, crummy living conditions, and abusive work conditions. To people from many other countries, those conditions seem routine--so that's why those people get hired--they won't complain.

Permalink Reply by reggie on October 20, 2009 at 6:02pm: due get an grip there are people thats has np doing split shift alot of servers do it just how business operate

Permalink Reply by Keith Larson on October 21, 2009 at 4:54pm: In my 20+ years experience in "real world" restaurants/resorts before beginning my seasonal journey there were many split shifts. I somehow find it difficult to believe that they have become obsolete in the last 4 years.