Running a business 24/7 isn’t something you can decide to do lightly. Any business is tough to run smoothly, but one that has to stay open at all hours presents an even greater challenge. There are various types of businesses that might require 24/7 operation or reasons you might choose to keep your business open at all times. From manufacturing to media, never shutting down can give you an advantage and might even be necessary. Whatever the reason might be, it’s essential to be prepared for the challenges that might come your way. And there are plenty of challenges you could find yourself facing.
Deciding Whether to Operate 24/7
There could be numerous reasons for your business to operate 24/7, but the truth is that most businesses don’t need to. So it’s vital that you think carefully about whether you should be in operation at all times and what your reason for choosing that is. For some businesses, being up and running 24/7 may just mean that only part of the business is in operation. Maybe you want to provide 24/7 customer service, but it doesn’t mean the rest of your company has to be working all the time.
Some businesses might run longer hours because they have international customers or clients. Others might do so simply because that’s what they need to do to get things done. Perhaps you run a manufacturing business, for example, and you need to keep the machines on at all times to meet your deadlines. Maybe you run a publishing or news company that needs to work on publishing the latest news as quickly as possible.
However, there are definitely times when keeping your business open 24/7 isn’t essential. A 24/7 gas station or diner might provide a service for locals or people passing through, but it’s not the only way to run that sort of business. You’ll have to carefully consider the pros and cons before you decide if it’s the right choice.
Staffing Your Business
Naturally, finding the people to staff your business is one of the most significant challenges. You need people to work at all hours of the day and night to ensure the work is always getting done. 24/7 shift work is the strictest shift work meaning that presents the toughest challenge, but it can certainly be done. A 24-hour shift pattern might be broken up into three shifts of eight hours each. There’s also the option of shorter or longer shifts, which might depend on what type of work needs to be completed. Caregivers or healthcare workers, for example, often work longer shifts, particularly overnight. In some cases, having more part-time workers might make more sense than having fewer full-time workers.
Managing your staff and their shift patterns can be a lot easier with the right software. Employee scheduling software makes it easy to plan and manage the staff you need and who will take each shift. But it’s also important to have good managers who are capable of managing their team, dealing with absences, and ensuring there’s always enough staff.
Many businesses also use outsourcing to help them stay running 24/7. Using virtual PAs and call centers, for example, is a good way of ensuring you can deliver customer service at all times. Outsourcing can be useful for businesses with physical locations too. It can be used to provide staff such as security or to fill in gaps in the schedule with temporary workers.
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Security and Safety
Something that you won’t want to neglect when running a 24/7 business, especially one with a brick-and-mortar location, is safety. If your business is open at all times and your employees are working all hours of the night, this can put them in a vulnerable position. It’s essential to think about how to protect your business and your employees to keep them safe. This could involve hiring security guards, setting up cameras and other security tech, and having clear policies to encourage staff to work in safe ways.
If you’re going to have someone working on their own, it’s especially important to ensure they can work safely. There are various risks to consider, including the risk of violence and other crime and potential accidents in the workplace. Employers should ensure they have assessed the risks involved and taken steps to mitigate them so that lone workers can work as safely as possible.
Finances
Of course, one of the biggest challenges of running a business 24/7 is the financial side of things. Can you afford to run your business in this way? For some businesses, it could be essential to stay afloat. For others, it could be much too expensive to stay open all the time and wouldn’t be balanced out by the money coming in.
As well as some of the more obvious costs of being open permanently, such as overheads, there could be some expenses that don’t occur to you at first. For example, keeping the right staff could be more difficult. If it’s hard to keep staff who are willing to work nights, you could find that a high employee turnover and recruitment costs start to eat into your budget. Anyone thinking about running their business 24/7 needs to spend time thinking about how to balance their cash flow and keep their finances healthy.
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Creating a Unified Culture
With shifts constantly changing, keeping your business on an even keel can be a challenge in itself. How do you maintain one culture across your company when the people running it on Wednesday morning could be a completely different team to those who are working on Sunday night? Creating a seamless culture where everyone shares the same set of values and works to the same standards is challenging, but it is possible to do it.
One of the things you can make sure that you do is provide the same amount of support for every shift. You don’t want the night shift to feel abandoned compared to the other shifts. This could affect everything from health and safety to employee morale. You will need to communicate well with your staff and check that they feel they are getting the support they need. Collect feedback with them to find out what they think and if there’s anything more you could be doing to help them.
To build a unified culture that works across your business at all hours and on any day of the week, you need to clearly define your business’s mission and values. You will also need to set consistent standards and policies that everyone has to follow. It could be useful to bring different shift workers together in various ways too. Perhaps they have a shared Slack channel or have the chance to meet each other at company events.
Employee Morale and Fatigue Management
Keeping your employees happy is crucial if you want to keep your business staffed. But when they are working unsociable hours and perhaps even being asked to cover extra shifts, it can be difficult to keep morale high. You need to pay attention to how your employees feel and recognize that they’re humans who need to get plenty of breaks and rest. Your employees want to feel like they’re being treated well, no matter which shift they usually work. They want to know they’re receiving the same opportunities as everyone else and being looked after in the right way.
Having a fatigue management system will help to keep your employees safe. This might include taking a number of measures to ensure employees are happy and healthy. For example, you can avoid assigning permanent night shifts, make sure each shift is well-staffed, and keep each shift to a reasonable number of hours. You can also encourage employees to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing too, giving them opportunities to make healthy decisions.
Technology and Resources
Technology and Resources
Of course, to run a business 24/7, you need the right technology and other resources to be available at all times. This can be challenging both in its cost and the time and effort that it can take to implement and maintain the systems that you need. You will need to carefully plan what you require, how much it will cost to maintain, and what support you might need. Will you need help from a maintenance team or IT support to keep your systems up and running, or will you require Central Stations to help you operate continuously?
Managing Customer Expectations
If you start keeping your business open at all times, many of your customers will appreciate it. But there’s also a chance they will come to expect it too. This can make it difficult if you ever want to pull back and reduce your hours. To avoid this, it could be best to slowly increase the hours your business is in operation. It could allow you to test out whether increased hours are profitable for you before you make the leap to 24/7 business.
There are many challenges of running a 24/7 business. It’s not necessarily the right choice for everyone, but it can work out if you’re prepared to take on the challenge.
