diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 17ca5f8cc..dc7b60db5 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -148,6 +148,27 @@ spec:
 Please be aware that the taint and toleration only ensures that no other pod gets scheduled to a PostgreSQL node 
 but not that PostgreSQL pods are placed on such a node. This can be achieved by setting a node affinity rule in the ConfigMap.
 
+### Using the operator to minimize the amount of failovers during the cluster upgrade
+
+Postgres operator moves master pods out of to be decommissioned Kubernetes nodes. The decommission status of the node is derived
+from the presence of the set of labels defined by the `node_readiness_label` parameter. The operator makes sure that the Postgres
+master pods are moved elsewhere from the node that is pending to be decommissioned , but not on another node that is also
+about to be shut down. It achieves that via a combination of several properties set on the postgres pods:
+
+* [nodeAffinity](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/configuration/assign-pod-node/#node-affinity-beta-feature) is configured to avoid scheduling the pod on nodes without all labels from the `node_readiness_label` set.
+* [PodDisruptionBudget](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/disruptions/#how-disruption-budgets-work) is defined to keep the master pods running until they are moved out by the operator.
+
+The operator starts moving master pods when the node is drained and doesn't have all labels from the `node_readiness_label` set.
+By default this parameter is set to an empty string, disabling this feature altogether. It can be set to a string containing one
+or more key:value parameters, i.e:
+```
+node_readiness_label: "lifecycle-status:ready,disagnostic-checks:ok"
+
+```
+
+when multiple labels are set the operator will require all of them to be present on a node (and set to the specified value) in order to consider
+it ready. 
+
 #### Custom Pod Environment Variables
 
 It is possible to configure a config map which is used by the Postgres pods as an additional provider for environment variables.
diff --git a/manifests/configmap.yaml b/manifests/configmap.yaml
index d996a473c..a5f9c33ff 100644
--- a/manifests/configmap.yaml
+++ b/manifests/configmap.yaml
@@ -39,5 +39,5 @@ data:
   pod_terminate_grace_period: 5m
   pdb_name_format: "postgres-{cluster}-pdb"
   node_eol_label: "lifecycle-status:pending-decommission"
-  node_readiness_label: "lifecycle-status:ready"
+  node_readiness_label: ""
   team_api_role_configuration: "log_statement:all"
diff --git a/pkg/cluster/k8sres.go b/pkg/cluster/k8sres.go
index 203786875..1bc18422e 100644
--- a/pkg/cluster/k8sres.go
+++ b/pkg/cluster/k8sres.go
@@ -238,6 +238,9 @@ PatroniInitDBParams:
 
 func (c *Cluster) nodeAffinity() *v1.Affinity {
 	matchExpressions := make([]v1.NodeSelectorRequirement, 0)
+	if len(c.OpConfig.NodeReadinessLabel) == 0 {
+		return nil
+	}
 	for k, v := range c.OpConfig.NodeReadinessLabel {
 		matchExpressions = append(matchExpressions, v1.NodeSelectorRequirement{
 			Key:      k,
@@ -431,10 +434,13 @@ func (c *Cluster) generatePodTemplate(
 		ServiceAccountName:            c.OpConfig.ServiceAccountName,
 		TerminationGracePeriodSeconds: &terminateGracePeriodSeconds,
 		Containers:                    []v1.Container{container},
-		Affinity:                      c.nodeAffinity(),
 		Tolerations:                   c.tolerations(tolerationsSpec),
 	}
 
+	if affinity := c.nodeAffinity(); affinity != nil {
+		podSpec.Affinity = affinity
+	}
+
 	if c.OpConfig.ScalyrAPIKey != "" && c.OpConfig.ScalyrImage != "" {
 		podSpec.Containers = append(
 			podSpec.Containers,
diff --git a/pkg/util/config/config.go b/pkg/util/config/config.go
index 8cec41417..e0a520b08 100644
--- a/pkg/util/config/config.go
+++ b/pkg/util/config/config.go
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ type Resources struct {
 	DefaultCPULimit         string            `name:"default_cpu_limit" default:"3"`
 	DefaultMemoryLimit      string            `name:"default_memory_limit" default:"1Gi"`
 	PodEnvironmentConfigMap string            `name:"pod_environment_configmap" default:""`
-	NodeReadinessLabel      map[string]string `name:"node_readiness_label" default:"lifecycle-status:ready"`
+	NodeReadinessLabel      map[string]string `name:"node_readiness_label" default:""`
 	MaxInstances            int32             `name:"max_instances" default:"-1"`
 	MinInstances            int32             `name:"min_instances" default:"-1"`
 }