Determining and maintaining optimal staffing and crewing levels is critical to efficiency. Overstaffing is obviously costly -- not just to payroll costs and benefits. It manifests in lackluster performance by under-used employees not fully occupied or engaged by continuous operation. Conversely, understaffing creates excessive overtime, difficulty with relief coverage and training requirements, and dramatic increases in safety risks from fatigue, absenteeism, and even burnout.
The first step in the analysis is to determine optimal staffing levels. We readily establish this using a CIRCADIAN algorithm with a step-by-step analysis of each shift’s essential positions. The algorithm also provides for shift relief factors (by job classification and/or department) to accommodate vacations, holidays, and other scheduled absences. In addition, we extrapolate projections for unscheduled absences and for emergency requirements from historical data; we factor these into the staffing level calculations.
Our second step develops schedules that meet operational demands. This phase also aligns employee schedule preferences with staffing requirements.
If this is your situation: - Regularly experience high levels of overtime
- Have fluctuating demands with widely changeable production requirements
- Are contemplating a move to 24/7
- Have employees with lots of idle or down time
This is how CIRCADIAN can help you:
Having the proper number of operators in each unit and skills classification is critical to the integrity of a given schedule, and to operational efficiency. Calculating the proper staffing level can help you to:
- Minimize unnecessary overtime and reduce wasteful idle time.
- Cut time lost trying to fill positions that result from unscheduled absences
- Schedule vacation and holiday time and minimize overtime.
- Ensure covering the right number and type of skill positions.