A case study of cost-efficient staffing under annualized hours

• Published in: Health care management science Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 279 - 288
• Main Authors: van der Veen, Egbert, Hans, Erwin W., Veltman, Bart, Berrevoets, Leo M., Berden, Hubert J.J.M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-09-2015; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Business and Management; Case studies; Cost control; Costs and Cost Analysis; Econometrics; Efficiency, Organizational - economics; Emergency medical care; Emergency Service, Hospital - economics; Employees; Health Administration; Health Informatics; Hospitals; Humans; Integer programming; Labor law; Linear Models; Linear programming; Management; Mathematical programming; Netherlands; Operations research; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Organizational Case Studies; Part time employment; Personnel Staffing and Scheduling - economics; Personnel, Hospital - economics; Personnel, Hospital - supply & distribution; Salaries and Fringe Benefits - economics; Skills; Studies; Subcontractors; Workforce; Workforce planning; Working hours; Netherlands; Staff capacity allocation; Annualized hours; Contract-mix and skill-mix planning; Workforce capacity allocation; Mixed-integer linear programming
• ISSN: 1386-9620; 1572-9389
• DOI: 10.1007/s10729-014-9292-0

We propose a mathematical programming formulation that incorporates annualized hours and shows to be very flexible with regard to modeling various contract types. The objective of our model is to minimize salary cost, thereby covering workforce demand, and using annualized hours. Our model is able to address various business questions regarding tactical workforce planning problems, e.g., with regard to annualized hours, subcontracting, and vacation planning. In a case study for a Dutch hospital two of these business questions are addressed, and we demonstrate that applying annualized hours potentially saves up to 5.2% in personnel wages annually.