A Practical Staff Scheduling Strategy Considering Various Types of Employment in the Construction Industry

Abstract

The Korean government implemented a 52-h workweek policy for employees’ welfare. Consequently, companies face workforce availability reduction with the same number of employees. That is, labor-dependent companies suffer from workforce shortage. To handle the workforce shortage, they increase irregular employees who are paid relatively less. However, the problem of ‘no-show’, due to the stochastic characteristics of irregular employee’s absence, happens. Therefore, this study aims to propose a staff scheduling strategy considering irregular employee absence and a new labor policy by using linear programming. By deriving a deterministic staff schedule through system parameters derived from the features and rules of an actual company in the numerical experiment, the practicality and applicability of the developed mathematical model are proven. Furthermore, through sensitivity analysis and simulation considering the stochastic characteristics of absences, various proactive cases are provided. Through the proactive cases, the influence of the change of the average percent of irregular employees’ absences on the total labor costs and staff schedules and the expected number who would not come to work could be given when assuming the application in practice. This finding can help decision-makers prepare precautious measures, such as assigning extra employees in case of an irregular employee’s absence.