Staffing Profiles

In some cases, a series of “profiles,” or templates, can be developed to estimate the staffing that a unit (or a project) will require given certain combinations of parameters (such as project size and type). Each such profile will include the same rows and columns that you included in your staffing model. A different profile is created for each unique combination of parameters. Taken together, these different profiles form a set or “reference library” that can be used to define the staffing needed to support business plans. Once the profiles are developed, you would take these steps:

• Review business plans and strategies to identify the projects that will be underway.
  
  
• For each project described in the plans, identify the actual values for the key parameters that you have used to differentiate profiles (e.g., project size and type).
  
  
• For each project, select from your library of profiles the one that corresponds to each of the projects described in the plans. Similar projects (e.g., those of a similar size and type) might use the same profile.
  
  
• Sum the staffing across all projects to determine the required staffing for each job category.
  
  

Here is a simple example that describes how profiles can be used to define the required staffing for a bank. First, the critical parameters that drive the bank’s staffing are identified. For this example, let’s assume that the bank has determined that branch staffing for tellers and loan officers depends primarily on branch size (i.e., small, medium, or large, expressed in terms of assets) and type of lending (i.e., primarily retail or primarily commercial). Next, the institution will develop six staffing profiles, one for each unique combination of size and type (small/retail, medium/retail, large/commercial, and so on). Each profile will specify the number of tellers and loan officers needed in that environment (e.g., a small/retail branch requires two officers and three tellers, a large/commercial branch requires six officers and six tellers, and so on). The profiles might look like the matrixes in Figure 7-2.

The institution will now review its business plans to see how many branches of each combination of size and type it expects to operate in the coming year (e.g., five small/retail, eight large/commercial, and so on). To determine the required staffing, the institution will:

• Define the total number of branches of each size and type that will be operated.

• Select the profile that corresponds to each combination of size and type (e.g., in this example, the profile for small/retail shows that two officers and three tellers are needed).

• Multiply the staffing requirements defined in each profile by the number of branches of that size and type to be operated.

• Calculate the total needs for officers and tellers by adding up the needs for each category across all types and sizes of branch.

Suppose there were to be four branches in a region in the coming year:

• One small/retail

• One large/retail

• Two medium/commercial

To calculate the staffing needs across all four branches, select the three appropriate profiles, determine the staff required from each, and sum the results:

• Officers: 2 + 3 + 2(4) = 13 staff

• Tellers: 3 + 5 + 2(5) = 18 staff

Staffing profiles are particularly applicable to retail establishments (e.g., where staffing is determined for each of three standard store sizes/“footprints”) and to engineering/construction projects (e.g., where projects of a given size, complexity, and type might typically require a certain number of project managers and technical staff).

Let’s say you have profiles generated for an oil company, where the number of geologists and engineers needed depends on a project’s type (i.e., offshore or onshore), size, and stage (i.e., initial exploration versus testing for commercial viability). Based on past performance and desired future effectiveness, the company defines a series of profiles, one for each unique combination of type, size, and stage. For example, if there are 27 unique combinations there would be 27 separate staffing profiles.

To use these profiles, the company defines the actual type, size, and stage for each project (or proposed project). Based on these, the company selects the staffing profile for each project that corresponds to that combination of parameters. This profile defines the staffing needed to support that project. The results can then be summed across projects to determine overall staffing requirements.