Employee Shift Scheduling

v1 • Stable

This Timefold Model exposes an API that helps your software assign employees to shifts. Our PlanningAI optimizes for employee availability, cost reduction, compliance, and employee satisfaction.

Service quality

Shift assignments

DOCS

Manage which employees should (preferably) be assigned and not assigned to certain shifts.

Mandatory and optional visits

DOCS

When there aren't enough people to cover all the work, schedule as much priority work as possible.

Skill and risk factors

DOCS

Define skills and risk factors to make sure shifts are assigned to employees with the right qualifications.

Demand-based scheduling

DOCS

Manage the number of assigned shifts and even spread the assigned shifts across periods of demand.

Alternative shifts

DOCS

Provide a range of times when alternative shifts can be scheduled.

Employee satisfaction

Employee contracts

DOCS

Honor employee contracts and stay complaint with labor regulations.

Work limits

DOCS

Manage how many hours employees are contracted to work across fixed periods and rolling windows.

Time off

DOCS

Manage employees' time off, including making sure they get consecutive days off from work.

Employee availability

DOCS

Only assign employees to shifts when they are available, and take employee preferences into consideration when making assignments.

Fairness

DOCS

Distribute work fairly across all employees.

Pairing employees

DOCS

Assign specific employees to the same shift, for instance, when a trainer needs to train a trainee. Assign specific employees to different shifts from each other to avoid conflicts of interest.

Shift travel and locations

DOCS

Reduce the amount of time employees spend traveling to their shifts.

Shift sequence patterns: single day shifts

DOCS

Define shift patterns for shifts that occur on the same day, specify which combinations of shifts are preferred and which ones should be avoided or are prohibited altogether.

Shift sequence patterns: multi-day shifts

DOCS

Define shift patterns that occur across multiple days and must be scheduled in a specific order.

Shift sequence patterns: daily shift pairings

DOCS

Define daily shift pairing rules that specify which shifts should be preferrably paired together and which ones should be avoided or are prohibited altogether,

Shift type diversity

DOCS

Limit the types of different shifts and tasks employees can be assigned.

Shift rotations and patterns

DOCS

Manage shift rotations, on-call shifts, and the variation between shift start times.

Optimizations

Cost management

Keep the cost of staffing all shifts within budget.

Planning processes

Real-time planning

DOCS

Respond to sudden changes with employee availability and assign new employees to shifts, due to sick leave or additional demand, and to minimize the disruption caused by the re-planning process.

Recommendations

DOCS

Find the best employee to assign to shifts at short notice.

Interested in learning more about how this model can help solve your optimization challenges? Talk to an expert.