Transcript Art & Science of Project Management

INTRO TO STAFFING ANALYSIS
ALGA Webinar
January 14, 2014
Presented by
Bob Thomas, King County Auditor’s Office
Liz DuBois, Principal, The Athena Group, LLC
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Opening Remarks
Moderator
R. Kinney Poynter
Executive Director
NASACT
Speaker
Bob Thomas
Senior Principal Management Auditor
King County Auditor’s Office (WA)
Speaker
Liz DuBois
Principal
The Athena Group LLC
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Staffing Analysis Context
Common questions:
• Are we staffed as cost-effectively as possible?
• How can we improve our efficiency without hurting service delivery
levels?
• How do we determine how many staff we need?
• How much overtime is too much?
What is staffing analysis and how can it help?
• Detailed analysis of personnel levels, plans, and costs.
• Determine how many people are needed to provide services, complete
tasks, or cover fixed posts.
• Establish relationship between staffing and workload levels
• Examine the costs and benefits of employee overtime.
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Webinar Overview
• Learn specific approaches and tools for staffing resource
management.
• How to evaluate and improve staffing models.
• How to determine staffing needs.
• Tips for efficient overtime management.
• Specific context will be police, jails, call centers and
institutions.
• Tools and skills may be just as applicable in other settings
too.
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How to Assess a Staffing Model?
What do you want to know?
1. How did the agency determine its desired level of
staffing?
2. What method did they use to calculate the number of
staff FTEs and overtime they need?
• Answers to these questions will help focus your analysis.
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Elements of a Sound Staffing Model
Key Questions to Ask
1. Does the model have core staffing policies and solid
information about the work being done?
2. Does it provide points of comparison, such as workload
history, variations by location, and costs per staff or post?
3. Is the level of staffing resources clearly related to meeting
workload requirements or service delivery goals?
4. Has the staffing model been validated in any way?
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Determining Staffing Needs
• Different methods exist to determine how many staff are
needed.
• Focus on Post Staffing - one of the most common types of
staffing in local government.
• Post Staffing Examples:
• Police patrol
• Jail Security Operations
• 911 call dispatchers
• Bus drivers
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Post Staffing Overview and Issues
• What makes post staffing generally susceptible to analysis?
• There are methods used to calculate the amount of staff resources
needed to meet planned staffing levels.
• Some common staffing issues encountered.
• Approaches to improve cost-effectiveness.
• How do we know how many posts are needed?
• Physical/Geographic: jail housing units, patrol districts, bus routes.
• Policy, safety or professional standards: minimum number of guards
per shift to respond to emergencies, or police officers on duty.
• Performance standards: Answer 911 calls within X minutes; Available
to respond to calls X% of time.
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Staffing More Predictable in Institutions
Staffing levels mostly based on
physical coverage needs
If you know the floor plan and the
custody level of the inmates/residents.
If you know the operating
philosophy and rules of the
facility (e.g. direct or indirect
supervision; number of
officers per inmate/resident).
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Staffing Less Predictable Outside Institutions
Staffing levels mostly based on
workload and performance.
Relatively easy to
calculate number of
police officers
needed to provide
basic patrol precinct
coverage.
More difficult to
determine number of
officers needed to
respond promptly to
911 calls, and very
difficult to determine
needs related to
crime prevention.
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Post Coverage
How do we know how many staff are needed to cover the
posts?
1.
Staffing levels for fixed posts.
•
2.
3.
Need regular staff to cover each post all the time.
Also need staff to cover absences – to provide relief
•
Weekends/days off
•
Leave (vacation, sick, military, disability, bereavement)
•
Training
How to calculate?
• Most comment approach is “relief factor.”
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Relief Calculation
Main Steps
1. Determine hours of post coverage needed.
•
How many hours of staffing does one post require?
Calculate amount of available staff time.
2.
•
What is the maximum time is a staff person can be
scheduled to work?

How much time is one available after subtracting time off
for vacation, sick leave, training, and other absences?
Calculate number of FTEs required to cover one post.
3.
•
Divide total post hours (1) by available staff time (2)
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Relief Factor Calculation Example
Steps
Hours per
Year
Calculation
1. Post Coverage Needed
Hours for one 8-hour post, 7 days/wk
2,920
8 x 365
2. Available Staff Time
Hours employee is schedule to work
2,080
8 x 5 x 52
Average hours an employee is absent
382
Vacation
Sick
Military
Bereavement
Disability
Jury Duty
Etc.
Average hours employee is available
1,698
2,080 - 382
1.7
2,920 / 1,698
3. Number of FTEs needed
to cover one post
Relief Factor
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What about Overtime?
• Why do we still have overtime???
• Drawbacks of the relief factor approach:
• Does not take overtime into account.
• Based on average amounts of absences, and assumes they are taken
evenly throughout the year.
• Real absences don’t occur this way – certainly for unscheduled
absences but also for scheduled absences.
• There will always be some overtime in a post staffing
environment!
• Absences can be difficult to predict, but tool to help are
available.
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Binomial Analysis: Going Beyond the Relief
Factor
• Use of averages for relief factors work fairly well when large
numbers are involved, but fall short when small numbers
are involved. Results of just one trial shown below.
Blue = Officers Present, Red = Officers Absent
20% Absence Rate with
10 Officers
10%
20% Absence Rate with
100 Officers
14%
90%
20% Absence Rate with
1000 Officers
20%
86%
80%
If the absences (red area) are more than 20%, there will be trouble in staffing by using a relief factor.
If the absences are less than 20% there is excess staffing.
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Binomial Distribution Function In Excel Allows
for Modeling Expected Numbers of Absences
ON-DUTY PROBABILITIES
10 DEPUTIES SCHEDULED
X
TOTAL # PRESENT
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Probability of Absence
20.00%
Y
TOTAL # ABSENT
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
Probability that Y
number will be
Absent
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.1%
0.6%
2.6%
8.8%
20.1%
30.2%
26.8%
10.7%
35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
0
This can refer to one event (coin toss) such as one day,
or to several events (toses) such as 365 days in a year.
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Redefine the Question
• In a post situation, instead of asking how many staff do we need to
provide coverage,
• Redefine the question to be: What is the most cost-effective mix of
staffing resources that can be applied to provide coverage?
Effect on Overtime and Total Cost of Scheduling Additional
Correctional Officers
Staffing of Graveyard Shift for Care and Custody
Overtime Hours in
2012
Total Cost of Posts in $ Millions
8,000
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
-
5
4.9
4.8
4.7
4.6
4.5
4.4
4.3
4.2
4.1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Additional Officers Scheduled
9
10
Overtime
Hours
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“Good” versus “Bad” Overtime
When used to provide basic shift coverage, overtime can be a
more efficient way to cover absences than hiring additional
full time staff.
• Provides flexibility to meet scheduling gaps and spikes in workload.
• Full time staff receive benefits such as sick and vacation leave, health
insurance, training, equipment, and vehicles.
• When these benefits are counted, regular time can cost the same as, or
more than, the cost of overtime.
Caveat: Amount of employee overtime worked needs to be
safe and sustainable.
• Management should be aware of standards and best practices
• Monitor workload and overtime to ensure staff are not over-assigned.
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Overtime Cost Comparison
Fixed
Variable Benefits/
Benefits/ Costs
Costs
Hourly Wage
Regular Pay
$30
Overtime Pay (1.5)
$45
$8
Total Hourly
Compensation
$4.50
$42.50
$6.75
$51.75
Total Annual Officer Cost
$88,400
Total compensated hours (40 hours x 52 weeks)
2,080
Straight Hourly Wage ($88,400/2080)
$42.50
Paid hours of Sick and Vacation Leave, and other absences
Actual Hours at Work
380
1,700
Fully Burdened Cost per Hour
$52.00
Health insurance,
FICA, Retirement, L&I
equipment,
uniform, etc.
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Overtime Can Be Avoided or Reduced
• Even within post situations, overtime can be avoided or
minimized.
• Better oversight, planning, or process streamlining.
• Examples of avoidable overtime
• Inefficiently managed scheduling.
• Work that goes beyond the regular shift schedule.
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Example 1: Managing Employee Leave
Illustration of how the number of employees taking annual leave varies
by day, and how it differs from the planned number of absences.
Number of Staff Taking Scheduled Leave
vs. Average Planned Leave
28-Day Period
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7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Actual Staff on Leave
Average Planned Staff on Leave
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Example 2: Combining/Pooling Staff
Police Patrol: 3 large patrol precincts subdivided into small
“districts” each with fixed staffing levels
Issue: Fixed staffing levels for small areas increased backfill
overtime costs.
Recommendation: Combine staff across districts and
precincts and allow them to backfill for each other.
Results:
• Reduced backfill overtime.
• Projected to save a minimum of $250k in overtime costs. Sheriff
reports actual savings was $600k
• No reductions in staffing or service levels.
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Example 2 Con’t: Combining Patrol Precincts
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Strategies to Improve Overtime Management
• Calculate and compare the fully burdened hourly cost of OT
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•
•
•
•
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and straight time – how different are the costs?
Analyze overtime data – who is using it and why?
Review OT approval policies and processes - do criteria exist
for acceptable use?
Analyze leave policies – is annual leave being closely
managed?
Analyze unscheduled leave use – trends?
Look for potential economies of scale – possible to pool
staff?
Examine Comp Time policies – controls in place?
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A closer look at Comp Time and why
controlling it is important
• If an officer is absent and another officer fills in on overtime, and is paid
for the overtime, the wage cost is 150% for the hours filled in (time and
a half).
• Instead of being paid, suppose the fill-in officer receives Comp Time at
1.5 hours per hour worked.
• When that officer later take the Comp Time off, and if it is necessary to
pay overtime for the person covering for them, then the wage costs of
the backfill for the original absence is 225% (1.5 x 1.5).
• If there is chronic understaffing, the Comp Time compounding effect can
continue.
 This can be mitigated by limiting the amount of comp time that can be earned,
requiring regular comp time cash outs, and paying for the time worked instead.
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Questions?
Moderator
R. Kinney Poynter
Executive Director
NASACT
Speaker
Bob Thomas
Senior Principal Management Auditor
King County Auditor’s Office (WA)
Speaker
Liz DuBois
Principal
The Athena Group LLC
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Want More Information?
Course materials and templates available online here
www.fltconsulting.com/docs/Staffing_Analysis_Tools_2014.zip
SAO Local Government Performance Center
http://www.sao.wa.gov/EN/Audits/PerformanceAudit/Pages/Performance.aspx
Reports that have used the approaches outlined in this presentation
King County Sheriff's Office (2004):
http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/auditor/Reports/Dept/Sheriff.aspx
•
Performance Audit of Jail Overtime (2006):
http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/auditor/Reports/Dept/DAJD.aspx
•
Pierce County Corrections Overtime Planning Study (2006)
http://www.thenewstribune.com/documents/OTreport.pdf
•
Performance Audit of Transit (2009), Technical Report C, Staffing
http://www.kingcounty.gov/operations/auditor/Reports/Dept/DOT.aspx
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Contact Information
Bob Thomas
[email protected]
360-480-4016
Liz DuBois
[email protected]
(425) 681-7635