. More than One Unit and Decisions
Every organisation has work and people. Allocation decisions are needed to direct people to work, to the point where the people can make their own decisions as to the tasks to be performed.
Before people start work, there are often many preceding allocation decisions required that may or may not be apparent to people, or even the allocator
2. Characteristics of Work and People
There are often many factors used to match work to people. The types of data used for matching are based on characteristics that are common to both the work and people (e.g. role, location, start date and availability). Matching aligns attributes of each characteristic (e.g. bridge engineers in New York in July).
Characteristics can be:
1. Fixed: gender, customer location, employee, residence, physicality – with a low likelihood of change
2. Default: primary role, skills, market, aircraft flown – define where a work and works belong within an organisation
3. Varying: project, manufacturing line – are attribute changes made in planning and allocation decisions used to inform people
4. Continuous or temporal: day, date, time, for worker availability or work shifts start or activity deadlines – are specific allocation decisions used to inform people.
Figure 1 Org, Workforces, Work and Pools
3. Allocation Units and Levels
Allocation Units are the way work and people are grouped into matching characteristics. Units are used to:
1. Group work and people
2. Manage work and people often where an allocator is responsible for the unit’s assignment
3. Assign work to people by:
a. Matching,
b. Reconciling
Commonly, there are units within units. Larger units can be segmented into smaller units, each with a child/parent relationship, which infers a hierarchy of Unit Levels. Typically, each unit level represents a characteristic and each unit an attribute of that characteristic. Common unit groupings are by role/skill characteristic or location. For example, for the characteristic of role:
1. nurses might have units with attributes of ward, intensive care, maternity
2. engineers might have units with attributes of mechanical, electrical bridge, earthwork and structures
Most units must be children of parent units. For example, at one level, parent units might be Roles/Skills, at the next level they might be broken into child units of Site. For example, the breakdown in Figure 4 might be applicable to:
1. people allocated to a shift must have a skill or role that was matched to the skill or role the work required. Prior to this work and people had been grouped into units by a common characteristic of role/skill, intensive care nurse, ward nurse, caterer, or cleaner - all assigned to a ward.
2. Engineers assigned to a project might have been selected from a unit of bridge engineers, in the New York office.
3. Courier drivers might be grouped by vehicle types i.e. trucks, vans, cars or bikes
Figure 2 Workforces, Units, Work, People
Theoretically, the organisation is the highest-level unit and
workforces are the next level (with their unique allocation processes). In some organisations characteristics of work and people are completely homogenous and no further breakdown into more than one unit is required. For example,
A specialised painting business where are people have the same skills and are prepared to work in any location
Figure 3 Single Workforce Organisation
4. Natural and Assigned Segmentation
Parent units are segmented into child units, be either:
1. Natural – based on fixed or default characteristics
2. By assignment – using varying, continuous and temporal characteristics to match work to people
4.1 Fixed and Default Characteristics
Fixed or default characteristics are the basis for the natural segmentation of work and people. For example, as in Figure 2:
1. Site might be considered fixed, where people that live and work in New York are naturally segmented by a city location, and are differentiated to those say in Dallas.
2. A person’s primary Role - such as a ward nurse, bridge engineer, van courier or receptionist might be a default characteristic, (if they have the capability to undertake other roles)
When all characteristics are fixed or default, then segmentation is natural and there is little opportunity for allocators to take further action and must accept compromised outcomes for that unit (unless there are further interventions are possible – see below). For example, this occurs when,
1. nurses can only work in one ward
2. bridge engineers can only work in one city
3. only truck couriers can drive trucks
It is worth noting however, that default and even fixed characteristics can changed if there is a need and willingness to make such an intervention. Refer to Section 8.2
4.2 Varying Continuous and Temporal Characteristics
Attributes of varying, continuous and temporal characteristics are the basis for segmentation by assignment, and are constantly changing to suit the needs of the work, or the circumstances of people. For example, in Figure 4, Site in might be the varying characteristic used to assign people to work.
Figure 4 Unit Levels and Units (L1: Role and Site, L2: Role/Site)
Many of these characteristics can be used to group work and people into units. However, not all characteristics are common to both people and work, so not all characteristics can be segmented into units!
5 Assignment by Attribution
One way to look at assignment, is as a process of aligning attributes of work and people, at each unit level, until no further matching decisions are required because people will be aligned and can be informed as to what work is to be done, when and where.
Higher level matching decisions are often segmentation of parent units into child units, by assignment of attributes within varying, continuous or temporal characteristics. For example,
1. Nurses might be assigned to Ward B (an attribute of the Ward varying characteristic), then assigned to the Wednesday afternoon shift (an attribute of the Shift temporal characteristic)
2. Engineers might be assigned to Project X (an attribute of Project continuous characteristic)
3. Couriers might be assigned to Job 28324 (an attribute of the Job continuous characteristic)
This continues, unit level to unit level, until matching and further segmentation of both work and worker characteristics is no longer possible, requiring matching to then be based on either the characteristics of work, or of people.
Assignment is typically undertaken by matching varying, continuous and temporal characteristics within a unit.
However, in some workforces, demand and/or capacity is continually changing within the unit. When the unit has the incorrect balance of work and people then default and perhaps even fixed characteristics need to be considered for ‘re-assignment’ to effectively allow transfer/sharing of work or people – before looking at workforce planning processes of onboarding or downsizing people, or increasing or reducing work.
Figure 5 Units After Allocation
6 Assignment by Either Work or Worker Characteristics
There is often some limit to assignment by segmentation based on common work and worker characteristics. For example, after a person that has been assigned a shift, there may be several more levels to a work break down structure that a person will need to navigate before commencing a task. See Figure 5. Furthermore there might also be additional task of prioritising the tasks. For example,
a skilled factory worker might be assigned to a shift that was matched by skills needed and time availability, however further assignment might be necessary by production line to be worked, and then the tasks to be performed by each worker, and then a priority determined in which they are to be undertaken.
Figure 6 Task Breakdown and prioritisation
Such assignment will be determined by the allocator up to the point where people can self-determine their tasks or priorities. Formally, assignment and allocation end when at the point of self-determination.
7 Matching Methods and Complexity
Matching work to people can range in difficulty from very simple or extremely complicated, depending on the nature of the characteristics of work and people and target outcomes prescribed by the organisation.
Assignment is made more complicated when units cannot be reconciled to meet target outcomes without sharing people or work between units. Such a decision might require changes to a higher level unit with default or even fixed characteristics.
7.1 Typical Assignment - Matching Varying Characteristics
7.1.1 Simple Characteristic Matching
For many allocators, the day-to-day decisions for the final matching of people to work can fortunately be simple, though limiting. In the case where all other matching characteristics have already been locked in, then confirmation of a final attribute from a single characteristic is often the final piece of information used to inform a person. For example:
1. the time of shift for scheduled people (from a list of available nurses)
2. the activity for engineers (from a list of available engineers)
3. the delivery job for couriers (from a list of available couriers)
4. the position for a receptionist*
(* technically this might be considered a recruiting activity and beyond workforce allocation, however, it still sits within the system being described)
Whether apparent or not, matching has often been made possible by natural characteristics or decisions made at previous decision stages at various unit levels. For example
1. If ward nurses are told the shift that they are to work, then in some previous decision stage must there have been a decision to allocate the nurse to a particular ward. And before that they had been recruited to the hospital by an agency.
2. The bridge engineer was assigned to a project, from a group of bridge engineers.
3. The truck courier has been assigned to the truck unit based on licence qualifications.
Also, as discussed in Section 7 not all matching occurs at the lowest unit level, and so further assignment decisions are used to segment child units at the next level. For example:
1. A shift worker might be told which line or counter to work at
2. The engineer might be told which structure to design
7.1.2 Complex Characteristic Matching
Some work and people have multiple attributes for varying characteristics. Equally, as mentioned previously, default and even fixed characteristics can be changed if there is a need and willingness. For example:
1. Nurses might have ward and intensive care skills
2. Engineers might have earthwork and bridge skills
3. Truck couriers can drive a van
4. Airport check-in staff might be familiar with multiple airline systems
5. Some people might be prepared to work in either New York or Dallas
6. Some people have availability to cover one of multiple shifts in any given day.
This presents an opportunity for the organisation, but also a dilemma as how best to leverage multiple attributes. It can provide a more flexible workforce that is able to adapt to the needs of the organisation’s work. However, where the people and even the work do have multiple attributes for the same characteristic, it can present a very real complication and dilemma for any decision stage or unit level, as to which is the best way to allocate - when there is too much choice.
In such situations, where there are more variables than constraints, the allocator can use manual methods or optimisation methods.
7.1.2.1 Manual Matching from Multiple Attribute
An allocator can use judgement to best guess the ideal matching by selecting then reconcile the forecast outcomes and make adjustments, for example:
1. A ward nurse may be transferred to a different ward, by changing their ward attribute and therefore their unit.
2. An earthworks engineer with bridge skills might be transferred to the bridge team at the national level.
3. A truck Courier might be assigned to the van career pool.
7.1.2.2 Optimised Matching from Multiple Attributes
Optimization analysis is driven by criteria that prioritise outcomes or can strain inputs to solve for best allocation for example using worker preferences or optimising for cost. Such methods include the Hungarian algorithm, linear programming simplex method theory of constraints all these methods rely on computing power to undertake many calculations.
One aspect of some optimised scheduling solutions that allocate people to work is the also very the time when the work is to take place for example, when certain manufacturing maintenance or construction activities should take place therefore informing when people should attend work.
7.2 Intervention Assignment – Sharing Work or Work
Often units based on natural characteristics do not have a balance between people and work. This can be a missed opportunity if it is possible that people’s attributes to be changed, effectively moving them between sibling child units. because the scope if the allocation processes is limited There are several interventions that can be used to balance work and people in a unit. Where reconciliation processes indicate that child units that belong to the same parent (i.e. have common characteristics) have a deficit and the other a surplus, then there is the opportunity share people and work and there for solving a delivery and utilisation problems.
One typical remedy is to share work and people across units that have the same varying or temporal characteristics. In fact, default or even fixed characteristics can be used to transfer people between units when there is a need and willingness. For example,
1. A ward nurse may be transferred to a different ward, by having ward attribute changed, and therefore their unit.
2. An earthwork engineer with bridge skills might be transferred to the bridge team group.
3. A truck courier might be assigned to the van couriers.
4. People living in Dallas that are willing to live in New York might be transferred between offices.
Such changes must be made at a higher unit level, where the parent unit is effectively segmented into different child units, and a person is effectively transferred from one child unit to another. Furthermore attributes being changed may default characteristics when people have multiple attributes; or could even fixed characteristics necessitating significant decisions by management.
Figure 6 People Unit Transfer By Changing Attributes
8 Constrained Units
Often each unit model will not have the same total demand and capacity. There are several possible scenarios for this
1. Work constrained. The work needed can always be completed because there are usually enough people. For example:
a. Casual people – fast food, retail
b. Waterfall projects with adequate budgets
2. Worker constrained. When the amount of work completed depends on the availability of people. For example:
a. specialist people – hospital surgeons, service repair technicians
b. workforces sized by budget – government departments, corporate support offices
c. agile teams – software development
3. People and work constrained. The work must be completed using fixed capacity of people. For example:
a. Project deadlines delivered by a fixed team – construction staff
b. Critical demand and limited staff – hospital with critical patients
c. Heat wave bushfire period with limited emergency responder resources
These scenarios are common and well understood within various industry sectors that have well established systems for treating these scenarios, in most cases, but not necessarily all. If work-constrained (with larger workforces), processes take one piece of work after the other and assign it to people. If workforce-constrained (but have degrees of freedom in work), other processes often iterate through the people. The suitability of allocation strategies therefore depends on the conditions and constraints.
Should demand exceed allocated work, allocators should check that all available people have been employed including option that share people from other units (as described in Section 8.2
In many cases, compromise must be accepted when work cannot be delivered, or cannot be delivered without people working harder than usual. This means working longer and/or working faster. Hopefully in most cases, this is planned within reasonable limits, however it is often people who ends up deciding how long, how much faster, - or if the work will be delivered.
Figure 8 Workforces, Work, Pools and Units
First Published 07 Nov 2021 © Copyright - Alex James + Jorg Herbers