A Cost Effective Mathematical Model for Strategic Workforce Planning

Abstract

Strategic workforce planning has become increasing essential for modern organisations. It is the key approach used by organisation to improve and maintain the capabilities of its workforce. However many experts distinguish between Training and Development, being that training tends to be more closely focused and adapted demands short-term performance concerns, while development tends to be adapted more towards expanding an individual skills for future responsibilities. Enhancement of skills through training programmes leads to different performance results. The success of any training organisation depends on the number of customers who have enrolled for the training programmes. This paper presents novel mathematical models and algorithms to accurately represent and efficiently solve workforce planning problems. The paper emphasizes on the optimum allocation of suitable trainer operational hours and minimise the cost of conducting the programme. A cost function derived is based on the assumption and the minimum cost is obtained satisfying the constraints. Lagrangian multiplier method is employed to find the minimum cost. In this paper, the efficiency of the organisation is analysed by using the relative service efficiency method and cost model is derived.