Planning course delivers strategic insights

Obviously you need to have a good work roster. But how do you know how good it really is? Perhaps it can be improved to ensure a better alignment between the actual workload and the workforce capacity, while still taking into account the wishes of the employees? A good planner not only has to design good shift rosters, but also understand how to use them strategically.

Improvements for Abrona’s central planning office

Abrona set up a central planning office in January 2009 that draws up the rosters for all its residential units and daycare centres. The foundation has 55 residential care units and various daycare centres throughout the whole of Utrecht. Abrona has a total of 1700 employees. The planners followed a training course at Déhora to learn how to create shift rosters that were a better match for the actual workload and the wishes of the employees.

Better shift rosters through strategic planning

Strategic planning is an effective way of achieving an alignment between the available workforce and any fluctuations in the workload. Employees can also be ‘shared’ by different locations to reduce the need for temporary agency workers. Long-term planning also reduces the stress associated with shiftwork. Employees know well in advance exactly when they are going to be working, and less stress ultimately leads to a lower turnover of staff.

Four-day training course for planners at the Déhora Academy

The planners of Abrona learned how to put this theory into practice during a four-day training course for planners at the Dutch Déhora Academy. Before the training course started, Déhora interviewed various people throughout the organisation to make sure the course dealt with the specific issues within Abrona. The detailed knowledge acquired by the planners during the course means they are now equipped to provide strategic advice to the managers of the residential units.

Annual working hours method

The training course also took a detailed look at the annual working hours method. This involves the generation of forecast charts for the activity workload over an entire year. These predictions can then be used to design shift plans that will schedule more work for employees during busy periods and less work in quiet periods, but they will still get the same salary every month. Another advantage is that it reduces the need for agency workers during busy periods. Abrona introduced the annual working hours method in early 2011.

Abrona:

“Planning and care services are both specialist fields. By combining the two, we are now able to deliver effective and efficient care services.”