staffing level estimation in software engineering

What factors should be considered before reducing staffing levels?Ĭhanges to staffing levels frequently occur as part of organisational change, often referred to as downsizing, delayering or multi-skilling.

For example, a systematic review in 2007 concluded that there was evidence of an association between increased Registered Nurse (RN) staffing and a lower rate of hospital-related mortality and adverse patient events. There is a growing body of research evidence which shows that nurse staffing levels make a difference to patient outcomes (mortality and adverse events), patient experience, quality of care and the efficiency of care delivery. increased customer complaints and delivery times.increased staff turnover due to high workload, stress, and fatigue.increased absence due to stress, fatigue and other ill health.safety critical tasks are not completed, or they are completed later than they should have been.What are the signs that staffing levels might not be adequate? This relies on having sufficient nurses with the right skills in place, which depends on robust planning of nursing staff resources. The Health Select Committee Report (2009) states that: “Despite the massive increase in the numbers of NHS staff in recent years, inadequate staffing levels have been major factors in undermining patient safety in a number of notorious cases”. The safety of patients relies on effective nursing care being consistently delivered. In the UK National Health Service (NHS), the disastrous effects of short staffing on the safety of patients have been witnessed at NHS hospitals such as Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust. The key principle is that staffing decisions should be made on a sound rational basis, rather than arbitrarily in order to reduce costs, without assessing the implications on health and safety.

Insufficient staffing levels will have a detrimental impact on a range of health, safety and performance outcomes. The term “staffing” is often used to refer to a range of processes, such as recruitment, selection, placement, and training, through which an organization applies human resources to the work needed for it to achieve its goals (Schneider, 1976).As companies reduce staffing levels in order to respond to global economic conditions, there is a danger that individuals become overloaded, and that stress and occupational ill health could result. At the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), staffing models and staffing standards are terms used to denote tools for the management of manpower only. As explained in Chapter 1, these are tools that enable the organization to determine the right number of people with the right skill sets in the right positions to accomplish the responsibilities of the job in a satisfactory manner. Staffing needs are determined mainly by how the organization has defined its goals and designed the jobs that make up its total workload. How effectively an organization is able to meet those needs, once they are defined, depends on both its staffing processes and the characteristics of the available human resource pool. While manpower planning and management, and the models used in these activities, are important parts of the overall staffing picture, many other factors enter into human resource management, as noted earlier. In this chapter, we concentrate on models for manpower management, that is, for deciding how many workers, of what general types, are needed to staff the organization without regard for specific job characteristics, worker qualifications, or performance standards. In Chapter 4 we discuss these and other considerations that are also important for effective deployment of human resources. It is important to recognize that determining the appropriate number of aviation safety inspectors (ASIs), system-wide or locally, at any given time is by no means a simple matter, since it is dependent on how work is structured and what defines acceptable individual and system performance, as well as the characteristics of the current and projected workforce.

Staffing level estimation in software engineering