Why Allocating People To Work Deserves a Second Thought

Allocating people to work is one the largest daily decisions that humanity makes. It is so common that it rarely warrants a second thought. It is so simple. Yet few other decisions have a bigger impact on people’s lives and organisations’ success. And when not done well, poor outcomes eventuate needlessly. Too often, poor-quality products or services are delivered late by stressed people; or low utilisation erodes margins.

However, with a deeper appreciation of workforce allocation - this does not have too always be the case.

Breaking workforce allocation down, there are two core aspects:

A. Matching work to workers

B. Reconciling the assignment by:

a. Checking that prescribed target outcomes will be achieved, and

b. Taking further action, if needed, or

c. Accepting compromise, if target outcomes cannot be achieved

Assignment is innate to all allocation decisions. Reconciling workforce pools is common, however, not always done or necessary.

Assignment involves gathering input information, the allocation decision and notifying workers and stakeholders. It can be for a single task or when work is to be done.

Reconciliation involves checking, period by period, that:

a) all work in a pool will be delivered - by comparing total ‘need’ the with the total workers it will ‘have’)

b) all workers in a pool will be utilised - by comparing the worker’s that it will ‘use’ with the total it will ‘have’)

c) workload is not excessive - by comparing the intended ‘use’ of individuals with their ‘availability’), and

d) acting with interventions before compromise is required

Reconciliation is unnecessary when there’s a low risk of under-delivery, under-utilisation, and/or excessive workloads. For example, when delivery time is unconstrained and can be completed by workers working reasonable hours. However, this is the exception.

Too often however, decision makers assigning work fail to adequately reconcile a pool’s future by checking delivery, utilisation and workload - for many reasons. Estimating effort and reconciling work and workers can be hard and time consuming. Often ‘judgement’ is simply applied safe in the expectation that, if there is some misjudgement, delivery will still be achieved by workers working extra hours.

On the other hand, when checked, rarely are the workers that a pool will need, have, and use - exactly the same. Often, they are close enough to be acceptable. But when are they not close enough to be acceptable? Checking firstly requires levels of tolerance to be defined by the organisation. For example, how many extra hours is it reasonable for a worker to work? 2 hours a day? 10 hours per week? Or what is the lowest level of utilisation acceptable to the organisation, 80%? Or is it acceptable that work to be delivered late if excessive workloads are to be avoided?

And what about pools with unacceptable outcomes? Decision makers must intervene with some action that is within their power – or compromise.

If under-delivery is forecast, then the stretch of extra hours, within reasonable limits, should be employed. Basic interventions included using unused workers, stretching with over-time, asking workers to work faster, and transfer people between pools, before considering onboarding, finding more work, or even downsizing.

When, however, no intervention will solve a pool’s under-delivery - then decision makers are left with compromise, often as a simple choice. Either under-delivery or excessive workloads? Or in the reverse situation – low utilisation.

Understanding that there is more to allocation than just assigning a name to work, is the first step to better processes and decision that avoid poor outcomes – such as longer hours being worked as the solution to poor workforce allocation.

Note about Workforce Pools. Workforces often have one of more workforce pools. A pool is a grouping of work and workers based on a common competence. All work and workers belong to a single workforce pool. Allocation processes are applied to workforce pools. The number of people an pool will need, have and use should be rolled up for each pool, period by period, and reconciled using allocation processes. Workforces are often split in workforce pools by characteristics that are common to both workers and work (e.g. skills in a location). This process is the domain of workforce planning. Refer to ‘Human Resource Management - Workforce Planning. ISO 30409’

Published 18 September 2021 © Copyright - Alex James