Efficient scheduling of part-time employees

A staff scheduling model and heuristic procedure is proposed to aid in developing schedules for part-time employees. The model and heuristic method explicitly incorporates employee time preferences (i.e. times at which the employees are available to work) as well as employee wages in developing a weekly work schedule. Data collected from a local restaurant and a computer lab is used to validate and illustrate the model. The results show that the use of the model considerably simplifies the task of the restaurant/lab manager in developing weekly work schedules. Further, this application also demonstrates the trade offs between the "benefits" of maximizing employee satisfaction versus minimizing the costs of employee wages.