Companies with 24/7 service are facing the big challenge of finding duty rosters. Besides cost minimization, employees’ preferences are considered more and more within the planning process.

In line with this trend, the aim of this project is to develop a method for solving a staff scheduling problem focussing on employee satisfaction and, thus, increasing employees’ self-determination in shift work.

A care home for people with disabilities serves as case study. In addition to common constraints, e.g. legal requirements or collective agreements, the residents’ needs as well as social requirements must be taken into account. Moreover, employees can ask for certain working shifts and days with monthly changing preferences which will be considered in the shift rostering.

After a feasible solution for this problem has been found, the duty roster is optimized using metaheuristics. These methods will be tested and evaluated on the basis of real-world data from the case study. Furthermore based on real-world data, theoretical data for further tests are generated. Following the optimization, the generated duty rosters are tested with various scenarios in order to simulate the employee satisfaction.

Contact: Lena Wolbeck