Personnel Cost Minimisation Through Effective Scheduling in a Developing Country: The Nigerian Experience (Report‪)‬

ABSTRACT The growing business competitiveness worldwide places great challenges on organisations to improve company-customer relationship, quality, and welfare schemes for staff. In Nigeria, the generator servicing industry, which consists of firms that provide alternative sources of power through generator plants and supporting services, is large and continually strives to provide competitive services. Generator servicing organisations in contemporary times require effective and timely allocation of staff and resources to demanding companies who may sometimes require around the clock technical assistance. This paper presents a staff scheduling intervention programme in which the number of staff to be assigned to respective shifts each working day is determined according to the volume of work to be done in order to optimise the total personnel cost for the company. The application of the programming model is to a company operating in Nigeria that provides generator plants and supporting services to clients in diverse businesses. Overall, the paper is an attempt to link application of a theoretical programming model to the practical world of management and HR in a developing country. The problem, which is developed as a linear programme and solved, using Microsoft Excel software, shows that five shifts are required to avoid inefficiencies with a maximum manpower requirement of 41 people, and a cost range from N1,100 to N1,200 for all the shifts. Adequate staff availability is ensured and the cost of wages is minimised at N 135,950 per day. In an endeavour to control inefficiencies, loss of income and goodwill in a generator servicing company, decisions on staff scheduling that are based on analytical techniques are likely to show benefits and advantages. Although this problem is solved for a developing country, it could also be useful for human resources management (HRM) in developed countries where the HRM policies and practices being administered are quite different. The relevance of the study findings for HRM policies and practices is that it provides a mechanism for effective utilisation of human resources, and an opportunity to make the company competitive and effective in its operational activities through a time savings control mechanism.