A recent survey from March 2009 by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that nearly half of UK companies and public sector employers are not fully aware of their staff costs. Of those that do calculate their total staff expenditure, 83% were unable to break their expenditure down into meaningful categories of information such as salaries, variable pay and benefits.

An effective staff scheduling strategy can rapidly produce major improvements in company profitability and capacity for delivering value for money services. For this reason it has become one of the fastest growing management requirements.

Business managers face two major challenges with staff deployment. The first is defining variable staff working arrangements that match business demand. The second is making those arrangements work in the daily routine of business. Many organizations expend considerable resources in HR strategies, followed by lengthy IT projects, only to revert to simple working arrangements because they are easier to manage manually. The truth is, it will be practically impossible to achieve the most favorable staff deployment strategy for your business, and the budget savings that go with this, using manual paper-based or spreadsheet scheduling.

You can assess your level of awareness of the impact staff costs have on your business by requesting a Cost Benefit Analysis report - it is free of charge and there is no obligation.