7. Workforce Planning and Productivity Management

Introduction and Context

Housekeeping is one of the most labour-intensive functions in a hotel. Guest rooms, public areas, linen rooms, laundry operations, uniform services, and back-of-house spaces must be maintained continuously, often across several shifts and under fluctuating demand. The quality of this work is highly visible to guests, yet much of it occurs behind the scenes. Workforce planning therefore has a direct influence on cleanliness, guest satisfaction, operating cost, employee wellbeing, and the hotel’s reputation.

Workforce planning is more than counting employees. It is the systematic process of forecasting labour demand, determining the skills and numbers required, scheduling employees at appropriate times, and aligning human capability with expected business activity. Productivity management complements this process by examining how effectively time, labour, equipment, and procedures are converted into service outcomes. In housekeeping, productivity must never be interpreted simply as doing more work with fewer people. A productive department delivers the required standard safely, consistently, and efficiently without creating excessive fatigue, defects, turnover, or unsafe working practices.

The subject is particularly important because hotel demand is variable. Occupancy may change by season, weekday, event, market segment, or last-minute booking pattern. A housekeeping manager must make decisions with incomplete information while protecting both service standards and labour costs. The manager also leads a diverse workforce that may differ in language, culture, age, experience, physical ability, employment status, and career expectations. Effective planning consequently combines quantitative analysis with judgement, communication, fairness, and leadership.

Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter, the learner should be able to:

1. Explain the relationship between workforce planning, staffing standards, productivity, and service quality.

2. Forecast housekeeping labour requirements using occupancy, room type, workload, and time-based information.

3. Prepare practical rosters and evaluate alternative staffing arrangements.

4. Apply work-measurement methods without compromising quality, safety, or employee wellbeing.

5. Manage training, motivation, performance, diversity, and industrial relations in housekeeping.

6. Use operational data and digital tools to support workforce decisions.

7. Analyse workforce problems and recommend ethically and commercially sound solutions.

The Workforce Planning Problem in Housekeeping

The basic planning question is: how many people, with which skills, are needed at what time to complete the expected work to the required standard? The answer depends on more than the number of occupied rooms. A vacant room requiring deep cleaning may demand more time than a stayover room. Suites, accessible rooms, rooms with extra beds, VIP rooms, out-of-order rooms, public areas, laundry volumes, turndown services, and special cleaning projects all alter the workload.

A useful distinction is between labour demand and labour supply. Labour demand is the quantity and type of work expected. Labour supply is the number of available employees, their contracted hours, attendance, competence, restrictions, and availability. A staffing gap occurs when demand exceeds available capacity; excess staffing occurs when available capacity substantially exceeds demand. Neither situation should be assessed only through cost. Understaffing can create delayed room availability, rushed cleaning, accidents, absenteeism, complaints, and turnover. Overstaffing can increase cost and reduce meaningful work, but it may also provide resilience during unpredictable demand.

Housekeeping planning operates at three levels. Strategic planning concerns the department’s long-term staffing model, outsourcing decisions, technology, career structure, and capability requirements. Tactical planning concerns seasonal staffing, annual leave, training cycles, and monthly labour budgets. Operational planning concerns daily assignments, shift coverage, room allocation, absences, inspections, and changes in occupancy.

Core Terminology

A staffing standard specifies the expected labour input for a defined task or workload unit, such as minutes per occupied room or rooms assigned to a room attendant under stated conditions. A roster allocates employees to dates, shifts, duties, and working hours. A workload unit is a measurable quantity of work, such as a checkout room, stayover room, square metre of public area, or kilogram of laundry. Productivity expresses the relationship between outputs and inputs. Utilisation indicates how much of available paid time is spent on productive work, although high utilisation is not always desirable if it eliminates necessary recovery time. Occupancy is the proportion of sellable rooms occupied over a specified period. Absenteeism refers to unplanned absence from scheduled work, while labour turnover concerns employees leaving and being replaced.

Forecasting Labour Requirements

A reliable forecast begins with a demand forecast. The housekeeping department should receive information about projected occupancy, arrivals, departures, room types, group movements, early check-ins, late check-outs, VIP requirements, events, and maintenance closures. Historical data are useful, but they must be adjusted for unusual circumstances rather than copied mechanically.

The simplest calculation is based on workload and standard time:

Required labour hours = Total workload units × Standard minutes per unit ÷ 60

For example, assume a hotel expects 180 occupied-room cleaning assignments. If the weighted standard is 24 minutes per assignment, the core cleaning requirement is 72 labour hours. If each employee is rostered for a productive seven-hour shift, the theoretical requirement is approximately 10.3 employee-shifts. The manager must then add time for briefings, movement, replenishment, inspections, equipment preparation, training, breaks, and reasonable contingency. The result may therefore be 11 or 12 shifts, depending on the operating context.

The weighted standard is important. A hotel may assign different times to checkout rooms, stayover rooms, suites, rooms with special cleaning requirements, and rooms requiring inspection or rework. A weighted workload can be calculated by multiplying each category by its standard time and adding the results. This is more accurate than dividing total rooms by a single average.

Forecasting should also distinguish between base staffing and flexible staffing. Base staffing covers predictable core operations. Flexible staffing responds to peaks through part-time employees, casual workers, cross-trained employees, agency labour, overtime, split shifts, or carefully managed outsourcing. Excessive reliance on flexible labour may reduce continuity and quality; insufficient flexibility may create expensive overtime and service failure.

Forecast accuracy should be reviewed by comparing forecast workload with actual workload and comparing planned labour hours with actual hours. Variance analysis should ask why the difference occurred. Causes may include inaccurate occupancy data, unexpected group departures, inefficient procedures, equipment failure, high rework, new employees, absence, or an unrealistic standard. A variance is not automatically evidence of poor employee performance.

From Staffing Standards to Rosters

A roster translates the forecast into a workable pattern of attendance. It must provide coverage for the busiest periods while respecting employment contracts, rest requirements, leave, meal breaks, training, and individual constraints. The roster should also support the flow of operations. For example, room attendants are most useful when rooms are ready for cleaning, public-area attendants are needed at guest-traffic peaks, and linen staff must be present when linen movement is highest.

A sound roster normally includes the following decisions:

• the number of employees required in each work area and shift;
• the skills or authorisations required for each assignment;
• the distribution of checkout and stayover work;
• relief arrangements for breaks and absence;
• supervisors or inspectors available during operating periods;
• training, meetings, and administrative time;
• contingency arrangements for demand changes.

Rosters should be prepared sufficiently in advance to support employee planning, but they must remain adjustable. A published roster that changes constantly may be operationally responsive but damaging to trust and work-life balance. Changes should therefore be based on clear rules, communicated promptly, and recorded accurately.

A manager can assess roster quality through coverage, fairness, compliance, cost, and operational outcomes. Fairness includes equitable distribution of difficult rooms, weekends, public holidays, overtime, and preferred shifts. Senior employees should not automatically receive all desirable assignments, while inexperienced employees should not be placed in situations beyond their competence. A transparent rotation system often improves perceptions of procedural fairness.

A Practical Roster Method

The manager may proceed through five stages. First, identify the forecast workload and service deadlines. Second, convert workload into labour hours by area and shift. Third, map available employees, skills, contracts, leave, and restrictions. Fourth, allocate fixed requirements and then fill variable requirements using the least disruptive flexible option. Fifth, test the roster against absence, late arrival, high occupancy, and room-release scenarios.

Digital scheduling systems can perform these calculations quickly, but managerial review remains necessary. An algorithm may optimise labour hours while ignoring fatigue, fairness, training needs, or a worker’s reasonable accommodation. Technology should support judgement rather than replace responsibility.

Work Measurement and Productivity

Work measurement establishes a defensible relationship between a task and the time or labour required to complete it. Common methods include historical analysis, direct time study, predetermined motion systems, work sampling, activity logs, and engineered standards. Each method has strengths and limitations.

Historical analysis uses past labour and output records. It is inexpensive but may reproduce old inefficiencies. Direct time study observes a task across several cycles and establishes a representative time. It must account for normal pace, task variation, interruptions, equipment, and legitimate personal and recovery needs. Work sampling records activities at randomly selected times to estimate how time is distributed among productive work, movement, waiting, administration, and other activities. Activity logs are useful for supervisory and support work that is difficult to measure room by room.

A standard should describe its conditions. “Twenty minutes per room” is incomplete unless the room type, cleaning condition, equipment, linen distance, quality level, inspection expectation, and ancillary tasks are known. Standards must be reviewed when room design, amenities, procedures, technology, or health requirements change.

Productivity may be expressed in several ways:

Labour productivity = Output ÷ Labour input

Examples include rooms cleaned per labour hour, square metres maintained per labour hour, or kilograms of laundry processed per labour hour. Cost productivity may be expressed as labour cost per occupied room. Quality-adjusted productivity is more meaningful than volume alone because output that requires rework is not a genuine achievement.

A balanced productivity dashboard may include:

• rooms or workload units completed per labour hour;
• labour cost per occupied room;
• room-release timeliness;
• inspection pass rate and rework rate;
• guest complaints related to cleanliness;
• absenteeism and turnover;
• injury, fatigue, and near-miss indicators;
• training completion and skill coverage.

These measures should be interpreted together. For instance, a rise in rooms per labour hour alongside a rise in rework and injuries suggests apparent rather than real productivity. Similarly, low labour cost may indicate understaffing rather than efficiency.

Managing Quality, Capacity, and Wellbeing Together

Housekeeping work is physically demanding. Repetitive bending, pushing trolleys, lifting mattresses, handling chemicals, wet floors, awkward furniture, and time pressure can create musculoskeletal and safety risks. Productivity management must therefore include ergonomic design, suitable equipment, safe chemical handling, adequate staffing, realistic breaks, and reporting systems that do not punish employees for raising concerns.

The concept of sustainable productivity is useful. Sustainable productivity is the level of output that can be maintained over time without unacceptable deterioration in quality, health, safety, morale, or retention. Managers should watch for warning signs such as increasing sick leave, shortcuts, rushed inspections, conflict, damaged equipment, and declining guest comments. These are often capacity signals rather than isolated employee problems.

Quality assurance should be integrated into the work process. Clear cleaning sequences, room checklists, standard operating procedures, supervisor inspections, feedback from maintenance, and analysis of recurring defects help prevent rework. Excessive inspection after the event cannot compensate for unclear standards or inadequate training.

Leading a Diverse Housekeeping Workforce

Diversity is a practical management reality and an organisational resource. Employees may bring different languages, cultural expectations, educational backgrounds, physical capabilities, and approaches to communication. Diversity becomes productive when the department provides inclusion, clear expectations, respectful supervision, and equal access to development.

Communication should use plain language, demonstrations, visual standards, translated materials where appropriate, and confirmation of understanding. Managers should not assume that silence means agreement or that limited language fluency indicates limited intelligence. Instructions concerning chemicals, safety, guest privacy, and emergency procedures require particular care.

Inclusive leadership involves allocating work fairly, preventing harassment and discrimination, accommodating legitimate religious or disability-related needs where operationally possible, and addressing conflict early. Cultural differences should not be used to excuse poor conduct, nor should one group be stereotyped as naturally suited to particular tasks. Selection and promotion should be based on competence and documented performance.

Training, Motivation, and Performance

Housekeeping training should combine knowledge, demonstration, supervised practice, feedback, and verification. An effective induction programme normally covers hotel standards, room-cleaning sequence, equipment, chemicals, infection prevention, manual handling, fire and emergency procedures, guest privacy, lost property, sustainability, reporting lines, and respectful workplace behaviour.

A training-needs analysis distinguishes between knowledge, skill, attitude, and system problems. If a room attendant repeatedly misses a defect, the solution may be training, but it may also be poor lighting, insufficient time, unclear standards, defective equipment, or excessive workload. Training should not be used as a substitute for fixing operational design.

Motivation is influenced by pay and conditions, but also by recognition, autonomy, fair treatment, learning opportunities, supervisor behaviour, job security, and a sense of contribution. Housekeeping employees often receive less visible recognition than guest-facing employees despite their central role in the guest experience. Recognition should be specific and credible, linked to safety, quality, teamwork, and service recovery rather than only speed.

Performance management should be continuous rather than limited to an annual appraisal. Expectations should be clear, evidence should be reliable, and employees should have an opportunity to explain circumstances. A fair process separates capability issues from misconduct, provides coaching before formal action where appropriate, and applies rules consistently. Supervisors should avoid ranking employees solely by room numbers because such comparisons may ignore room difficulty, experience, equipment, or assigned support tasks.

Industrial Relations and Employment Governance

Housekeeping managers operate within employment law, collective agreements, organisational policies, and health and safety requirements. The precise legal rules differ by jurisdiction, but core principles include lawful hours, minimum entitlements, non-discrimination, consultation, safe work, accurate wage records, privacy, and freedom from retaliation for raising concerns.

Industrial relations concerns the relationship among employees, management, representative bodies, and sometimes labour contractors. A constructive approach includes consultation on roster changes, transparent overtime allocation, timely grievance handling, recognition of employee representatives, and good-faith negotiation. Outsourcing does not remove the hotel’s ethical responsibility for working conditions in its supply chain. Contracts should define service quality, training, safety, wage compliance, data protection, and responsibility for supervision.

Managers should maintain accurate records of attendance, hours, training, incidents, performance discussions, and roster changes. Records support operational analysis and due process, but access should be limited to legitimate purposes. Personal information, health information, and performance data must be handled confidentially and in accordance with applicable law and policy.

Technology, Analytics, and Emerging Practice

Property-management systems, housekeeping applications, mobile inspection tools, electronic task boards, and workforce-management platforms can connect occupancy information with assignments and room status. Sensors and Internet-connected equipment may provide information about trolley location, linen inventory, equipment maintenance, or energy use. Analytics can identify demand patterns, absence risks, rework hotspots, and the relationship between staffing levels and guest outcomes.

Artificial intelligence may assist with demand forecasting, shift optimisation, translation, anomaly detection, and automated generation of reports. However, algorithmic recommendations may reproduce biased historical patterns or treat workers as interchangeable units. Managers should examine the data used, test outcomes for unfairness, preserve human review, explain important decisions, and avoid excessive surveillance. Technology must not encourage employees to work at unsafe speed or collect personal information unrelated to a legitimate purpose.

Current practice is also moving toward greener operations, cross-training, flexible career pathways, recognition of psychosocial health, and greater integration between housekeeping, engineering, front office, and sustainability teams. Labour planning increasingly considers not only occupied rooms but also environmental targets, linen-reuse programmes, preventive maintenance, and guest expectations regarding responsible operations.

Illustrative Case: Rebuilding the Housekeeping Roster at Meridian Harbour Hotel

Background

Meridian Harbour Hotel is a 220-room full-service property. Its occupancy varies considerably because of conferences and weekend leisure demand. The housekeeping department includes room attendants, public-area attendants, linen staff, supervisors, and a small pool of casual employees.

Situation and Problem

During a period of high occupancy, room availability for afternoon arrivals became unreliable. Guest complaints about late rooms increased, overtime rose, and several employees reported back pain. Management initially proposed increasing the standard room assignment from 15 to 17 rooms per attendant.

Analysis

The housekeeping manager reviewed four weeks of data. The apparent room standard concealed major variation: checkout rooms and suites required substantially more time than ordinary stayovers. Supervisors also spent much of the morning transporting linen because of an inefficient storage arrangement. New employees were being assigned complex checkout floors without adequate coaching. Inspection failures created rework late in the shift. The problem was therefore a combination of inaccurate workload measurement, poor process design, and insufficient peak-period support rather than simply low employee effort.

Approach and Solution

The manager introduced weighted workload units, separating checkout rooms, stayovers, suites, and special requests. A morning linen runner was scheduled during the peak period, and two experienced employees were cross-trained to support high-demand floors. The roster was redesigned to overlap shifts during the room-release peak rather than adding equal hours across the entire day. Supervisors used a short visual checklist and coached new employees on checkout-room sequencing. Employees were consulted before the new standards were finalised, and a review was scheduled after four weeks.

Outcome

The revised system improved the alignment between assignments and actual workload. Room-release performance improved, overtime became more predictable, and early quality checks identified problems before they required extensive rework. The hotel did not achieve this result by simply increasing work intensity. It improved information, flow, skill distribution, and support. The case illustrates that productivity gains often arise from better system design.

Learning Points

1. Room counts are an inadequate measure when room complexity varies.

2. A productivity problem may originate in material flow, training, or scheduling.

3. Employee consultation can reveal operational causes that numerical reports miss.

4. Quality and wellbeing indicators must accompany output measures.

5. A roster should be designed around demand peaks and process flow, not merely contracted hours.

Common Mistakes and Managerial Risks

Several errors recur in workforce planning. Managers may rely on occupancy alone, use a single room standard for all room types, ignore non-room tasks, schedule staff only for average demand, or treat overtime as a permanent staffing solution. They may also compare employees without adjusting for workload complexity, make frequent last-minute roster changes, or interpret absence as a discipline problem without examining fatigue and working conditions.

Another risk is false precision. A spreadsheet may show a requirement of 10.6 employees, but people cannot be deployed in fractions without considering shift patterns, breaks, skill coverage, and legal restrictions. Forecasts are estimates, not promises. They should be accompanied by assumptions, sensitivity analysis, and contingency plans.

Managers should also avoid pursuing speed at the expense of privacy and dignity. Room attendants handle personal belongings, enter private spaces, and may encounter vulnerable guests. Training and supervision must emphasise boundaries, confidentiality, lost-property procedures, and immediate reporting of safety or safeguarding concerns.

Best-Practice Principles

Effective workforce and productivity management in housekeeping rests on several integrated principles:

• forecast workload by type and complexity, not by room count alone;
• use standards as planning tools, not as instruments of arbitrary pressure;
• combine productivity measures with quality, safety, wellbeing, and retention indicators;
• consult employees when designing work methods and reviewing standards;
• build a core workforce with carefully managed flexibility;
• schedule around demand peaks, material flow, and service deadlines;
• train for competence and verify understanding;
• manage diversity through inclusion, fairness, and accessible communication;
• use technology transparently and retain human accountability;
• review variances for system causes before blaming individuals.

Chapter Summary

Workforce planning aligns the quantity, timing, and capability of housekeeping labour with forecast demand and service standards. It involves demand forecasting, workload measurement, staffing standards, roster design, contingency planning, and variance review. Productivity is meaningful only when output is achieved with acceptable quality, safety, cost, and employee wellbeing. Weighted workload units provide a more accurate basis for planning than simple room counts, particularly where room types and cleaning conditions vary.

Effective managers integrate operational analytics with professional judgement. They develop fair rosters, provide training and feedback, support diverse teams, manage performance consistently, and maintain constructive industrial relations. Digital systems and AI can improve forecasting and coordination, but they require oversight concerning privacy, fairness, transparency, and worker wellbeing. The central managerial lesson is that sustainable productivity is created through better-designed systems, capable people, and responsible leadership rather than through pressure alone.

Key Terms

Workforce planning: The process of forecasting labour needs and aligning people, skills, and schedules with organisational demand.

Labour demand: The quantity and type of work expected during a specified period.

Labour supply: The employees and available working capacity that can meet forecast demand.

Staffing standard: A defined labour requirement for a specified task or workload unit under stated conditions.

Roster: A planned allocation of employees to shifts, duties, dates, and working hours.

Workload unit: A measurable item of work, such as a checkout room or square metre cleaned.

Weighted workload: Workload calculated by recognising different time requirements for different task categories.

Productivity: The relationship between service output and resources used to produce it.

Utilisation: The proportion of available paid time used for productive activity.

Occupancy: The proportion of sellable rooms occupied during a specified period.

Work measurement: The systematic determination of the time and labour required for a task.

Work sampling: Estimating how time is distributed among activities through observations at selected intervals.

Absenteeism: Unplanned absence from scheduled work.

Labour turnover: The rate at which employees leave and are replaced.

Sustainable productivity: Output maintained without unacceptable damage to quality, safety, health, or morale.

Cross-training: Preparing employees to perform duties in more than one work area.

Rework: Repetition of work because the original output failed to meet the required standard.

Industrial relations: Relationships among employees, management, representatives, and employment institutions.

Variance analysis: Examination of differences between planned and actual workload, labour, cost, or performance.

Quality-adjusted productivity: Productivity assessed together with defects, rework, guest outcomes, and service standards.

Review Questions

Short Answer Questions

1. Distinguish between labour demand and labour supply in housekeeping.

2. Why is a weighted workload standard more useful than a single room-count standard?

3. State the basic formula for calculating required labour hours.

4. What is sustainable productivity?

5. Identify two purposes of employee consultation in roster design.

Long Answer Questions

1. Explain the process of forecasting housekeeping labour requirements and converting the forecast into a roster.

2. Discuss the principal methods of work measurement and their limitations.

3. Explain how quality, safety, employee wellbeing, and productivity should be managed together.

4. Analyse the role of training, motivation, and continuous performance management in housekeeping.

5. Discuss the opportunities and governance risks associated with digital workforce-management systems and AI.

Analytical / Application Questions

1. A hotel has 150 occupied rooms, but 60 are checkouts, 20 are suites, and a large conference group is departing. Explain why a simple “rooms per attendant” rule may produce an inaccurate staffing plan and propose a better method.

2. A department reports higher rooms cleaned per labour hour, but guest complaints, rework, and sick leave have also increased. Analyse the likely meaning of these results and recommend management action.

3. Design a short workforce response for a hotel facing a sudden two-day occupancy peak, including roster changes, flexible labour, quality controls, employee communication, and ethical safeguards.

22. Multiple Choice Questions with Answers

Question 1

Which calculation most directly converts a forecast workload into required housekeeping labour hours?

A. Occupancy percentage multiplied by average room rate

B. Total workload units multiplied by standard minutes per unit, divided by 60

C. Number of employees divided by total rooms available

D. Labour cost multiplied by rooms sold

Correct Answer: B. Total workload units multiplied by standard minutes per unit, divided by 60

Question 2

Why is a weighted workload preferable to a single room-count standard?

A. It eliminates the need for supervision

B. It guarantees that every employee works identical hours

C. It recognises that different room and task categories require different amounts of time

D. It measures guest satisfaction directly

Correct Answer: C. It recognises that different room and task categories require different amounts of time

Question 3

A rise in rooms cleaned per labour hour occurs together with more rework and injuries. What is the most appropriate interpretation?

A. Productivity has unquestionably improved

B. The department may be achieving apparent output gains at an unsustainable cost

C. The staffing standard should immediately be increased

D. Quality and safety data should be excluded from productivity analysis

Correct Answer: B. The department may be achieving apparent output gains at an unsustainable cost

Question 4

Which factor is most important when testing whether a roster is operationally robust?

A. Whether all employees have identical assignments

B. Whether it can cope with absence and demand changes while maintaining required coverage

C. Whether it contains no flexible labour

D. Whether it minimises training time

Correct Answer: B. Whether it can cope with absence and demand changes while maintaining required coverage

Question 5

A manager observes that a room attendant repeatedly misses a cleaning step. Which should be assessed before concluding that the employee lacks ability?

A. Only the employee’s age

B. Whether the room standard, equipment, workload, and training are adequate

C. Whether another department has a lower labour cost

D. Whether the hotel can remove inspections

Correct Answer: B. Whether the room standard, equipment, workload, and training are adequate

Question 6

Which practice best supports fair roster management?

A. Giving all preferred shifts to the longest-serving employees

B. Changing shifts without notice whenever occupancy changes

C. Using transparent rules for distributing difficult duties, weekends, and overtime

D. Assigning complex rooms only to new employees

Correct Answer: C. Using transparent rules for distributing difficult duties, weekends, and overtime

Question 7

What is the principal purpose of work sampling?

A. To estimate how working time is distributed among different activities

B. To calculate room revenue

C. To replace all training programmes

D. To determine employee personality types

Correct Answer: A. To estimate how working time is distributed among different activities

Question 8

Which action reflects inclusive management of a diverse housekeeping team?

A. Assuming limited language fluency means limited competence

B. Using demonstrations, clear language, and confirmation of understanding for critical tasks

C. Assigning people to duties solely according to cultural background

D. Avoiding feedback to prevent cultural conflict

Correct Answer: B. Using demonstrations, clear language, and confirmation of understanding for critical tasks

Question 9

What is a major governance risk when AI is used for workforce scheduling?

A. It makes occupancy data unnecessary

B. It may reproduce bias in historical data and make unfair recommendations

C. It prevents managers from measuring labour hours

D. It automatically guarantees employee wellbeing

Correct Answer: B. It may reproduce bias in historical data and make unfair recommendations

Question 10

In the illustrative Meridian Harbour case, which intervention addressed the underlying productivity problem most directly?

A. Increasing every room attendant’s assignment without changing processes

B. Removing quality inspections

C. Using weighted workload units, improving linen flow, and overlapping staffing at the demand peak

D. Replacing all permanent employees with casual workers

Correct Answer: C. Using weighted workload units, improving linen flow, and overlapping staffing at the demand peak