Question

passage require analysis and breakdown

Workforce scheduling is huge in hospitals, especially at this time. An influx of traveling nurses has sprouted from this pandemic due to the rates that hospitals are willing to pay for contracted employees to come in and help with the relief effort. With this, it is important to know the lengths of the contracts and the amount of capital it is going to take to secure each of the temporary employees. Form there, the needs of the organization needs to be clear cut to ensure that no over hiring takes place. Creating a linear program for optimization will allow the organization to arrive at the right number of employees that they should hire with the time frame they need help for. Anderson (2016) states that “The manager must determine the production levels that will allow the company to meet product demand requirements, given limitations on production capacity, labor capacity, and storage space, while minimizing total production costs” (Anderson, 2016). This is using linear programing to optimize the use of traveling nurses, “Once the model has been formulated, the manager can simply supply the data—demand, capacities, and so on—for the given production period and use the linear programming model repeatedly to develop the production schedule” (Anderson, 2016).

By figuring out how many travelers are needed, the manager must then find a way to use these temporary employees within the organization of full-time employees. Anderson (2016), states that “Blending problems arise whenever a manager must decide how to blend two or more resources to produce one or more products. In these situations, the resources contain one or more essential ingredients that must be blended into final products that will contain specific percentages of each” (Anderson, 2016). The optimal blending solution should maximize the firm’s profit, subject to the constraints on the available numbers of traveler the organization has acquired. Finding the perfect mix of how many full time employees are needed on the floor while mixing in the travelers is important to ensure that here is enough full time staff that is available who know the ins and outs of the organization to be able to help those who are newer.

The logistics of this can be tough due to the current times we are facing. A lot of variables go into the hiring of travel nurses. The time frame that the nurses are needed can increase the pay that they are seeking. This will cost the organization more while perhaps not fully satisfying the need for workers that they are seeking. Finding the travelers at the right time to cover the needs before the cost gets too high is the logistical problem organizations face. Forecasting could be used to estimate the true need prior to the event taking place. If this is used, the organization could hire on more travelers who are willing to sign a long contract to cover the timeframe where the organization thinks they might need the most help. The other option is waiting until they truly need help, but when this happens, the cost of the traveler might be too much that the organization might not be able to handle the cost. Timing is everything to get the logistics down to be able to optimize the organizations capital they are willing to put into the hiring of new nurses. Thanks! ~Taylor

Answer 1

The following analysis could be made from the given passage

· The given passage talks about the economies behind workforce scheduling of nurses and temporary scheduling of employees during this pandemic time.

· The passage says that it is very important to know the length of contract, number of exact requirement and capital analysis so that no over hiring takes place and no extra cost is incurred for the same.

· It suggests the importance of Logistical analysis and creation of a linear program so as to optimize this problem and arrive at a solution gibing the right number of employees to be hired and the optimal cost at which the hiring could be performed.

· The passage sites the quote of Anderson in the context that the manager is responsible for determining the production levels so as to meet the production demand and minimize the total production and operational costs.

· The use of temporary employees along with the permanent employees brings in many problems which includes the blend of two or more resource types to solve a particular problem.

· It states that optimal blending of each should be done so as to minimize the cost incurred for its operation.

· It also brings in to light that if the time allocation framework of the nurses are increased, then this may result in a more payment structure and hence the allocation should be done only when required.

· The above action of finding the travelling employees at crucial times may also prove costly as the demand requirement is high.

· Thus in general, the paragraph talks about the necessity of logistical analysis and linear optimization in bringing efficiency to an operation of a firm by optimizing the production and management costs.