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Using simulation to assist recruitment in seasonally dependant contact centers

May, Leeanne; Siebers, Peer-Olaf

Authors

Leeanne May



Abstract

The weather is unpredictable and can have a large impact on the profitability of seasonal businesses, particularly if staffing requirements are highly temperature-dependent. In this paper we describe our efforts in developing a what-if analysis tool to assist affected Small and Medium Enterprises in determining the best case scenario for timing hiring new staff and deciding the optimum length of temporary employment contracts. Together with a boiler maintenance company we have developed a prototype simulation tool that can be employed by users with minimal statistical and modelling knowledge. Our usability tests with the boiler maintenance company confirmed the usefulness of the developed tool as a decision support aid for managers. In this paper we focus on describing the tool development and testing process. With regards to real world experimentation we are still waiting for the feedback from the company.

Citation

May, L., & Siebers, P. (2015). Using simulation to assist recruitment in seasonally dependant contact centers. In 2015 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC)doi:10.1109/WSC.2015.7408278

Conference Name 2015 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC)
Start Date Dec 6, 2015
End Date Dec 9, 2015
Acceptance Date Nov 6, 2015
Publication Date Dec 9, 2015
Deposit Date Sep 21, 2017
Book Title 2015 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC)
ISBN 978-1-4673-9741-4
DOI https://doi.org/10.1109/WSC.2015.7408278
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1116068
Publisher URL https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7408278
Related Public URLs https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2888796
https://www.informs-sim.org/wsc15papers/169.pdf