Methods for planning workforce resources

1 ) A method of software execution, comprising:

defining workforce supply and uncertain workforce demand for a service project using a set of skills that are required to complete the service project;

allocating available workforce to satisfy requirements by determining associated gaps in supply and demand and filling the gaps by training available workforce or hiring; and

assessing costs between (1) hiring a first person with at least a portion of the set of skills and (2) training a second person to have the portion of the set of skills.

2 ) The method of claim 1 further comprising:

identifying a current employee with unique skills assigned to an on-going service project;

calculating costs to replace the current employee with an idle employee from another on-going service project if the current employee is not required to use the unique skills in the on-going service project.

3 ) The method of claim 1 further comprising, minimizing costs by hiring the first person versus training the second person if hiring the first person costs less than training the second person.

4 ) The method of claim 1 further comprising:

defining the set of skills required to complete the service project with plural different categories that each require different fields of expertise;

determining which current employees have skill sets with at least two of the plural different categories.

5 ) The method of claim 1 further comprising, calculating probability in the workforce demand using probability about winning a bid for the service project and probability about starting the service project on a specified calendar date.

6 ) The method of claim 1 further comprising, calculating probability in the workforce supply using probability about attrition rates and probability about hiring employees with the set of skills.

7 ) A computer readable medium having instructions for causing a computer to execute a method, comprising:

dividing skills preferred to complete a business project into multiple skill levels;

evaluating supply and demand of available workforce with the multiple skill levels by addressing a demand of uncertainty, allocating available workforce to satisfy workforce needs, determining gaps between the supply and demand, and filling the gaps by training available workforce or hiring; and

calculating costs to train people and costs to hire people to satisfy a discrepancy between the supply of available workforce and the demand for the business project.

8 ) The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising, calculating a probability distribution of employees leaving due to attrition in order to estimate a number of full time employees to hire to complete the business project.

9 ) The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising:

evaluating skill levels of current employees working on other business projects;

calculating amounts of training to switch the current employees from one skill level to another skill level defined in the multiple skill levels.

10 ) The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising:

determining a number of employees requested for each of the multiple skill levels;

comparing a cost of hiring the number of employees with a cost of training the number of employees.

11 ) The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising, using hiring lead times of employees, estimated attrition for employees, and estimated project duration to calculate a number of employees to hire for project opportunities.

12 ) The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising:

calculating a gap between the supply of skill available from the workforce and the demand of skills needed by project opportunities in a funnel;

minimizing costs to fulfill this gap by analyzing costs to hire employees with skills for this gap versus training employees to have skills for this gap.

13 ) The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising:

generating a first table identifying skill levels of employees working on on-going projects;

generating a second table identifying skill levels to which the employees can be trained.

14 ) The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising:

identifying other business projects that have employees with the skills to complete project opportunities;

calculating costs of switching the employees from working on the other business projects to working on the business project.

15 ) The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising:

calculating the demand for the multiple skill levels in a funnel of other project opportunities;

calculating a total number of employees having the multiple skill levels.

16 ) A method, comprising:

defining workforce supply and uncertain workforce demand for plural different service projects using a set of skills that are preferred to complete the plural different service projects; and

calculating costs to hire new employees having the set of skills versus costs to train existing employees to have the set of skills.

17 ) The method of claim 16 further comprising, computing a total number of employees for each of the set of skills needed to complete each of the plural different service projects considering demand uncertainty.

18 ) The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

identifying existing employees in the workforce supply that have skills to perform jobs in more than one of the plural different service projects;

calculating costs in switching the existing employees from a first service project to a second service project if the existing employees have skills to satisfy both the first and second service projects.

19 ) The method of claim 16 further comprising, calculating probability in the workforce demand using probability about winning a bid for each of the plural different service projects and probability about starting each of the plural different service projects on a specified calendar date.

20 ) The method of claim 16 further comprising, calculating probability in the workforce supply using probability about attrition rates and probability about hiring employees with the set of skills that are preferred to complete the plural different service projects.