Real-Life Decision Making
You are a pool manager who works for a large water park. You have been extremely busy the last few weeks preparing the pools for opening day. On Saturday, the water park officially opens for the year. You're expecting about 5,000 people to pass through the gates.
Although you have already hired about 75 percent of the summer staff, you will have to decide how many people you will need working on opening day.
You pull out the opening day records from the last five years to see how many people you scheduled. Past records show that anywhere between 3,900 and 5,050 people generally come to the water park on opening day. Although these numbers help, you can't base all of this year's staff on previous years' numbers.
At the end of last season, renovations were made to the pools that will affect this year's numbers. The kiddie pool was enlarged by almost 50 percent. That means that more lifeguarding staff will be required to watch all the kids.
Another thing you need to consider is the weather. Last year, opening weekend was hot and sunny. This year, the forecast shows it will likely be cool and wet. If that's true, you may not have as many people show up as originally planned.
You look through your list of employees. You have hired six lifeguards. The last few years on opening day, you only needed two at the kiddie pool. You know you'll need at least two, but should you schedule more?
You also have to keep your staffing costs in line. You don't want a bunch of people hanging around with nothing to do. Your staffing costs get totaled at the end of the year and it's expected to fall within the budgeted amount.
What do you do?