A Simple Staffing Formula

Paul Norman presents a very simple mathematical formula for staffing within budget in seasonal industries, demonstrating the formula’s powerful results and impact on business success. This clip is excerpted from a full-length HCI keynote video; see full version and download slides here.

• Start with a forecast for the year to come. You’ll need relative context for your numbers, so you can understand if you’ve been performing well or poorly.  
• You can start with something as simple as a line graph to compare metrics and a spreadsheet to track and compute values. 
• Get going with whatever data you happen to have so far, even if it doesn’t feel like enough; as the data starts to accumulate, your model can only improve with time.