Staffing 24/7 Posts: Post Hours, Relief Factors, Officers Needed, Shift Patterns, Overtime & Bill-Rate Build-Ups

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Turn the opening times of six posts into weekly and annual post hours, including part-day posts and a two-officer control room, and find how much of the contract sits at one site.
• Turn three fictional contracts into gross paid hours, subtract leave, public holidays, training and an absence allowance, and get the net hours one officer can really work on post.
• Divide each post's annual hours by the net hours of one officer on that site, read the relief factor in full-time equivalents and round it up to the number of people to employ.
• Generate a four-crew 12-hour rota with MOD and INDEX, count the day and night cover for every day, and find the offset error that leaves some days empty and others double-staffed.
• Find the hours each site's own officers cannot cover, price them as overtime and as new hires, and pick the cheaper option that also respects the company's overtime cap.
• Build the hourly price of a post from base pay, on-costs, the paid hours that never reach the post, equipment and overhead, and set a bill rate that delivers the target margin.
• Convert weekly post hours into monthly hours, price each post per month, add the overtime premium to the cost, and see how much margin is left once staff turnover is paid for.
• Summarise eight posts into a per-site dashboard of posts, FTE, price, cost and margin, find the weakest site with a formula and chart price against cost for every post.