Cross-training and mobility of workers in service organizations

The problem of human resource allocation in the service industry with multiple cross-trained worker types and different customer demands is considered. To improve the service level and/or decrease operational costs, we suggest implementing workers' mobility between different branches of the organization in response to dynamic demands. The operating costs consist of the workers' rate (including the basic rate and the cost of crosstraining), the cost of mobility and the shortage costs. We suggest a mixed-integer linear-program formulation which minimizes the total operating costs. The formulation provides the number of workers of each type assigned at each location in each period. We analyze the impact of the level and structure of cross-training as well as the mobility on the operational costs.