Patent ID: 8290804

Claim:
A method for automated time banking: creating a time bank for a workforce including a plurality of workers within an organization in a memory device; assigning the time bank to the plurality of workers; determining base hours, vacation hours, and hours worked for the plurality of workers; processing the base hours, vacation hours, and hours worked in a computer to determine time bank hours for the plurality of workers; importing a time bank plan including hours worked, expected hiring, expected attrition, expected incoming work volume for the organization, and shift assignment constraints; processing the time bank plan to determine goal hours for the organization and for the plurality of workers, and to determine expected time bank totals for the organization and for the plurality of workers; storing the time bank hours in the time bank in the memory device; processing the time bank and the goal hours in the computer to determine a work schedule for the workforce by scheduling the plurality of workers in a manner which optimizes time bank totals for the schedule with respect to the expected time bank totals and the goal hours while meeting the shift assignment constraints; and storing the work schedule in the memory device.