PowerPlay Magazine

To build on my previous articles in regards to staff and their use, I thought I’d take it a step further and illustrate exactly why you likely are over-staffed. So what is the optimal staff rating for your level of facility? I took it upon myself to put pat2e’s expenses calculator back to work. Keep in mind, what I’m going to present is for custodians and the maintenance center only. I am assuming the impact of staff on other facilities parallels and as such would apply across all staff positions. That being said, having staff beyond what I’m about to show is not necessarily a bad thing as will be discussed. In the case of custodians however, exceeding the recommended values is not recommended since it merely means less money saved.

So, what did I do? Well, I looked at the maintenance aspect of custodians while adjusting facility levels and ignoring arena and security. Thus, the custodian’s security attribute was locked at 1 and the arena was bare bones (as it is when you first get your team). Second, I assumed equal build between the head and assistant custodian. In reality the head should be slightly stronger than the assistant (60-40 influence) however as a means of a first-order illustration, this will work fine. Next, I adjusted *all* facilities to the same level including the maintenance center. I then modified the staff’s maintenance ability that maximized the savings taking into account their salaries. This maintenance skill was then doubled to illustrate their OR if your facilities and rink were on the same build level.

The result of this exercise surprised even me. I’ve heard a few ways guys gauge how good of staff they should carry. For some it is an incremental step (X OR at level Y) and for others it is a linear relationship (level 12 is 12/15 = 0.8, thus carry staff with 80/80 or 160 OR). In principle, this is a very good idea. However, the relationship between facilities and staff is not linear, much the same way the relationship between facility level and cost is non-linear.

With all the simplifications/assumptions I made, the result was that for peak efficiency and economy you don’t require staff over 100 OR until you have level 14. In fact, staff over 50 OR aren’t the most efficient until level 12. Going further into the results, given staff are hired with anywhere from 30-60 OR, this means for anyone with a facility level under 10 it is most efficient to not carry any staff at all. All this is summarized in the table and figure below.

Again, please keep in mind this is a simplified first-order exercise. And, in reality, it may be best to go above these values. For example, I noticed a significant training jump when going from 150 OR coaches to 200 OR coaches given my level 15 training facility. Now, 144 OR coaches, according to this exercise, are the most economical and efficient at level 15. However, boosting to 2x 200 OR coaches, while it costs me $400,000/day compared to $168,750/day, there was a significant boost to training. Given my team’s financial state, this $1.6M/week increase in coaching salary is worth it for the added boost in training.

I hope this compliments past articles nicely and will aid in your decision as to who to axe and who to keep if you’re pursing financial success via your arena/stadium as discussed a few days ago. Please keep in mind the caveats I discussed and adjust based on your team and aspirations.

Best wishes,
-Scott