Brief description of the company

CitizenM is an international boutique hotel chain. They offer affordable luxury to modern travellers in Asia, Europe and the United States. 

 

The challenge CitizenM faced

CitizenM is growing fast and opening new hotels in different countries. All these countries have different labour laws and standards hotels have to comply with. Think of regulations concerning minimal rest times between shifts, number of consecutive days, minimal weekly shift assignments, etc. Not adhering to labour laws and regulations can lead to hefty financial repercussions and hurt the brand image. Above all, CitizenM wanted full compliance because it should lead to better schedules and protection of their employees. Making legally viable schedules that don’t break any rule but still fulfills every task and adheres to employee contract hours and scheduling preferences, however, becomes harder when the number of employees and countries and thus different labour laws increases - just as the time spent on making these schedules. That’s why CitizenM was looking for a solution that automatically maximises compliance to local labour laws and preferences. 

 

The solution we implemented

In order to make a fully compliant schedule in the least time possible, we implemented our shift filling solution. Part of automated employee scheduling, this AI service automatically assigns employees to predefined shifts based on scheduling preferences, roles, skills and availabilities. When assigning these employees, the algorithm also looks at the shift rules that need to be enforced. The highest priority here is to make schedules that fully comply with local labour laws, to only assign employees to shifts when their skills and availability match the shift requirements. This is followed by scheduling preferences, which include scheduling based on shift type (night versus day) and maximising consecutive days off to improve employee happiness. Shift filling is currently implemented for 13 locations in 5 European countries and has brought scheduling time from 4 hours per week to just 15 minutes.