Abstract for:A Hybrid Modeling and Simulation Approach for the Strategic Workforce Planning Problem

The human resources of an organization are one of its most important strategic assets. Strategic workforce planning is a management task that aims to transform this asset into a competitive advantage. The challenge is to design and implement a workforce system that optimizes organizational performance and, therefore, contributes to sustainable success. We present a simulation based approach that enables management practitioners to address the strategic workforce planning problem. The underlying hybrid model is based on distinct paradigms: agent-based modeling and simulation, discrete event simulation, and system dynamics. While the workforce consists of a set of agents the internals of an agent are specified by combining discrete event handling with system dynamics. Our hybrid simulation model is applied upon the workforce system of a Germany federal agency. One important insight is that well intended human resource management policies not necessarily result in a performance boost but cause the opposite in the long run.