ESS · Shift Planning

Automatic Staffing for Home Care

CAIRE ESS (Employee Shift Scheduling) generates optimized work schedules for your entire workforce — automatically, in minutes. AI balances demand, contracts, working time rules, and continuity to create sustainable shifts.

~3 h
Compute time for full optimization
50%+
Reduction in manual planning time
<8
Unique staff per client (SKR target)
100%
Contract & working time rule compliance

What is automatic staffing?

ESS (Employee Shift Scheduling) is CAIRE's module for automatic shift planning. The system takes visit demand for a planning period and generates a complete work schedule for all employees — including shifts, breaks, and travel time between visits.

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Demand-driven planning

ESS reads visit volume by day and hour, and sizes staffing needs precisely against real care demand — not a historical average.

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Rules-compliant optimization

Automatically respects collective agreements, working time regulations, minimum rest between shifts, maximum weekly hours, and your organization's own scheduling policies.

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Pipeline to route optimization

ESS output feeds directly into FSR (route optimization). Together, ESS + FSR create a fully optimized schedule from shifts to individual visit assignments.

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Continuity targets

The AI model weights staff assignments to minimize the number of unique caregivers per client — aligned with SKR's recommendation of max 8 staff per client.

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Scenario comparison

Run multiple ESS solutions with different parameters (e.g. travel overhead ratio, overtime limit) and compare outcomes in per-day supply/demand charts.

Apply with one click

Once you select the best ESS solution, apply the shifts to the schedule directly in the interface. Shifts appear immediately in the Bryntum workspace as input for FSR.

How does the ESS flow work?

From visit demand to applied shifts — four steps.

1

Import visit data

The scheduler imports the visit plan for the period. The system calculates total demand in hours per day and identifies when staff is needed most.

CSV import Phoniro / Carefox Manual entry
2

Start ESS optimization

Choose a scenario and compute time (fast 30 min · standard 3 h · thorough 6 h) and start the optimization. The AI engine runs in the background and can be stopped at any time.

Fast · Standard · Thorough Background run Real-time monitoring
3

Review and compare solutions

Each ESS run produces a proposal with per-day supply/demand charts. Compare multiple runs, view shift count, active staff, and coverage ratio. Pick the best solution.

Supply/demand charts Scenario comparison Health analysis
4

Apply and run route optimization

Apply the selected shifts to the schedule. The shifts now serve as input to FSR (route optimization), which assigns the right visits to the right staff at the right time.

Apply shifts Pipeline → FSR Publish schedule

ESS vs. manual shift planning

What separates AI-driven staffing from traditional manual planning?

Dimension Manual planning CAIRE ESS (automatic)
Time to create a schedule Days to weeks ✓ 30 min – 6 hours
Rule compliance Person-dependent, error-prone ✓ 100% automated
Demand-matching precision Gut feel / historical averages ✓ Exact demand matching
Continuity (unique per client) Hard to measure ✓ Built-in optimization goal
Scenario comparison ✗ Not possible ✓ Run multiple variants in parallel
Pipeline to route optimization ✗ Manual handover ✓ Direct ESS → FSR integration

Explore more

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Scheduling Overview

The full scheduling platform — from visits to published schedule.

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Optimization Engine

Deep dive into how the shift planning and route optimization engine works technically.

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Analytics & KPIs

KPI dashboard, supply/demand analysis, and continuity reports.

Ready to automate your staffing?

Open the scheduling tool and run your first ESS optimization today.

Open Scheduling