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From the principal’s experience · Built on Smartsheet

A staffing model every site could stand behind.

A large integrated health system needed to know how many engineers each medical center really needs. Not a ratio per square foot, but the actual work. I built a model from the work up, had every site check it line by line, and delivered it to leaders through Smartsheet.

40

Medical centers modeled, one view each

~50

Task lines sized with the ASHE method on the system’s own data

78%

Of task lines came back from sites unchanged

7.3 vs ~8

Model vs. expert estimate for a brand-new tower

Clean hospital central plant room with chillers, color-coded pipes, and a dashboard screen

01 · The challenge

Ratios couldn’t explain the work.

Engineering budgets had long been set with rules of thumb like square footage. But two buildings of the same size can need very different staffing, depending on their age, their equipment, how spread out they are, and how much construction is going on.

Leaders needed a model they could defend, and that the sites themselves would believe.

02 · What I built

Start with the building. End with a number you can check.

  1. Building inputsSquare footage, type, age, assets, central plant
  2. Work requiredAbout 50 task lines, sized with the ASHE method
  3. Who does itIn-house vs. vendor share for each task line
  4. StaffingIn-house work plus time for leadership
  5. CompareModel beside budget, site by site
  1. Excel where the volume lives. Purpose-built workbook templates did the heavy lifting: building, asset, preventive maintenance, and service request data for 40 medical centers.
  2. What a ratio can’t see. The model accounts for travel between buildings, construction support, round-the-clock coverage, and building age.
  3. Smartsheet where people work. Results were delivered through Smartsheet reports and dashboards, with permission-controlled views so each leader sees only their own medical centers.
  4. A trail for every number. Each task line keeps a record of the model’s answer, our review, and the site’s response, so every change is visible.

03 · How we proved it

The sites checked every line.

Every medical center got its own workbook and reviewed it task line by task line. In the first round of returns, 78% of task lines came back unchanged. Where many sites changed the same line, we fixed that line for everyone. An outside peer review checked the approach too.

The real test was a new 278,000-square-foot tower with no staffing history at all. Using building inputs alone, the model came in at 7.3 frontline staff. An independent expert estimate, made before the model ran, said about 8. The one thing the model missed was caught and added.

First round of site returns · task lines

78% unchanged22% edited

New tower, no staffing history · frontline staff

Model
7.3
Expert
~8
The expert estimate was made before the model ran. Building inputs alone got within one person.

When sites own their numbers, the model stops being a headquarters opinion and becomes a shared answer.

Defensible, explainable, and owned by the people who run the buildings.

04 · Where else it works

Any multi-site team that needs a fair staffing answer.

The same approach fits facilities, environmental services, and any multi-site operation that needs to size staff from the real work, not a rule of thumb, and share the results in a way each site can trust.

Is your staffing based on the work, or a ratio?

Book a free 30-minute operational assessment. No pitch. Just an honest look at where you are and what to do next.

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