Rounding rules

After the productivity standard is applied to the forecast, the system calculates a decimal number for the need. This decimal number must be rounded to an integer to be used on the schedule. The number must be an integer as the schedule cannot include a partial person.

Although mathematics teaches you to round up at the 50 percent mark and round down below 50 percent, this type of rounding does not make the most sense in the world of labor forecasting. Rounding in the system can be configured based on a productivity percentage. The percentage is a number that determines how much extra work each person can take on before you need to round up. A typical example might be 120%. This means each person who’s scheduled can cover an extra 20% of the forecasted labor before another employee is required to assist.

This type of rounding looks at the total number of people scheduled and how much each of them can cover before rounding up.

This table shows how a rounding rule of 120% is applied:

Calculated Need (decimal)	Rounding Rule	Rounded Need
1.20	120%	1
1.25	120%	2
2.40	120%	2
2.45	120%	3

Note that each employee can perform 20% extra of the forecasted labor demand, which means that 2.4 rounds down to 2.

The rounding rules you use for your business may differ based on your business practices. The default behavior with no rounding rule applied is to always round up. If you want to always round down, set the rounding rule to 200%. This means that calculated workload always rounds down for >1 and rounds up to 1 for workloads <1. The most common rounding rules range between 110% and 120%.

With 2024 releases of LFSO, enhanced rounding rules became available. More information is in another section. Enhanced rounding rules