ABSTRACT
In most healthcare organizations, constructing high-quality and fair work schedules is a difficult but critical task for decision makers. High-quality work schedules should satisfy patient expectations and personnel preferences, as well as organizational goals and policies (Burke et al., 2006; Lin and Yeh, 2007; Topaloglu and Selim, 2010). In turn, this will have important implications on quality of service, staff morale, resource utilization, and overall organizational performance (Bard and Purnomo, 2005; Topaloglu and Selim, 2007). Consequently, much research attention has been focused on staff scheduling or staff rostering in several industrial disciplines (Ernst et al., 2004a,b), especially in healthcare organizations (Cheang et al., 2003; Mutingi and Mbohwa, 2013).
