The purpose of this research was to find out how the staff planning at Company X is perceived and how it could be further improved in the sales function. The objective was to find new staff planning strategies and to do a case study on one of the store's departments. With the case study department, a new rota was planned together with the department and a follow-up planned. Parts of this thesis are bound to secrecy and are not published.

The data for this thesis was collected using both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. Surveys and open discussion were used with the case study department of 10 people. A total of 11 people were interviewed for the general part of this research. The interviews were semi-structured interviews. There was no ready-made set of questions, but rather a framework of themes discussed with the interviewees.

The major findings of this research were that the duty rosters should be available in an electronic format as well as the forms related to it, such as day off wishes and shift switches. It was also found out that the competence of the co-workers should be developed in order to being able to back up sick leaves and help with sudden queues. All managers should also go through their department's rota with the co-workers for hour allocation optimisation.

This thesis provides the starting point for staff planning optimisation at Company X. The results will be discussed and analyzed together with the store's management group and all the managers in sales, and an action plan will be made. It would be interesting and recommended to conduct a similar research for other functions, too. This thesis can be used as a basis for similar researches at different companies in the future.