City consultancies love a matrix: twelve tabs, colour, a probability nobody believes. In Pemberton, Manjimup, or a Pilbara camp, the labour pool is not a matrix. It is a known set of people plus whoever will relocate, which is rarely “whoever”. Fileworkbase therefore allows three spines: hold, stretch, and cut.
Hold means you keep paid hours where they are and move work between days. Stretch means you buy hours — overtime, casuals, or a role — against a named demand increase. Cut means you reduce hours or delay service, written as a sentence a director can repeat. If you cannot write the cut sentence, you do not have a plan. You have optimism.
Regional teams waste months modelling a hiring surge that the town cannot supply. Better to model a stretch that includes housing, partner employment, and the real notice period of the one electrician who can sign off. That is ugly and usable. Twelve tabs are neither.
Week six of Workforce Capacity Modelling is this discipline. Alumni from local government told us the cut spine was the first time elected members heard that a Saturday counter might close. Awkward. Accurate.