Staff size maximising expected birthday holiday hours
Question
A company closes for the whole day on any date that is the birthday of at least one of its employees; on every other date all employees work hours. Birthdays are independent and uniform over days. The company wants to choose its head count to maximise the expected total number of employee-hours not worked in a year. What should it pick? Answer if no finite is optimal.
Short answer
(no finite optimum). The expected number of closed days is , which increases with . Total hours off are times that, a product of two increasing positive factors, so it grows without bound and more staff is always better.
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