How to Calculate FTE Requirements On A Monthly Level

Calculate FTE Requirements

Could someone please help me with the best practice approaches for forecasting FTE requirements for a 12 month period? (on a month-by-month level) My understanding is that Erlang would not be suitable for this.

Currently we use 2 approaches to get FTE estimates:

1.((Bookings forecast*Contact per booking)*AHT)/(Avg hours worked*Agent availability(%)*Agent Occupancy(%))

2. Bookings forecast/ Avg. Bookings per FTE

It would be great if someone could help with what other best practices in the industry are? Also, are there any tools available to help with more accurate forecasting?

We are trying to improve the accuracy of FTE forecasts at our call center, as a way to lower our cost/booking.

Thanks in advance!

Sandy

Question asked by SandyK

Accounting for Shrinkages

It’s not 100% clear whether you are accounting for Shrinkages in the calculation at all? maybe that’s what the availability is thinking about it.

Number 1) looks good on that basis, presuming you’ve done some intraday level work to understand the expected Occupancy.

Assume your Availability changes by month based on the various fluctuations of external factors and also internal planning?

With thanks to robtuck

Agent occupancy as a monthly average

Yes, agent availability includes shrinkage due to leaves, training, etc. We currently take agent occupancy as a monthly average – not on an intraday level (since we are trying to forecast FTEs for a longer term, and don’t use this process for daily scheduling).

Similarly for agent availability, we are using a yearly average figure (assuming that fluctuations even out over a 12 month period).

Would you suggest doing things differently?

With thanks to SandyK

Suggest you model shrinkages monthly

I would always suggest you model shrinkages monthly, and certainly plan for them like that as well (in fact, that will go right down to intraday). Holiday demand will peak in certain months and your workload will probably do the same but not necessarily in the same months. If you use the average you may find yourself unexpectedly under staffed or over staffed in certain months. Planning for it will allow you to guide decisions around Training etc. as well.

I would always model your occupancy at an intra day level. If you use historical data and assume an average, you are merely planning to achieve what you did in the past. Ideally you model the impact of differing service levels on the occupancy and schedule fit you can achieve. So in the Long Term Plan you look to have the occupancy you would expect to see by targeting the Service Levels you want to achieve and the ability to staff to the profiles you have. You then can use that number at the monthly level.

With thanks to robtuck

Forecasting of call

hi team am very new in this industry and i would love to know what factor do i have to put into consideration when am doing the forecasting of call, and when am calculating number of agents needed to get a certain services Level

With thanks to wmsamo

Monthly Head Count Model

Hi, Looking for some help on monthly staffing need. Our current models are much like what Sandy talked about at the top. I’ve been asked to put together a view using Erlang to come up with a monthly FTE need which I dont believe is possible? Has anyone done this before and if so how do you work out the hours? Any help wold be appreciated…

With thanks to Ralph

Contract Unification With FTE

FTE’s standardize your capacity, i.e. the work hours in which your resources get utilized. So a simple calculation is to divvy the hours worked by the total number of weekly hours. for example, if a full-time resource works 40 hours a week, i.e. he/she is present all 5 days of the week, his total FTE is 1. If that person takes leave mid-week, this number reduces, so if he works 3 days, it’ll be 24 divided by 40, i.e. 0.6. Also, 1 FTE can come from 4 staff too, if their individual FTEs are 0.25 each. On a monthly basis, first look at the type of contract you’re assigning. If they are part-time or freelancers, their hours and workloads would differ from that of a full-time regular. Then look at the projects they’re on. And finally, get all the total hours in order to know the number of FTEs. Hope this helped!

With thanks to Mahendra

Monthly FTE

Calculating the FTE for a month can be done using Erlang and calculating each weekdays resource requirements. However, every month is different with variable days in the month and also a variable number of specific days i.e. some months may have 5 Mondays, others 4. It depends on the question being asked, is it the FTE for a month or is it the overall FTE presented in a monthly basis.

With thanks to Martin

Author: Jonty Pearce