Some advise in working out FTE

[June Dungca]

Hi there

I am fairly new to Workforce Management and I am looking for advice or tips on working out the FTE required by the call centre.

Here's the background...I work for an ISP Helpdesk and I'm currently trying to do some FTE forecasts for the Call Centre Manager. The Helpdesk hours are 8am-10:30pm (Mon-Fri) and 8am-8pm (Sat-Sun). I have worked out the FTE required per hour including a 33% shrinkage that we've decided on previously.

I want to work out how many total number of FTE we would need per month to cover a whole shift. I would like to take into account that an agent works an 8 and a half hour shift (2x 15min paid and 1x 30min unpaid break) and also including the Rostered Days Off an agent will have.

I've worked out how many agents we will require per day. I have also created a roster showing the layout of the RDO's. I then use these to work out how many actual number of agents we will need per week, which would be the same as agents per month.

Is there an easier way to do these numbers? Also is what I'm doing the right thing to do in this scenario? Any advice or comments are welcome and appreciated as it's taking so long to work everything out at this stage.

If you need some clarification on certain things just let me know and I will do my best.

Thanks

June

[swot_analyst1]

Hola,

I did a similar analysis last year for my company. It took a moderate amount of time to get all the data together. I was trying to use their FTE count to justify a call center workforce type environment since most of thier business is seperated by phone(call center) skillsets and actual data entry work processes (very clear line). To manage the call staff needed... The call center I had was working a lot more hours than you have listed M-F 7am-11pm and Sat.. 7am-2pm. So I am hoping this helps...

I started looking at the call peices- using the call reports - Avg Talk /Hold Times- # of calls that came in- et cetra. From there I used call center calculators that I found online -see links below (as a starting point). They enabled me to put in raw data for the group to determinethe actual # of overall FTE's required to cover the calls and also for each hour of the day (as we all know) calls vary each and every day/hour... esp during peak hours. Consider the fact people have to take a lunch (unless u wanna ball and chain them_ to the cublicle lol..

Use these applications.. maybe they will help to get you started in the right direction. It takes some data crunching, but once you have an idea of how many calls you service per hour in any given month (and other tangibles)- you should be good to go. Your operations sounds small- so this should definitely give you the confidence to settle on some hard figures (and justify them at the same time)!!

These calculators are based off Erland C Methodology- but some of these allow you to use different methods such as Erlang B and


Best Link! Free Download
link - http://www.kooltoolz.com/ccm.htm

Alternative
link- http://www.erlang.com/calculator/call/