What is FTE?

Full-time equivalent (FTE) calculations are used to help businesses (such as call centres) measure workload. It can also help with process time calculations for projects etc.

A 1.0 FTE represents a full week of work, but what is considered a full work weeks varies from business to business. Two common work weeks are 40 hours per week and 37.5 hours per week. So 1.0 FTE depends on how many hours have been worked vs whatever is considered a full work week, e.g. 37.5 hours. Another way would to look at 1.0 FTE would be as 100% of the working week was worked.

40 hour vs 37.5 hour week, what's the diifference? Firstly there are lots of different weekly hours, not just 40 or 37.5, there are mining companies where it's common to do 44 or even 60 hours per week, but whatever the figure, FTE usually represents paid hours, with unpaid time removed (e.g. such as a lunch break removed). So for example... if a person works an 8 hour day which includes a 30 minute unpaid lunch break, then that persons work hours would be 7 hours and 30 minutes or in other words 7.5 hours. Multiple that by 5 days and that come to a 37.5 work week for a full-timer.

It get's more complicated if people do unusual times, but a simple calculation for FTE would be time worked divided by a full work week. So for example a person works 10 hours per week and a full work week is 37.5, so you would divide 10 by 37.5 to equal 0.27 weekly FTE. It's common to calculate FTE over a week, but you could just as easily work it out over a day, month or year. So using 37.5 hours per week as a guide, a day would be 7.5 hours, 75 hours a fortnight, 150 hours a month, or 1950 hours for a year.

Tea breaks and lunch breaks...

Labour laws, work entitlements and breaks vary across different industries and countries. Some countries provide entitlements to an unpaid lunch break after 6 hours, others after 5 hours etc. Some allow paid tea breaks, others it's unpaid and tea breaks can vary from 10 minutes to 30 minutes. In Australia, a common guide used for breaks is listed below. You'll notice tea breaks are paid for, but lunch breaks are not. How long your shift is will determine whether a tea break or lunch break is provided.

Lenght of Shift	Tea break (paid)	Lunch break (unpaid)
Less than 4 hours	No tea break	No lunch break
4 hours or more but less than 5 hours	1 x 10 minute tea break	No lunch break
5 hours or more but less than 7 hours	1 x 10 minute tea break	1 x lunch break 30 - 60 minutes
7 hours of more but less than 10 hours	2 x 10 minute tea breaks	1 x lunch break 30 - 60 minutes
10 hours of more	2 x 10 minute tea breaks	2 x lunch breaks 30 - 60 minutes