FTE vs headcount
Headcount counts people; FTE counts full-time hours' worth of people. Ten employees each working half the standard week are a headcount of 10 but an FTE of 5. Headcount tells you how many ID cards, PF accounts and uniforms you need; FTE tells you how much labour capacity you actually have and what it costs.
The distinction becomes important in businesses that mix full-time staff with part-timers, daily-rated labour and relievers, and in client billing where the contract specifies posts (which are FTEs) rather than named people.
How to calculate FTE
FTE = total hours worked or scheduled ÷ standard full-time hours for the same period. Choose the standard first. For workers under the Factories Act or a Shops and Establishments Act the legal full-time week is 48 hours, so a month is often taken as 208 hours (48 × 52 ÷ 12) or 26 days × 8 hours = 208. Office staff on a 5-day, 40-hour week use 40 hours a week or roughly 173 a month. State your standard on every report.
For a single employee, FTE = their hours ÷ standard hours, capped at 1.0 in most conventions (overtime is reported separately, not as FTE above 1). For a team, sum the hours and divide once. Use scheduled hours for planning and worked hours for actuals; the gap between the two is your coverage shortfall.
- Fix the standard: 48 hours a week or 208 a month for shift workers; 40 a week for many offices.
- Sum hours for the group and divide by the standard.
- Report planned FTE (from roster) and actual FTE (from attendance) side by side.
- Exclude overtime from FTE or show it separately so capacity is not overstated.
Where FTE is used in Indian operations
Security and facility-management contracts are priced per post, and a 24x7 post at 12-hour shifts consumes 168 hours a week, which is 3.5 FTE at 48 hours plus reliever cover. Hospitals set nurse-to-bed ratios in FTE. Manufacturers budget labour cost per FTE per month. Staffing agencies quote FTE rates to clients and reconcile them against actual man-hours.
FTE also feeds compliance thresholds where the law counts employees rather than hours (ESIC at 10 or 20 employees, Payment of Bonus Act at 20, contract labour at 50 under the OSH Code); those thresholds use headcount, not FTE, so keep both numbers.
A retail chain store has 6 full-time staff at 48 hours a week, 4 part-timers at 24 hours and 2 weekend staff at 16 hours. Total scheduled hours = 6 × 48 + 4 × 24 + 2 × 16 = 288 + 96 + 32 = 416 hours a week. FTE = 416 ÷ 48 = 8.67. Headcount is 12. When the store budgets labour at a cost per FTE, it plans for 8.67, not 12. Actual FTE from attendance last month was 8.1, showing a 0.57 FTE coverage gap concentrated on Sunday afternoons.
Attend Mitra reports scheduled and worked hours by employee, department and site, so planned and actual FTE can be derived directly from roster and attendance exports. Site-wise man-hour exports for security agencies serve the same purpose for client billing.