[vc_separator] As you walk the halls of your service and support organization, it’s clear that it takes more than agents and technicians to keep things running smoothly. A well balanced support organization also needs supervisors, managers, QA/QC personnel, workforce schedulers and the like. We refer to these positions as indirect headcount. One of the most common questions we are asked is “How do I calculate the need for these indirect personnel in my support organization?” There is a fairly simple answer, but the calculations vary based on the type of indirect personnel. Which is why MetricNet developed staffing ratio/headcount calculators for IT Service and Support. Appropriate headcount is critical because understaffed support organizations will lack the necessary level of control and overstaffed support organizations will experience an unnecessarily high cost. Here are five of the most common types of indirect headcount and how our headcount calculators determine the need for your support organization: Supervisors/Team Leads Indirect headcount type defined: Supervisors and team leads are somewhat synonymous in the industry. Essentially, this type of indirect personnel has a number of agents and technicians that report to them. They have the responsibility of coaching those agents and technicians, offering feedback and ensuring that each agent or technician is performing well based on organizational expectations and standards. Service desks and desktop support groups have similar staffing requirements in this category. Industry average and calculation: Each year, MetricNet uses industry benchmarking data to determine the appropriate ratio of supervisors/team leads to agents/technicians. For every X full time agents or technicians, a support organization will need one supervisor/team lead. MetricNet’s headcount calculator is set up to make these calculations for you! Trainers Indirect headcount type defined: If you are like most service and support organizations, you offer various types of training for your agents and technicians including CBT (computer based training), hired trainers, and internal staff responsible for training at least part of the time. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on the internal staffing needs. MetricNet has developed a heuristic formula designed to provide guidance when determining the number of trainers needed for the service desk or desktop support group. The heuristic takes a number of things into account including – agent/technician headcount, average new agent/technician training hours, and annual agent/technician turnover. Industry average and calculation: Each year, MetricNet uses industry benchmarking data to determine how many person hours of training per year support organizations can expect to receive from each competent trainer. As you may know, many support organizations also offer annual agent training hours. To determine the additional person hours of agent training needed per year, we need to include that in the calculation. MetricNet’s headcount calculator is set up to make these calculations for you! Workforce Schedulers Indirect headcount type defined: Workforce scheduling becomes more time consuming depending upon the complexity of the support organization. Organizations with 24 X 7 support models and increasing headcount, for example, can not sustain a manual or Excel based workforce scheduling process. Instead, they need an FTE to manage the process. Industry average and calculation: Each year, MetricNet uses industry benchmarking data to determine, on average, how many workforce schedulers are needed for the number of agents/technicians that work in support. We make a distinction between support organizations which do not operate 24 X 7 and support organizations that do operate 24 X 7 because the ratios are different. MetricNet’s headcount calculator is set up to make these calculations for you! QA/QC Indirect headcount type defined: QA/QC is a necessary function for support organizations with more than 15 agents/technicians. This function is responsible for performance measurement and management, call quality monitoring and benchmarking. Industry average and calculation: Each year, MetricNet uses industry benchmarking data to determine, on average, how many QA/QC people are needed for for the number of agents/technicians that work in support. MetricNet’s headcount calculator is set up to make these calculations for you! Manager Indirect headcount type defined: Managers have the most responsibility in a service and support organization. They oversee the daily operations, ensure that service and support is performing at or above organizational standards and more. Industry average and calculation: Each year, MetricNet uses industry benchmarking data to determine, on average, how many full time managers are needed for for the number of agents/technicians that work in support. MetricNet’s headcount calculator is set up to make these calculations for you! When you download the calculator, you’ll notice that we have used fractional headcounts (e.g., 0.8 managers) because it is fairly common for indirect personnel to work part of the time in one function and part of the time in another. A supervisor/team lead, for example, might be responsible for some training, workforce scheduling and QA/QC. Finally, MetricNet’s research has shown that a sustainable ratio of technicians to total headcount is approximately 80% for the service desk and approximately 85% for desktop support.
