Staffing, FTEs, and other
management measurables
Importance of accurate staffing:
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Direct effect on labor costs
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Indirect effects on employee
satisfaction, absenteeism, overtime
(not to mention stress!!)
Here’s a question for you:
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Staff of a tray-assembly line produce
four trays per minute and 180 trays
each meal. Three meals are served
each day. The line has six employees.
How many labor hours are needed to
staff the trayline?
» A. 2.25
» B. 4.50
» C. 6.00
» D. 13.50
Another one:
Calculate the minutes of labor needed per
meal for a facility with the following data:
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Position
Cook I
Cook II
Relief cook
Aide I
Aide II
Relief aide
Supervisor
Hrs worked
 80
 80
 64
 80
 80
 64
 80
Number of meals served Jan 1 to Jan 14 = 2,505 meals
These are often quoted benchmarks:
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Meal equivalents/Labor hours
Minutes labor/total meals
Total meals served/day divided by labor
hours/day
Trays/minute
Payroll cost/meals served
Sales/square foot
FTEs/day or FTEs/week
Food cost %
Labor cost %
Clinical consults/patient day
Productivity indicators you want to
remember for RD exam.
FTEs, one FTE = 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 2080
hours a year.
Some foodservice indicators:
» Labor hours per meal = Number of labor
hours/number of meals
» Labor minutes per meal = Labor hours per meal X
60 minutes per hour
» Meals per labor hour = Number of meals
served/Labor hours for same time period.
» Food cost %; Labor cost %
» Cost per serving
Clinical productivity indicator:
Patient contacts per hour worked = No. of
patient/resident contacts per clinical labor hours
worked.
Calculating FTEs

How many people do you need to feed 100
people, 3 meals/day?
» (Industry suggests you should be able to
produce 3.5 meals per hour)
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3.5 meals per hour = 17 labor
minutes/meal (60 divided by 3.5 = 17)
300 meals/day X 17 minutes/meal = 5,100
minutes/day.
5,100 minutes/day divided 60
minutes/hour = 85 hours/day needed to
produce 300 meals.
Then…
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85 hours per day divided by 8 hours/day =
10.6 positions needed or 11 FTEs.
Workers are only supposed to work 8
hours a day or get paid overtime. One FTE
= 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 2,080
hours a year. So 11 FTEs…
Is this really enough?
Maybe not. If you want to make sure there
are benefits for all, it is not.
Then you might multiply 11 x 1.55 = 17
positions.
Classification of labor hours
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Productive hours:
Worked hours
Overtime
On-call hours
worked
Continuing ed
Orientation/training
Non-productive:
 Vacation
 Holiday
 Sick time
 Jury duty
 Work injury
 Paid leave

Paid hours include both productive and
non-productive hours
Meals per productive hour
A. subtract the non-productive hours
and calculate as usual
 B. typical ratio might be that 10% of
total hours are non-productive;
subtract 10% of your FTE and
calculate as usual
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Here’s another:
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There are seven foodservice employees
in the patient tray assembly unit at a
hospital where the patient tray census is
~350. If 1.5 hours is allowed, a feasible
productivity goal for the unit is to
assemble how many trays per minute?
» A. 2
» B. 3
» C. 4
» D. 5