Strategic Staffing: A Comprehensive System for Effective Workforce Planning, Second Edition

Staffing Ratios

It is often possible to define simple, specific numerical relationships between work volumes or output and the number of staff required to do that work or produce that output. Usually, these relationships are expressed as a ratio of volume or output per person (e.g., 270 policies per underwriter or 10,000 barrels of oil refined per petroleum engineer). Not surprisingly, ratios that directly relate work to required staffing levels are called direct ratios. Once the ratio has been defined, it can be applied to the projected output or workload to define the number of staff that would be needed to support that effort. For example, if each underwriter can handle 270 policies in a month, and 2,700 policies are expected to be in force ...