Full Time Equivalent (FTE) | Meaning

What is Full Time Equipment?

FTE, or Full-Time Equivalent, is described to be a path that the employees can choose in an attempt to standardize their headcount, all the while combining the hours that they spent working part-time to help understand and figure out the number of hours that the full-time workers should get. FTEs play an important role in helping companies make strategic decisions that are majorly and mostly FTE-based in place of actual employees undertaking the work to do the headcount. This helps the said companies greatly as they are able to de-complexify the already complex system of conducting payrolls for each and every employee, even more so when the workforce is so extremely diverse and includes not just full-time workers but part-time as well as contract-based workers. The FTEs are, therefore, incredibly helpful when attempting to conduct a more accurate budgeting forecast.

Now let us see how FTE is converted into hours. In order to convert the equivalency of a full-time employee and break it into standard hours, what’s needful to do is multiplying the rate of the FTE of the aforementioned employee by 40. 

Let us take an example for a better understanding. Assuming that the FTE of an employee is 0.80, therefore, if we end up multiplying that number by 40 by following the previous instructions, then the result shows us that the said employee works a total of 32 hours in an entire week.