Agent Occupancy & Utilisation Calculator

How it works

Occupancy = (contacts × AHT) ÷ (agents × available hours); utilisation = (contacts × AHT) ÷ (agents × paid hours) = occupancy × (1 − shrinkage)

Occupancy is the share of an agent’s available, logged-in time spent actually handling contacts (talk, hold, wrap-up); the remainder is waiting for the next call. It is an output of staffing, not a target to schedule to: Erlang C will show that hitting a service level in a small queue forces occupancy down, while large pooled queues run naturally above 85%. Sustained occupancy above about 90% shows up within weeks as longer handle times, more sick days and attrition, so most centres cap planning occupancy at 85%. Utilisation goes one step further and divides by paid time, folding in shrinkage; it is the finance view of productivity and is typically 55–65% even in well-run operations.

Worked example

3,840 calls at 300 s is 320 hours of work. Forty-eight agents logged in for 6.5 hours (312 available hours) run at 102.6% occupancy — over capacity; queues will build. Fifty-two agents would bring it to 94.7% and fifty-six to 87.9% (around 8 minutes idle per hour).

Frequently asked questions