Calculating headcount using a calculator from HR-PRACTIKA

For the management of any company, the question of what the number of personnel should be in order for it to function effectively is always important. Many enterprises are forced to lay off workers due to costs, which does not always have a positive effect on the development of production. There is a concept of the optimal number of people at which a company can operate effectively.

The higher the composition and number of employees of a company, the more difficult it is to manage it. Therefore, determining the optimal number of employees is an important point.

The number of personnel is one of the most important categories for personnel research in a company. It should not be higher or lower than the optimal indicator. Let's look at how to determine it.

Concepts to Consider

The number of personnel of the company is the most important personnel indicator of the company, which characterizes its condition. This concept can be specified by the concept of payroll, turnout and average number of staff units.

The headcount category refers to statistical and economic indicators that reflect the number of people who perform labor functions in a company and are part of various categories of workers.

Personnel composition

The structure is understood as the unification of its employees into groups and functioning units according to various criteria. The following groups are distinguished by composition, shown in the table below.

The structure and number of personnel may be influenced by the following factors:

• Automation and computerization of production.
• Use of modern technologies.
• Use of the latest materials.
• Organization of production.

Topic 2 Personnel and labor potential of the organization

Personnel (cadres) – the staff of an organization performing various production and economic functions. It is characterized, first of all, by numbers, structure, considered both statically and dynamically, professional suitability, and competence.

The personnel structure is a collection of separate groups of employees united according to some characteristic.

The organizational structure of personnel is the composition and subordination of interconnected management units.

Functional structure of personnel - reflects the division of management functions between management and individual subordinates. The management function is a part of the management process, identified according to a certain criterion (quality, labor, wages, accounting, etc.), usually from 10 to 25 functions are distinguished.

The staffing structure of the personnel determines the quantitative and professional composition of the personnel, the composition of departments and the list of positions, the amount of remuneration and the wage fund of employees.

The personnel structure can be statistical and analytical (see Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1 – Personnel structure

The statistical structure reflects the distribution of personnel and their movement in terms of employment by type of activity, as well as categories and positions.

Thus, personnel of the main types of activities are distinguished (persons working in the main and auxiliary, research and development departments, management personnel, engaged in the production of products, services or providing maintenance to these processes) and non-core types of activities (workers of housing and communal services, social sphere). In turn, they are all divided into categories: managers, specialists, other employees (technical performers), workers.

The analytical structure is divided into general and specific. In terms of the general structure, personnel are considered according to such characteristics as profession, qualifications, education, gender, age, and length of service. The private structure reflects the ratio of individual groups of workers, for example, “those engaged in hard work with and without the help of simple devices,” “employed in processing centers,” etc.

The criterion for the optimality of the personnel structure is the correspondence of the number of employees of various job groups to the volume of work required to perform each job group, expressed in time expenditure.

The main features of structuring the organization’s personnel:

Based on participation in the production or management process,

those. According to the nature of labor functions, and therefore the position held, personnel are divided into the following categories:

• managers performing general management functions. They are conventionally divided into three levels: top (the organization as a whole - director, general director, manager and their deputies), middle (heads of the main structural divisions - departments, departments, workshops, as well as chief specialists), grassroots (working with performers - managers bureaus, sectors; masters). Managers include persons holding managerial positions, including HR managers;

• specialists - persons performing economic, engineering, technical, legal and other functions. These include economists, lawyers, process engineers, mechanical engineers, accountants, dispatchers, auditors, personnel training engineers, personnel inspectors, etc.;

• other employees (technical performers) involved in the preparation and execution of documents, accounting, control, economic services: purchasing agent, cashier, secretary-stenographer, timekeeper, etc.;

• workers who directly create wealth or provide production services. There are main and auxiliary workers.

A separate category includes social infrastructure workers, i.e. persons engaged in non-core activities (cultural, everyday, housing and communal services for the organization’s personnel). These include housing and communal services workers; persons serving kindergartens, recreation centers, etc., who are on the balance sheet of the organization.

In industry, managers, specialists, other employees (technical performers), workers form industrial production personnel, and social infrastructure workers form non-industrial personnel.

The division of the organization's personnel into categories is carried out in accordance with the regulatory document - the Qualification Directory of Positions of Managers, Specialists and Other Employees, developed by the Institute of Labor and approved by Resolution of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development of the Russian Federation dated August 21, 1998 No. 37.

The qualification directory, taking into account the requirements of the new stage of development of our society, for the first time introduced the position of manager among the positions of managers. In countries with highly developed market economies, managers are professional managers with special education, often obtained in addition to engineering, economics, and law. Managers manage the activities of the organization (top level), its structural divisions (middle level) or ensure the implementation of certain activities in the business field (low level). Top and middle level managers in relation to the current job structure can be considered all managers - directors of organizations and other line managers: heads of workshops and other structural divisions, as well as functional departments.

Lower-level managers in the context of the development of commercial activities, small and medium-sized businesses are the organizers of these activities, ensuring their compliance with the conditions of the external environment (economic, legal, technological and other requirements).

Role structure of personnel - characterizes the team by participation in the creative process in production, by communication and behavioral roles. Creative roles

characteristic of enthusiasts, inventors and organizers, they characterize an active position in solving problem situations and searching for alternative solutions.
Communication roles
determine the content and degree of participation in the information process, interaction in the exchange of information.
Behavioral roles
characterize typical psychological models of people’s behavior at work, at home, on vacation, and in conflict situations.

The professional structure of an organization’s personnel is the ratio of representatives of various professions or specialties (economists, accountants, engineers, lawyers, etc.) with a complex of theoretical knowledge and practical skills acquired as a result of training and work experience in a specific field.

The qualification structure of personnel is the ratio of workers of different skill levels (i.e., degree of professional training) required to perform certain job functions. In our country, the skill level of workers is characterized by a rank or class (for example, for drivers), and for specialists - by category, rank or class.

Social structure of personnel - characterizes the workforce of an enterprise as a set of groups by gender, age, national and social composition, level of education, and marital status.

The gender and age structure of an organization’s personnel is the ratio of personnel groups by gender (men, women) and age. The age structure is characterized by the proportion of persons of corresponding ages in the total number of personnel. When studying the age composition, the following groupings are recommended: 16, 17, 18, 19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39,40-44,45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60— 64, 65 years and older.

More productive is the age structure, presented in the form of the following grouping:

The age structure is characterized by average age and is calculated as the sum of the ages of all employees divided by the number of employees in the organization. Knowledge of these dynamics allows you to more effectively manage the processes of planning the organization's workforce needs, reserve training, professional training, and compensation.

The structure of personnel by length of service can be considered in two ways: by total length of service and length of service in a given organization. The total length of service is grouped into the following periods: up to 16 years, 16-20, 21-25, 26-30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 years and more. The length of service in a given organization characterizes the stability of the workforce. It is more convenient to determine work experience using the grouping method:

The structure of personnel by level of education (general and special) characterizes the identification of persons with higher education, including by level of training - bachelor, specialist, master; incomplete higher education (more than half of the study period); specialized secondary; average general; lower secondary; initial. As an option:

Number structure

It can include several categories of employees:

• Payroll.
• Employees performing labor functions under civil contracts.
• Part-timers.

The number of employees on the payroll is all the employees who work at the enterprise: full-time, seasonal, temporary, etc. The fundamental point is the fact that they all have an entry in the work book. Each such employee is counted as part of only one company. Also considered are those people who did not go to work for any reason. When calculating employment, this list is used. If a person is included in the payroll, therefore, he is not unemployed.

For those who work under civil contracts, contract agreements or labor agreements are concluded. Such employees may be employed in several companies during the reporting period and be considered full-fledged employees.

Their number cannot be determined without taking into account external and internal part-time workers. External part-time workers are employees who are usually on the list of one company, and part-time (according to labor relations laws) employed on projects in another organization. Internal part-time workers are company employees who additionally perform paid tasks in their own organization.

When calculating the average number of people, the work of external part-time workers is taken into account according to the time they spent. The subgroup the new person is included in is stated in the hiring order and in the contract concluded with the company. Part-time workers and those working on a contract basis are not included in the list for determining the employed share of personnel in order to prevent double counting.

About the calculator for calculating the number of personnel

For it, I used the previously described Calculator for calculating the number.

To make the tool simpler, I took Headcount Calculator 2.0 as a base, added a few new fields and hid unnecessary functions.

In its revised form, it allows:

• calculate the amount of work for the personnel service;
• determine the job composition - select performers for different jobs;
• calculate the number of specialists, their workload, as well as the “cost” of the unit - find out how much it will cost the company to maintain the personnel service.

For those who have not encountered a calculator for calculating the number of people before, I recommend reading the articles about the Calculator for calculating the number of people and the Calculator for calculating the number of people 2.0 - they write in great detail about the logic and functions of the calculators.

In order not to repeat myself, in this article I will limit myself to brief user instructions.

Types of numbers

Among the main types of personnel, the following are distinguished:

• Planned.
• Regulatory.
• Regular.
• Average pay.
• Appearance room.
• Factual.

The table shows the main types of personnel and their characteristics.

About calculating the number of personnel

It is useless to look for tables of standards from which you can find out how many personnel officers should be in a company from a certain industry, with a certain level of turnover and official composition - they date back to the 80-90s of the last century.

It will also not be possible to rely on ready-made standards for the civil service - they are clearly overestimated.

In order to calculate the number of HR specialists in your company, I suggest that you independently normalize their work.

This is more difficult than finding a ready-made figure in a table of standards.

But the result will be clear, transparent and explainable.

Techniques

The analysis of the number of personnel of the organization is carried out in several stages, reflected in the table below.

Average number of employees

The average number of personnel can be determined using the formula presented below:

SrCh = (SrCh1+SrCh2+….SrCh12)/12. The denominator is the number of months in a year.

where СрЧ1, СрЧ2... is the average number of personnel by month of the year (persons).

To calculate the indicator SrCh1, SrCh2, etc. payroll values ​​are used for months of the year, taking into account holidays and weekends.

An example of the calculation is presented below.

Initial data:

• The number at the end of December is 10 people.
• Since January 11, 15 more people have been accepted.
• On January 30, 5 people were fired.

The source data looks like this:

• From January 1 to January 10 - 10 people.
• From January 11 to January 29 – 25.
• From January 30 to January 31 -20.

Calculation of population indicators:

((10 days * 10 people) + (19 days * 25 people) + (2 days * 20 people))/31 = (100 + 475 + 40)/31 = 19.8 or rounded 20 people.

Planning

Personnel planning refers to the process of developing plans to provide the company with the required number of personnel.

The process solves the following problems:

• Lack of labor in the company.
• Lack of qualified personnel for business development.

The planning stages are shown in the table below.

Standards

There are different staffing standards. Among them are production standards, service standards, etc. To find how many people are required to implement a certain labor function, calculations are used based on the number of personnel.

Reliance on standards allows you to plan the number and composition of the company's employees, which practically leads to a level of productivity that corresponds to the technical characteristics of the company.

Here are several calculation options.

Method 1. In accordance with production standards. They are defined as the amount of work (for example, the number of finished products) that a team (or an employee with sufficient qualifications) is required to complete in accordance with existing organizational criteria per unit of working time.

Method 2. In accordance with the size standard. The basis for this calculation is a fixed number of employees with certain qualifications required to solve managerial or industrial problems. The main disadvantage of using this standard is the not very high accuracy of the characteristics. This is due to the fact that only normal volumes are taken into account when determining staffing standards. The more complex the actual work process, the more it deviates from the typical one. Therefore, the accuracy of the calculation decreases.

Method 3. In accordance with time standards. Here you need to take into account the amount of time spent on implementing a unit of an industrial process by an employee or team.

Method 4. In accordance with service standards. In these calculations, the basis is the number of pieces of industrial equipment (for example, machine tools, animal heads) that a group of employees must process within a certain time. This rule is almost the same as for employees who perform service functions. Often, when calculating the number of employees in an organization (both regular and standard), the headcount indicators are fractional and require rounding. The obtained values ​​are used as arguments for making various management decisions in the field of personnel policy.

Grounds under articles of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation

Dismissal of personnel is possible on the grounds listed in Article 77 of the Code. These include:

• Initiative of both parties - employee and employer;
• Termination of the employment agreement;
• Changes in conditions and refusal of staff to work according to new rules;
• If the employee disagrees, he will be transferred to another workplace for medical reasons;
• Reasons that are beyond the control of both parties: natural disaster, conscription into the armed forces, etc.

The reduction of an employee is carried out on the initiative of the company's management. The legislator provides him with such a right; he is not obliged to maintain any specific staff. The Code allows for termination of an employment contract if the company reduces the number or staff of employees.

An imaginary reduction of employees will be the basis for the reinstatement of dismissed workers by court decision.

To get rid of unwanted employees, managers often resort to this technique, imitating personnel optimization. Undesirable personnel are subject to dismissal. But such methods are revealed by competent lawyers, and the shamness of the reduction is proven in court. The result is that fired employees are reinstated.

Differences in changes in numbers and staff

The specified Code (clause 2 of Article 81) regulates dismissal due to a change in the number and staff. These are not identical concepts; they have a fundamental difference. The difference is that when the number of staff decreases, the staffing position remains, but the number of workers required to fill it is reduced . In case of staff reduction, the position is eliminated completely.

Special material has been prepared on the topic of what is the difference between reducing the number or staff of employees - we recommend you read it.

For example, if a business decides to outsource legal services, it may no longer need an in-house lawyer. In this case, the lawyer quits due to staff reduction. But if the company ceases to need 10 drivers, it is enough for them to retain 6 such workers, which is carried out by reducing the number.

Optimal number of employees

To optimally calculate the number of personnel in the production area, other methods are used.

Method 1. Timing. For measurements, use a stopwatch and note how much time each subsequent step of the workflow takes. Then all acquired values ​​are summed up. The timing method is used mainly by production managers, financiers and standard setters. The main disadvantage of this method is its labor intensity and duration, especially if the company has a significant number of employees.

For example, the average production time for a part can be calculated only after 30 measurements, during which the actions are carried out by different workers. However, the measurement accuracy will not be high enough. Work speed decreases for employees who know that they are being watched. Another disadvantage of timing is the lack of flexibility. If you need to calculate the production speed of identical parts that have minor differences, this can only be done through measurements for each of them.

Method 2. Comparison with rival companies. Optimizing the number of employees in an organization is also done by comparing the number of employees you have and those of your competitors using the same industrial technologies. This is an extremely fast method, but it will only bear fruit if real information about the work of competing companies is provided. Benchmarking also helps to understand where a company stands in the market based on employee numbers and business productivity.

Method 3. Microelement planning. This method is based on the assumption that any work operation can be reduced to a certain number of simple actions, and the time spent on them is already known. Then, to calculate the standard, only the sum of the measurement results will be needed. Based on this information, it will be possible to optimize the number of employees in the company. Rationing operations using microelements is only suitable for those types of work that are performed manually and consist of cyclic actions. To apply this method, you need a financier who has undergone special training.

Entering working time data

In the drop-down list, select the required positions and determine their work mode.

By default, we will define the time for rest and personal needs as 20 minutes according to the standard for office employees.

It is not necessary to enter the duration of annual leave, sick leave and unpaid leave - this data will only be needed if you want to calculate the number of employees taking into account lost working time on vacation and sick leave - by default this function is not used in the calculation.

Number of support workers

To calculate the number of personnel in the area of ​​auxiliary operations, the factor planning method is used. It is quite labor intensive. In this case, key criteria are used for each process and production operation. Determining the degree of influence of factors on the number of personnel occurs as follows: the work process is divided into elements, each of which depends on one factor. The results of such standardization are compared with similar values ​​in comparable divisions of the organization.