Description
Part-time employees as a percentage of the total workforce.
Formula
End of period headcount. Part time / End of period headcount * 100
Interpretation
Staffing Rate – Part Time indicates the percentage of the workforce that is classified as part time. The remainder of the workforce consists of full-time employees. A result of 3 per cent means that three of every one hundred employees are classified as part time.
Part-time work arrangements are often seen as desirable work-life benefits and can be beneficial to employers in many circumstances. Employees who are not able to devote full-time hours to a job but have an important skill set or valuable experience may still be retained by an employer on a part-time basis.
Employees who wish to retire gradually over a period of time might move to a part-time status, allowing the organisation to continue to benefit from their knowledge. Part-time employees often receive fewer benefits than full-time employees, which might represent cost savings to the employer.
Part-time staff may also present some limitations for employers. If staff members are only available to perform certain activities during certain hours, other staff or processes may experience productivity interruptions. Also, part-time employees may represent additional payroll or other processing costs to the organisation.
Organisations with very low results for this measure may wish to assess whether more pervasive part time arrangements might positively impact retention and knowledge management across the workforce.
Employers with high results for Staffing Rate-Part Time may instead wish to analyse the productivity and processing costs of part-time workers to ensure costs and efficiencies are being managed appropriately relative to the organisational benefits of part-time arrangements.
Data Sourcing
Organisations typically identify part-time and full time status from a full time/part-time indicator within an HRIS job table.
Analysis
Employers may find it useful to analyse this measure by employee and organisational characteristics to understand where part-time arrangements are common. Dimensions for such analysis may include organisational unit, occupation, job family, job function, tenure, age, gender, pay grade, employment level and performance rating.
If an organisation uses part-time arrangements to address the needs of certain employee populations such as working parents or working students, it may also wish to analyse by demographic characteristics that will enable it to gauge the success of these strategies.
Limitations
Staffing Rate – Part Time does not provide any indication of the number of hours worked by part-time employees, nor does it measure the productivity of part-time workers. It does not indicate the costs or the cost savings of offering part-time arrangements.
Additionally, the measure does not indicate the impact of part-time arrangements on employee retention, engagement or productivity.
Targets
Organisations must consider their stated goals for part-time resources in setting targets for this measure, such as an accommodation of exceptional employees, a common flexible work arrangement, a vehicle for gradual retirement, etc.
Targets should also incorporate some understanding of the costs and benefits of part-time versus full-time resources for relevant positions, including such factors as wage, benefits, productivity and cultural impact.
Employers that encourage part-time arrangements as a differentiating strategy may target moving results toward the 75th percentile of a relevant benchmark group. Organisations not employing such a strategy are likely to target the median.