What each number is
Occupancy and the agents needed at each level are arithmetic on your inputs. The bands are the platform's shared operating bands. The attrition multipliers are assumptions, labelled as planning heuristics. Every cost is a conditional forecast: under these assumptions, this is what the model computes.
Formulas
Calls per hour × AHT in seconds ÷ 3,600
The offered load in Erlangs: how many agents would be busy every moment if work arrived perfectly evenly.
Workload ÷ agents on queue
At or above 100% the queue grows without limit; the tool says so instead of printing an occupancy above 100%.
Workload ÷ occupancy level, rounded up
The fewest agents that keep occupancy at or below that level. It ignores service level, which the Staffing Calculator sizes.
Hiring cost + training weeks × hours per week × hourly rate × benefits load
The cost of replacing one agent who leaves: hiring, plus the loaded wages paid while the new hire ramps.
Your attrition × the band's multiplier
Your entered attrition is taken as the rate at or below the healthy band; the caution and critical bands raise it by a labelled multiplier.
Agents to add × hourly rate × hours per year × benefits load
Cash out the door, never scaled by any realization factor.
(today's multiplier − the target's multiplier) × your attrition × agents × replacement cost
The extra turnover cost the model attaches to running at today's occupancy instead of the target.
Rules and bands
Agents keep recovery time between contacts. No attrition multiplier.
Workable for peaks. The model raises attrition 1.15x.
Minimal recovery time. The model raises attrition 1.4x, and applies the same when the queue is overloaded.
These are the platform's shared occupancy bands, the same ones the Staffing Calculator uses, so an occupancy gets the same label in every tool.
Every constant and where it comes from
Attrition multiple applied while occupancy sits in the caution band, above the healthy maximum. Your entered attrition is taken as the rate at or below the healthy band.
Attrition multiple applied while occupancy sits in the critical band, above the caution maximum, and whenever offered load exceeds staffed agents.
Full-time paid week. Occupancy uses it to price the wages paid while a new hire ramps.
The 2,080 hour full-time year (40 hours for 52 weeks). Occupancy prices an added agent on it; Shrinkage prices paid time off the queue on it.
Wage plus benefits and employer payroll burden, and nothing else. The narrowest of the three loads. Use it wherever a wage becomes a loaded hourly rate for unit metrics.
The one agent wage benchmark the platform cites. Staffing, Cost per Contact and Channel Shift read it. It is the occupation median, no figure of the user's own, so a driver still at it grades evidence Directional. Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (released 15 May 2026), SOC 43-4051 Customer Service Representatives, national median hourly wage.
Worked example
Computed by the tool's own engine at its default inputs, so this page and the calculator always agree.
Agents on queue: 50
Calls per hour: 440
AHT: 360 seconds
Attrition: 35% a year
Hiring cost: $6,500
Training ramp: 6 weeks
Hourly rate: $21.53 (BLS median)
Target occupancy: 85%
440 × 360 ÷ 3,600 = 44.0 Erlangs
44.0 ÷ 50 = 88.0% (caution)
44.0 ÷ 0.85 = 51.76, rounded up to 52
the greater of 0 and 52 − 50 = 2
$6,500 + 6 × 40 × $21.53 × 1.3 = $13,217
2 × $21.53 × 2,080 × 1.3 = $116,434 a year
(1.15 − 1) × 35% × 50 × $13,217 = $34,696 a year
What this tool cannot tell you
- Occupancy here is an hourly average. Real queues vary within the hour, so occupancy at peak intervals runs higher than this figure.
- The attrition multipliers are planning heuristics. No published study gives the attrition rise at a given occupancy for your operation; use your own exit data where you have it.
- Agents at each level ignore service level and shrinkage. The Staffing Calculator sizes both.
- Costs are conditional forecasts under the stated assumptions. Read them as neither savings nor budgets.