In calculating utilization rate, should we subtract time for break/lunch?

In calculating utilization rate, should we subtract time for break/lunch?

In calculating utilization rate, should we subtract out the time that the agents are on break/lunch from their total time available?

e.g. An agent's shift is 8.5 hours but he/she receives a .5 hour for lunch and two 10-minute breaks. Utilization would be calculated as (ATT + AWT)/(510 minutes - 50 minutes. Is this correct?

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You should deduct break and lunch periods as well as acceptable unscheduled break time from the total time available prior to performing any calculations. Also, ATT and ACW are averages and cannot be divided by total minutes to produce any type of accurate metric. Rather, you would use total talk and ACW time.

If you are seeking to determine a percentage of time the agent was busy directly on a call (not including available time) then you would add the total talk time and the total after call work time and divide by the adjusted available time (510 minutes – (?)) to determine a percentage.

This was first published in July 2009