What is FTE?
Full-time equivalent, also known as whole-time equivalent, is a unit that indicates the workload of an employed person in a way that makes workloads comparable across various contexts.
To calculate the full-time equivalent, you need to divide the number of hours worked (scheduled hours for a typical day for both full-time and part-time employees) by the maximum number of compensable hours in a full-time schedule as defined by law (currently a full-time workday is considered 8 hours). Below, Equations 1 and 2 indicate the formulas to calculate the FTE.
Following the above definition, an FTE of 1.0 is equivalent to a full-time worker while an FTE of 0.5 signals half of a full workday. For buildings with more unusual occupancy patterns, you would still calculate the FTE building occupants based on a standard eight-hour occupancy period.
Staff is synonymous with employees for the purpose of LEED calculations.
Employees include part-time and full-time employees
Volunteers who regularly use a building are synonymous with employees for the purpose of LEED calculations.
Residents of a project are considered regular building occupants. This includes residents of a dormitory. If the actual resident count is not known, use a default equal to the number of bedrooms in the dwelling unit plus one, multiplied by the number of such dwelling units.
Primary and secondary school students are typically regular building occupants.
Hotel guests are typically considered regular building occupants, with some credit-specific exceptions. Calculate the number of overnight hotel guests based on the number and size of units in the project. Assume 1.5 occupants per guest room and multiply the resulting total by 60% (average hotel occupancy). Alternatively, the number of hotel guest occupants may be derived from actual or historical occupancy.
Inpatients are medical, surgical, maternity, specialty, and intensive-care unit patients whose length of stay exceeds 23 hours. Peak inpatients are the highest number of inpatients at a given point in a typical 24-hour period.
Whenever possible, use actual or predicted occupancies. If occupancy cannot be accurately predicted, use one of the following resources to estimate occupancy:
a. Default occupant density from ASHRAE 62.1-2010, Table 6-1
b. Default occupant density from CEN Standard EN 15251, Table B.2
c. Appendix 2 Default Occupancy Count
d. Results from applicable studies
If numbers vary seasonally, use occupancy numbers that are representative of the daily average over the entire operating season of the building.