How Do You Calculate Man-Hours for 24x7 Shift Monitoring? Seeking Best Practices

Hi Seniors, I am working on a project that is not live yet. I have some data like the size of the team, the number of tasks, and the average time spent on each task. This is a simple calculation, but what I don't have is the work for which I don't know how to calculate man-hours, like sitting on the system and monitoring throughout the shift. There are 3 shifts per day in a 24x7 environment. Can anybody share the best practice to calculate the man-hours here? My main motto is to increase the size of the team, which I believe is less at this moment.

Understanding Three Shifts a Day

Three shifts a day clearly mean an employee is subjected to work for eight hours a day in any of the shifts allotted. This equates to 40 hours a week in a five-day environment and 48 hours in the case of a six-day work environment.

My concern is, what's the purpose of calculating man-hours? Is it for paying them a salary, or is it for productivity purposes?

Thank you.

I second Unmesh. The calculations alone might help you create new positions. Please list the following:

1. Downtime for the task if the member is not present.
2. Time taken for the talent to be trained, both in the classroom and on-the-job, before being billable.
3. Bottlenecks and dependencies for each role.
4. Existing budget compared to the billable ratio.

Thank you.

Dear Rathi,

I second Unmesh. The calculations alone might help you create new positions. Please list the following:

- Downtime for the task if the member is not present
- Time taken for the talent to be trained, both classroom and on-the-job, before being billable
- Bottlenecks and dependencies for each role
- Existing budget vis-a-vis billable ratio

Yes, new positions need to be created since I see the volume of work, but I'm not sure how to quantify or showcase it to the higher management. If we have any such formula to calculate, please share.

Regards