The Relief Factor indicates how many persons it takes to fill a single job position for a single shift, taking into account vacation, sick leave, training days, and other types of leave. The factor varies among private companies and public safety comm centers, depending upon the employees' benefits (2-5 weeks vacation, 12-20 sick days per year, etc.), and how the employees use their benefits (always use sick leave they earn, have banked up many years worth of vacation, etc.). The private sector uses a standard Relief Factor of 1.7 but, as they say, your mileage may vary.

To determine your own Relief Factor, you'll need some information, a pencil and a piece of paper.

First, you'll total the total number of days-off for all dispatchers, then divide by the number of dispatchers to determine the average days-off figure, which will be used to computer the Relief Factor. Here are the steps, with an example calculation for 10 employees in parentheses:

• the total number of earned vacation days for all employees in this calendar year (10 employees, they've each earned 2 weeks, that's 10 days x 10 = 100)
• the total number of earned sick leave days for all employees in this calendar year (10 employees, they've each now have 2 days, that's 2 days x 10 = 20)
• the total number of training days alloted for all employees, for which they would have to be replaced by someone else (10 employees, 1 days of training each, that's 1 x 10 = 10)
• the number of employees x their days off per week (either 2, 3 or 4) x 52 = total number of days off for everyone (10 employees on a 3x8 schedule has 2 days-off, that's 10 x 2 x 52 = 1,040)
• any other "off" time for all employees (none)

Total the above number of days-off (100 + 20 + 10 + 1,040 = 1,170)

Divide the above total by the number of employees to obtain an individual average days-off figure (1,170 / 10 = 117)

*Subtract the above figure from 365 (days in a year) to obtain the "days-on" figure (365 - 117 = 248)

Divide 365 (days in a year) by the above number to obtain the vacancy or "relief" factor... it should be in the range of 1.4 to 1.7 (365 / 248 = 1.47)

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 *By the way, you could make this same calculation more directly by using just one "average" employee's situation. You would simply total the one person's days-off per year, and then perform the calculations starting with the step marked with a red asterisk.

For some additional discussion on Relief Factor, download the "Staffing Analysis for Jails" workbook published by the U.S. Department of Justice, starting with page 8. [Acrobat, pdf format, 548k]

Also see this 1999 article from "NENA News" written by Bill Weaver that explains this calculation and others. [Acrobat, pdf format, 28k]