A survey from the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) has found that the average number of full-time employees (FTEs) needed to manage a mega fleet is 5.25 for externally funded fleets and 12.25 for outright purchase.
The survey aimed to find out how many employees it takes to manage a fleet, including responses from 118 organisations that together control 118,000 cars, vans and trucks, and FTEs.
The survey also included the quantity and types of vehicles each fleet operates as well as, acquisition method, vehicle type and which associated fleet responsibilities are managed in-house, are covered in the methodology.
The survey also found, for a large fleet of 500-1,000 vehicles a company will need 3.55 FTEs for fully funded fleets and 8.25 FTEs for outright purchased fleets.
For a medium fleet of 100-500 vehicles a company will need 1.32 FTEs for funded and 1.75 FTEs for outright purchased fleets, and for a small fleet of 100 vehicles or fewer, a company needs 0.83 FTEs for funded and 1.00 FTEs for outright purchased fleets.
AFP said the figures showed a strong relationship between fleet size and FTEs employed, but that there are numerous data points outside of this formulaic relationship that underlined the number of factors at play.
The in-house and outsourcing mix, and vehicle types within the overall fleet, have a particularly strong impact, according to AFP.
For this reason, the results were separated by funding method and fleet size, and a weighting applied to the fleet type – salary sacrifice, cash allowance, company car, LCV and HGV.
Lorna McAtear, vice chair at the AFP, said: “As fleet managers struggle with increased workloads and managing resources, how many people should be managing a fleet is a question that comes up time and time again amongst AFP members and the information we have compiled indicates why it is so difficult to answer.
“For example, if you look at the responses we have received, fleets with two FTEs in the fleet team range in size from 633 vehicles to 5,300, which is a considerable difference.
“However, there are good reasons for this variance, with the biggest fleet having a large number of cash allowance drivers.
“There are many other instances of this kind of diversity in our research, serving to illustrate both the significant value of this new data but at the same time, underlining the difficulty of using it to produce useable benchmarking figures.”
McAtear added: “It’s important to stress these results are very much a reflection of the 118 fleets who responded to our survey but the figures appear to us to feel broadly representative.
“Generally, fleets within the AFP that depart significantly from most of these averages have their own particular demands and requirements.”
