In food retail, “fully-loaded” is a term more frequently tossed around with an ambitious burger order than in the consideration of staff costs. When taking into account insurance, pensions and holiday pay, employers should add between 15 - 20% to the base hourly rate when calculating the actual hourly costs. A failure to consider the “fully loaded” cost of staff will, at best, render certain business KPIs such as staff cost / sales misleading and, at worst, sink your business.