How to Determine Your Ministry’s Total Full-Time Employee and Full-Time Equivalent Employee Count

To determine if your ministry qualifies as an applicable large employer, you’ll need to count your employees and tally the results for each month. Follow these steps to determine your employee total:

1. Full-time employees + full-time equivalent employees (including seasonal workers) per month
2. Add your individual totals from each month = yearly total full-time employees
3. Yearly total full-time employees ÷ 12 = your average employee count

If your average employee number is 50 or more, then you qualify as an applicable large employer.

Use your payroll records to ensure that the hours worked are recorded accurately.

GuideStone's full-time equivalent employee calculator will summarize the information you provide and let you know if you qualify as an applicable large employer.

How to Determine if Your Ministry Is Subject to the Employer Shared Responsibility Provision

Use the results of our customizable full-time equivalent employee calculator to determine your next step:

We have 50 or more full-time equivalent employees.
You are classified as an applicable large employer (ALE) and are subject to the Employer Shared Responsibility provision. Advance to the assessment process below to learn what your ministry should do to comply with this provision.

We have fewer than 50 full-time equivalent employees.
Your ministry is not required to offer coverage to its full-time employees, and you can advance to the reporting responsibilities requirement. Remember, employee counts may change throughout the year. Continue to count your employees.

If you are not required to offer coverage to your employees, but wish to do so, there are some rules that apply to offering coverage. For example, under the ACA, you would be subject to reporting requirements.

If the calculator shows that you are an ALE, then you need to learn what your ministry should do to comply with this provision.