Does everyone agree that utilization is a useless metric and should be ignored as long as you are making a reasonable effort to get off the bench.

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For roles in which most people are actively selling work, utilization makes all kinds of sense. For roles in which most people are being staffed on work that more senior people sold, it baffles me. Utilization at that point measures the effectiveness of the staffing process, or of the partners in selling work, not the consultants. And if people are being passed over for roles because they aren't good enough, but nobody's telling them of their weaknesses more directly in their project reviews, the whole performance evaluation and career planning framework is a joke. If it's not a joke, and you have the reviews, utilization adds next to nothing in evaluating career progression of junior staff.

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You are looking at it from the stance of "it's not my fault", but the fact is that you have to take a step further back and understand it's a business.

If I have 4 people with a skill set that is in demand, and 4 people who I can't staff because their skills aren't in demand... I will want to free up capital to hire people who can fill the demand.

"Utilization at that point measures the effectiveness of the staffing process": yes. That is correct. It also measures your ability to be the answer to people's needs.

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As someone with 120% utilization. No.

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If you can't get off the bench it's an imperfect proxy for poor relationship building.

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Then why do reputable firms like MBB discount utilization from their performance evaluations. Think about it.

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People are so brainwashed here. Honestly, beyond reasonable utilization like say 85%, impact has very little to do with utilization.

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We don't use it at all. Agree it is worthless.

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While temporary low utilization may not always be your fault, chronic low utilization is. If you cannot find a business need to fill with your skill set, then you need to build a new skill set or move on to something else.

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What? No

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No.

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Don't agree even a little bit

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SC1, I can't speak to MBB, but if their logic is the same as ours, it is a more philosophical difference. We don't expect consultants to staff themselves via networking. We have Talent Managers whose job it is to match consultants and projects based on role and development objectives. And we have project reviews to know whether consultants are doing a good job.

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Whether or not there's a diminishing return beyond a given percentage, higher utilization is always going to be more desirable.

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I think I want to join OW.

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Even if you have a major outlier, you usually know that they're really good or really bad via other means. On the office stats, I think that makes sense if offices are a major organizational axis. Utilization of your major organizational units tells you how productive those units are, but that is ultimately a reflection of the productivity of the Partners in those units.

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We don't use it to measure individual performance, important as an office or firm wide level to track, but a flawed metric for many reasons to judge the performance of relatively junior consulting staff

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Utilization isn't useless but the way it's calculated is so flawed. Like counting training or vacation time.

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@k3: email demand management, email your partner, email partners in other practices, try to get into a training that is taking place for a local project team, and scab onto the training so that you can build your skills in something that you KNOW is in demand.

Demand managers are important, but no one cares more about your career than you. If you aren't out there networking like a mad man, then you can't say you did "everything you could" when and if you get axed.

For what's it's worth, in the 5 years I've been with the firm, demand has never staffed me on a project. 100% of my gigs came from networking. And I'm an introvert.

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No

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We should all join MBB

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Anyone else here have terrible utilization because their deals die and a code never opens? /can’t find another code to book hours? I’m sitting on over 200 billable hours at this point

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Team is already talking about eating hours. My utilization is down cause I was in unassigned for a month in Dec/Jan. What's worse pissing off the partner or having a low utilization? -staff 1

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Hi Fishes,

Most important question:

1. I was on bench in my company since April 2022, So since may I was started looking for the opportunities for better pay but didn't got any offer still attending interviews.
2. In June 2022 i got know that I will have to work on 2 client's project which will be 50% 50% allocation on both sides.
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At any level above Senior, how do u manage the relationship between utilization and realization, which is an inverse relationship. Seems to be either blow the budget (and write it off), or eat a lot of time.

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