Related Posts
More Posts
Hello fishes from Boeing, Can anyone let me know the interview procedure and about the work for Experienced propulsion design engineer Nacelle at Bangalore . Completed the first round technical, trying to understand the timelines and process Boeing India Boeing Boeing Airbus
Wipro Tata Consultancy Infosys GE
Additional Posts in Accounting
What's the round tables timeline for NE Audit?
Pretty sure work is giving me a bedsore...
When does RSM find out about promos/bonuses/etc?
New to Fishbowl?
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.





Seems to me that managers and partners should be the ones held to the utilization targets of their staff. I don't see the relevance of personal utilization targets unless you are out selling working and staffing yourself on it.
PWC1, i dont think you understand...selling work, is the act of not being chargeable, because you are selling work to non clients. Not what you are describing, which is performing work for a salary.
Utilization/billable rate will never be a great measure of actual output because there’s too much grey area with what to charge and what not to charge, how different people code different work, and how well budgeted a project is. At the end of the day, utilization is a game we play.
And utilisation is not actually that good an indicator even for work done. There is a lot to be said about the inefficiencies a 15 hour day has as compared to a 7 - 10 hour day, and someone should not be regarded as a better worker simply because they refuse to have a life outside of work.
Partner 1- majority of the client fees I've seen have been flat fees unless it's unforseen consulting work. Unless I'm missing something, the chargeable time is just used for internal metrics, budgets etc.
Also curious to hear if you thought of ways to factor in those variables. I've heard of top law firms moving away from utilization metrics and focus more on quality of work and getting the job done. Was thinking how we could adopt this.
That's fair, and I agree to an extent. I'm not saying don't track utilization. I'm saying have different metrics at CRT, and definitely don't set a minimum.
Also your assumption about high performers may be right, but that's only true about the top and bottom 10%. Everyone else can easily slip through the cracks, for no reason.
RSM doesn’t have a utilization goal, at least not one that we’re aware of. We just have billable goals.
It depends on the contract. Our firm bills the same rate unless it is negotiated for the client
I’ve heard Mark W talk about the need to move away from utilization too, but alas that is a future-state ambition, for now we are stuck with it!
Utilization is just a mirage in most cases. like with anything it’s an imperfect system.
You will also tend to get more work if your technical specialization is short-staffed, or you are good friends with the staffing manager... The point is that personal utilization is meaningless without supporting context, and if supporting context exists, then utilization becomes irrelevant as a performance measure.
Partner 1- Do you believe having these utilization goals, has a negative impact on culture in the firms? Is there a better way to do it?
A1... If you mean that utilization is archaic as a personal performance measure, then I fully agree. However, as a firm, profitability is directly tied to productivity, and there is no better measure than utilization for that. It's just a matter of applying measures in the right context.
A billable goal is a utilization goal, just stated differently. If you don't have these goals you'll get people slacking off. It's the best way to ensure people put in the work, record chargeable time, and see how they stack against others on a workload basis ( I understand this is just one measure and there are lots of circumstances to take into account)
Certainly imperfect as a performance measure, but can't it help identify overloads in the system? Addressing those can go a long way towards reducing unwanted turnover.
This assumes everyone is charging their time accurately.
RSM uses net margin and I think it's a pretty good system.
Just saying there is more than one criteria/metric.