Workforce Utilization in Field Service

Set a realistic target for workforce utilization rate

Once you know how to calculate utilization rate and how you want to use it alongside other field service KPIs, you can set realistic goals for your field service operations going forward.

What constitutes a “good” utilization rate will vary among industries and businesses. Business areas with significant compliance and paperwork requirements, like healthcare, will naturally have more non-billable work to do. Other factors, like location, can also make a difference for utilization rate. For example, a company that installs and maintains solar panels in a populous area can cluster several appointments in the same area, while the same type of business in a rural area will need to account for more travel time between jobs. 

To set a realistic goal, add up all non-billable activities with input from managers and staff in the field:

• Travel time: How much time is spent traveling to and between job locations?
• Internal meetings: How much time does the employee spend in team meetings, department meetings, or 1:1 meetings with their manager?
• Professional development: How much time does the employee spend on training sessions (in-person and virtual), workshops, and other learning and development tasks?
• Record-keeping: What are the requirements for paperwork and record-keeping for customer appointments, and how much time does that take, on average?

This total will be your baseline for goal-setting. However, different roles will have different baselines for billable vs. non-billable work. Managers, for example, need to spend a higher percentage of time on people management, QA, and meetings than most deskless workers.

Create a plan to reach the target utilization rate

It’s important to set reasonable goals, and even sub-goals along the way, that are attainable based on current utilization rate and the nature of the field service business.

Once you know the time spent on non-billable activities, you can dig in further. If the amount of non-billable time seems too high, talk to managers and staff members to understand why. It’s likely that paperwork will come up—nearly 75% of field service technicians report spending too much time on paperwork!

You might find that the reason is sales-related, and there is not enough billable work in the pipeline to keep workers busy. It could be a process issue, with inefficiencies and process breakdowns slowing down the work. There could be a management issue, and individual team members are in need of better onboarding, training, or coaching.

A few tips to keep in mind as you plan to improve utilization rates:

• Consider the baseline for each role. If required non-billable tasks for a home healthcare nurse add up to 35% of working hours when working at max efficiency, the maximum (realistic) utilization rate for the role is 65%. Don’t expect to increase utilization beyond 65% without process changes, new technology, or other actions that reduce non-billable time.
• Set reasonable goals based on current performance. If a team of field inspectors has a 50% utilization rate, but non-billable tasks only add up to 20% of the inspector role on paper, there is room for 30% greater utilization. But increasing team productivity by 30% overnight is challenging, and setting overly aggressive goals can be demoralizing for staff. Set incremental goals instead, like improving 10% each month until reaching the target utilization rate. 
• Balance KPIs appropriately. More than 80% of mobile workers report they struggle to balance speed and quality when delivering service and support to customers. Don’t prioritize utilization rate at the expense of other important elements of your business. 
• Address outlier utilization rates individually. If most members of a team average 75-85% utilization, but one team member averages 50% utilization, try to understand why. The team member may need training, coaching, or better matching to suitable field service jobs.

Software Pro Tip: Some field service management tools offer built-in AI features that can help you create (e.g. AI-assisted data analysis) and execute (e.g. intelligent scheduling and dispatching) your plan

Track utilization rate to identify trends

To increase utilization rate, field service managers need to be able to identify and address trends based on service data. Use dashboards to display real-time data and generate long-term trend reports to help managers monitor the most important KPIs.

Operations leaders can review data for individual employees, teams, and even types of services (e.g. services with longer resolution times) to identify trends that affect utilization rate. With a clearer view of team operations, managers can address the issues they see: clarify expectations, provide coaching, fill technology gaps, and suggest process improvements to utilization. 

Software Pro Tip: Look for field service management software that lets you choose metrics to display in real-time dashboards and recurring reports

Use the right field service software to improve utilization

Field service management software can transform the way you see utilization rate and what you can do about it. Skedulo offers intelligent scheduling and field service management features that can improve field service KPIs: optimize travel routes between jobs, automate basic scheduling tasks, select and fine-tune KPIs for management dashboards, and much more. 

Skedulo gives field service companies the insight to manage large, complex mobile workforces. For example, American Red Cross Training Services reduced underutilization of instructors by 31% by using Skedulo to schedule more than 60,000 courses annually.

See how Skedulo can improve workforce utilization rate through intelligent scheduling and workforce management.