The utilization rate of your technicians is an important metric that can be used to optimize your billing efficiency and employee productivity. Property Managers can track the billable hours of their maintenance technicians by taking advantage of the Work Log feature in Property Meld. By using the Work Log, your technicians will check in and out for each Meld they are assigned. Requiring your technicians to utilize this feature will enhance accountability while creating a data set that can be analyzed for multiple use-cases.
Data in Property Meld can be exported as a report. Using data from the All Technicians report will help you determine your utilization rate and allow you to take decisive action to make enhancements to your processes and procedures.
To calculate a technician’s utilization rate, divide the number of Hours Logged by the number of hours worked. For instance, if a technician worked 40 hours in a week and logged 35 hours in Property Meld, their utilization rate would be calculated as (35/40)100 = 87.5%.
The Technician Utilization report uses the Technician and Hours Logged columns from the All Technicians report and adds columns for the number of hours worked and the utilization rate. The other data in the report is not needed for the utilization rate. Examples of the original export of the All Technicians Report from Property Meld and the finished Technician Utilization report are shown below.
*All Technicians Report
*Technician Utilization Report
Pitfalls:
Property managers must ensure that their technicians are using the check-in and check-out function when working a Meld for the Technician Utilization Report to be accurate. Not using the feature or checking in without checking out will on a Meld will amount to a 0-hour job, which will make their utilization percentage drop significantly. The check-in/out events must also happen at a consistent time. For instance, a technician may check-in when he leaves for a Meld sometimes, then check-in when he arrives at the job at others. It is up to you to decide when your technicians check in and start billable time, but it is vital to be consistent.
Managers are responsible for providing accurate timesheet data for the total hours worked by the employee. It is crucial to keep the data logged in the same manner for all employees and to report all the hours actually worked by the employee. Using a blanketed 40-hour entry for all employees could significantly impact results, providing you with inaccurate data.
Insights:
The utilization rate can be affected by multiple scenarios, so it is important to use your best judgment when reading the result. For instance, a high utilization rate can mean you have a technician who is assigned more billable work than other employees, or that a low utilization rate could indicate that they are working on non-billable items. A high utilization rate can also be indicative of a productive, hard-working employee that can handle a more demanding workload. Conversely, a low utilization rate can mean that the technicians aren’t checking in and out, are not assigned as much billable work, or can complete tasks under the average time frame.
After analyzing the cause and effect of your technician utilization rate, you can implement plans to adjust for an unbalanced workload assignment, give training to inefficient technicians, and reward those with outstanding performance.