Utilisation compares the hours your team actually worked against the hours they were scheduled for, across a rolling 30 days.
Reading the number
Around 100% — work is taking about as long as planned. This is the target, not 120.
Above about 110% — consistent overtime. Jobs are running longer than they are being scheduled for, which means either the estimates are wrong or the work is. Either way it is being paid for in overtime and absorbed by margin, and it will not appear as a problem anywhere else until somebody burns out or quits.
Below about 70% — slack in the schedule. Paid time not on a job, which is usually gaps between appointments rather than idle staff.
Why over 100% is not good news
This is the reading most often got backwards. High utilisation feels like efficiency and frequently is not.
Consistently over-running jobs means every quote based on the scheduled hours is understating cost. The business looks busy, the crew is exhausted, and the margin is quietly lower than the pricing assumed — see job margin.
What moves it
Under-running is usually a routing problem rather than a demand problem. Time between jobs is invisible on any invoice, and it is the largest single component of low utilisation in most service businesses. See schedule and dispatch.
Over-running is usually an estimating problem. If a job type consistently takes longer than scheduled, the fix is the schedule template, not the crew.
What it needs
Both scheduled and actual hours have to be recorded. If actual time is not captured against the job, this number cannot be calculated, and neither can true labour cost — see job costs.
Available where Housecall Pro is connected.