Question regarding "work time" efficiency

[s0eebuch]

All,

I know we're all in different industries and different office environments - but terms my boss always throws around are "efficiency" and "economies of scale" when talking about billable hours.

Just curious - how efficient (% of total time spent at work actually working) would each of you say you are in your respective position?

I know it ebbs and flows based on workload and projects and deadlines and health and whatnot - but I'm curious on average, including smoke breaks, bathroom breaks, that rare phone call from the spouse to talk about dinner, ect. ect. - what is one's efficiency at work?

I'm guessing I'm at anywhere from 70% (things are slow in my department and maybe I'm not feeling well) to 95% (deadlines loom on multiple projects but that annoying guy in the next cube keeps wanting to chat).

Is this reasonable? Obviously 100% is not reasonable (or attainable, I don't think....)

 

[KENAT]

Depends how you do the math. My efficiency on this job is often lower than I think it should be. However, as I'm away from home anyway, I put in a few extra hours so most weeks I'd like to think they get at least around 40 hours of actual work from me. So 40/40*100 = 100%. I'm not going to say all those 40 are what in some industries would be called 'billable' but to me they are directly work related so count.

There have been times when deadline is looming that I've done 55 or more hours most of it pretty work related so in those cases I'd guess I've hit 137%.

Then there have certainly been times, such as around lay-offs or when pay cuts wher announced etc where my motivation just hasn't been there and I might have struglled to hit 50%. - I posted about this some time back.

In terms of an overhead, my last place actually had efficiency factors they used in man loading. I think at one point they were up in the 80's but then they reduced them to around 75. Now the missing 25% wasn't just bathroom breaks it was also non billable tasks of various kinds.

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[corus]

I remember a quote from the late Bill Shankly (manager of Liverpool FC) regarding whether or not you are offside in football (ie. soccer for those americans) when you are deemed not to be interfering with play. As he said 'if you're on the field of play then you're interfering with play'. I feel the same.. if I'm at work then I'm deemed to be working 100% efficiently whether or not I have the ball at my feet or just chatting with the goalkeeper from the opposite team.

corus

 

[HgTX]

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[racookpe1978]

If I am working on a "billable job" 100% of the time, then I will have no work to do when the current job completes.

If my "boss" or a "salesman" or "planning engineer" or VP or President is contacting current and future customers, then HIS charges must be balanced against my efficiency working. If I am NOT supporting admin, time recording, copying, "taxes, title and license" or other non-productive issues properly, then collectively we go out of business.

You have to balance the bottom line.

 

[cksh]

Thanks for that corus. I feel the same way but have never heard it described like that.

But I don't have to bill my time closely which is a plus.

Not to mention I don't get OT, and get paid the same regardless of hour much, or how little I work.

 

[tripleZ]

All depends on what you count as "efficiency". If my managers don't consider the time I spend on the floor helping to train operators, fix CMM issues, fix CNC programs, help train setup techs, etc., as billable time towards the bottom line, then I'm not doing so well! If they count that and apply it to the salaried 40-hour week, I'm doing pretty well.

Right now we're going through an acquisition and the myriad of issues associated with that. Add to that the fact that we're doing it on a reduced engineering crew size to keep overhead down. My day consists of troubleshooting on the floor from 8AM until about 2PM. I consider that an inefficient use of my time, yet necessary to keep the scrap rates down and get the new operators trained. My productive work day getting the instructions written, studies compiled and analyzed, goes until 8 or 9PM That's my productive "efficient" time as calls on 2nd and 3rd shifts are generally less...not to mention the time I spend in teleconferences during the day with various customers and suppliers.

I'm just hoping there is a raise or bonus at the end of this 8-month tunnel. Hell, getting the 401K contributions back would be a welcome change. =)

 

[JaredS]

I find I do about 90% of my work in 10% of my available time