How Billable are you?

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Author Message Karen L. Zaterman, CDT Senior Member Username: kittiz Post Number: 37 Registered: 10-2005 Posted on Thursday, June 14, 2007 - 09:26 pm:    Well -- I had another conversation today with my boss... or should I say, attended another lecture on how "we need to increase the hours that I bill to projects." 1. For those of you that are in-house, how many hours do you usually bill to projects per week? 2. Any thoughts on how to convince the Corporate folks the value of non-billable work? Doug Frank FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: doug_frank_ccs Post Number: 187 Registered: 06-2002 Posted on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 08:29 am:    The single most important part of a specifier’s job is keeping the Master current (unless you use one of the packaged spec products out of the box). That involves product research, meeting with manufacturer’s reps, AND participating in forums like this. Most specifiers also spend significant time mentoring younger folks, doing, or managing, in-house presentations, maintaining a product catalog library, and similar stuff. It’s all Non-Billable !! Sheldon Wolfe just sent out results of a survey he conducted and it shows an “average” of about 25% non-billable. I’m in that 25% category as well. The sad part is that when we get so busy that we’re working a bunch of overtime to produce project specifications (that might equate to 120% billable), the real important stuff can get overlooked. To me the key might be in explaining to the Boss that significant non-billable time is vital to the production of an accurate, and current, set of Contract Documents (Drawings And Project Manual). Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEED™ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 606 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 09:26 am:    My employer thinks that 15% is sufficient non-billable for me to accomplish the mentoring, setting up lunch 'n' learns, maintaining the library, researching new/different products to help update the masters (we do use a packaged product, but that still requires monitoring and editing for our practices and regions), meeting with product reps, AND CSI activity (which was part of the job description). I'm one of 5 specifiers total in the company, but the only one in this location. So, yes, I put in more hours in order to keep all the committments. The library suffers most, because there's always the internet and I'm supposed to have help (interns) with the library. But they get busy, too. The 15% was a closer to OK before I took on the lunch 'n' learns, but I wasn't given anymore time to do those. The argument is that I have more non-billable time than the other specifiers. I can't seem to make it understood that they have each other to spread the non-billable work around amongst themselves. Review time is upon us; maybe I can make some use of Sheldon's survey. John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 738 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 11:08 am:    First it's important to realize that if you never bill anything to overhead, your utilization will still only be about 90% after accounting for holidays and vacation time (depending on how much of that you get.) If 85% utilization is the goal, that means only 5% for overhead tasks, or 2 hours per week. That would barely be sufficient to keep up to date on technical reading and the occasional seminar. Looking at it another way, the CSI convention alone comes to an average of 40 minutes a week. My responsibilities on the Masterspec Architectural Review Committee probably average to something like 1 hour or more a week. (Much more time spent on that task is my own. But the learning I get out of it is worth every minute of time.) If a firm does not want you to be able to maintain your expertise, and the firm's competitive edge that comes with that, then 85% may be okay. I don't have to maintain the library or do the lunch and learns. But, I charge some of the time for maintenance of masters to the projects I'm working on. Frequently the maintenance occurs in conjunction with projects as you do research and capture it into the master. That all gets charged to the job. This could be a matter of policy for each firm to decide, but I think it fairly disributes the cost of this effort to the various projects. My utilization goal is 80%, but I don't usually reach that, yet no one is particularly disturbed because they're happy with what the support I give to the firm. My advice is to work with the leadership, and see whether some of the tasks you work on can be partially charged to projects (or ask them what things they'd like you to stop doing.) Ron Beard CCS Senior Member Username: rm_beard_ccs Post Number: 206 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 11:47 am:    As I see it, participation in the 4Specs Discussion Group is fully billable if the question/discussion pertains to a specific product currently used in an active project. I have often researched and sent discussion links to clients when they are proposing substitute materials/systems. Most recently, the TPO discussions. Other group topics would most certainly be classed as either educational or research. I personally feel that participation in the 4specs Discussion Group is equal to any educational seminar. Where else can you get feed back from the best-of-the-best? Anne Whitacre, FCSI CCS Senior Member Username: awhitacre Post Number: 568 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, June 15, 2007 - 06:52 pm:    my former billable goal was 85% and I always met at least that. at the moment, I'm 137% chargeable. Richard Howard, AIA CSI CCS LEED-AP Senior Member Username: rick_howard Post Number: 136 Registered: 07-2003 Posted on Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - 03:42 pm:    With our firm, each one percent represents more than one million man-hours. You can bet they are are keeping close tabs on the unsold time. If we let our monthly number go under 85 percent, we hear about it. If that happens 3 months in a row and we can't show a backlog of work, there will be pressure to cut staff. In anything other than a declining economy, 85 is not a very hard number to do. We have some staff working consistently at 125 to 150 percent and that more than makes up for folks in primarily overhead positions. Our company pays for time worked over 40 hours for nearly all salaried staff in addition to time-and-a-half for hourly workers. We don't believe employees should feel they are giving more than 100 percent without seeing compensation for their extra efforts. John Carter Senior Member Username: johnatcplusc Post Number: 6 Registered: 10-2005 Posted on Friday, June 22, 2007 - 03:49 am:    From a business point of view, the question is whether you are making money for the company, breaking even, or losing money for them. Take your hourly pay (or annual salary divided by 2080 hrs) and add the company's cost for overhead and profit, and see if that matches your billing rate. it's a little more complicated than that, but you can guesstimate some of the numbers by comparing your billing rate and hourly pay. Most companies will expect you to break even, or make a profit for them. Otherwise, if you are not making a profit for them, you should try to justify how your actions allow other employees to make money for them (by increasing their efficiency). In my experience, the best ways to keep the accountants happy is to work more hours and/or find ways to be more efficient at your work. For example. invest your time to develope specifications masters that are easier to edit, and you can measure the savings on the next project. Karen L. Zaterman, CDT Senior Member Username: kittiz Post Number: 39 Registered: 10-2005 Posted on Friday, July 06, 2007 - 10:46 am:    Thank you all. You have given me some valuable feedback! John Regener, AIA, CCS, CCCA, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: john_regener Post Number: 315 Registered: 04-2002 Posted on Friday, July 06, 2007 - 04:04 pm:    At the 2007 CSI SHOW (and convention) in Baltimore, I overheard a spec writer say that he only wanted to work 1/2 time: 12 hours per day! (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Friday, July 06, 2007 - 11:35 pm:    Steven Covey's widely acclaimed book The 7 Habits of Successful People describes a balance that must be found between production, and saw-sharpening activities that make the production possible (referred to as the P/PC balance, or Production/Production Capability). Could be a good reference when thinking about how to talk with management about this. If they kill the golden goose in order to get the golden eggs faster, they will end up loosing the supply of the golden eggs. The flip side of this is a hypothetical person who spends so much time exercising to enjoy a longer life but doesn't realize s/he is spending a majority of that time running. Enough with analogies -- specifiers' production capability depends heavily on masters that are easy to neglect if management doesn't support us in taking time to maintain them. The "masters tax" approach is definitely a good idea whenever possible.