Glossary
Utilisation Rate
Also known as: Utilization, billable ratio
Utilisation rate is the percentage of an employee's available working time that is spent on billable client work. It is a core efficiency and profitability metric for IT services firms and agencies. A higher utilisation generally means more of your paid capacity is generating revenue.
Utilisation is usually calculated as billable hours divided by total available hours over a period. Some firms use total capacity as the denominator, others use only scheduled working hours, so the definition must be fixed before you compare people or teams.
The metric is a balancing act. Very low utilisation signals bench time and lost revenue, while very high utilisation can signal overwork, burnout, and no slack for training or internal improvement. Healthy targets sit in a sustainable middle band that varies by role.
Reliable utilisation depends entirely on trustworthy time data. If billable hours are estimated or non-billable work is hidden, the rate becomes a vanity number. Session-level, project-linked capture is what makes utilisation an operational tool rather than a guess.
How Workclave handles this
Because Workclave ties each session to a project and an approval, billable and non-billable time separate cleanly, and utilisation is computed from real records. Ops leads see utilisation by person and project without chasing spreadsheets. workforce utilisation dashboard.
Related terms
Billable hours are the units of work time that can be charged to a client under a contract or engagement. They exclude internal activities like admin, training, or bench time that the client does not pay for. For services firms, billable hours are the direct link between effort and revenue.
Read definition →A timesheet is a record of how an employee's working time was distributed across tasks, projects, or clients over a period. It underpins billing, payroll, and productivity analysis in services businesses. Timesheets can be filled manually or generated from tracked work sessions.
Read definition →Session-based tracking records attendance as discrete work sessions, each with a start, an end, and a project, rather than a single daily clock-in and clock-out. A day can contain several sessions across different projects, breaks, or locations. This produces a far richer and more accurate picture of how time was actually spent.
Read definition →A shift roster is a schedule that assigns employees to specific shifts and working days over a period, such as a week or month. It ensures coverage for support, operations, or client time zones while distributing night and weekend duty fairly. The roster is the baseline that actual attendance is compared against.
Read definition →