Underutilization Impact & Recovery

Owned by Vishakha Pinge
Last updated: Aug 09, 2023 by Michael Cannon
2 min read

Being Axelerant specifies the top reason why we are here.

“We empower people in ways that matter to them to create substantial value for our customers and positively impact the world.”

All Global Delivery Team members and a few other roles are directly involved in value-creation activities by client work, internal and external. These billable work projects ensure Axelerant remains sustainable and strives toward healthy profit margins.

Learn how team members' efforts impact billability/utilization by viewing Time Logging Expectations.

When we experience a situation where a delivery team member's billable utilization is regularly below a reasonable threshold, it negatively impacts Axelerant's sustainability and the individual's career growth opportunities.

Possible causes of underutilization might be skill mismatch with business needs, competency level issues, and misaligned preferences/interests with project fitment. Other factors for non-billable utilization may include but are not limited to:

  • Business decisions such as discounts, waivers, etc., to acquire projects

  • Supporting internal Axelerant functions such as recruitment, marketing, etc

  • Project attributes include backfill onboarding, learning curves, short-term dip in customer needs, and enablement of others.

However, continued underutilization should thus be dealt with by prompt action and remediation as below.

Team Member Steps

  • Find your billable utilization through the Mavenlink time tracking report. To know more, refer to this. Automated notices should start by October 2023.

  • For any assistance on the report, file a ticket on the DO service desk.

  • When reporting shows less than 20 hours a month as billable or more than 20% of your time as non-billable, contact your career manager for clarifications.

  • Add it as a talking point in your career manager check-in on Leapsome or reach out to them ad hoc when these averages are consistent for three months.

  • Discuss possible reasons for underutilization with your Project Manager when such occurs while being on a billable project. 

Career Manager Steps

  • Work with the team member to understand possible causes of underutilization.

  • Identify steps team members can take to address the concern within a 4-6 week time box.

  • These may include assessing future opportunities roadmap, cross-skilling, upskilling, or possible lateral moves.

  • Timely review of progress on collaboratively agreed action points of effort and potential utilization opportunities.

  • When underutilization remains, consider parting ways amicably per due diligence by the people operations team.