Field notes
Reading utilization without punishing the floor
A practical guide to interpreting labor or seat utilization in service businesses without turning the metric into a blame tool.
Utilization is useful until it becomes a weapon. When technicians or therapists see the chart as a personal score, they stop flagging training needs or parts delays.
Separate capacity that was never available—leave, training, equipment downtime—from capacity that was idle while demand waited. The first is planning. The second is opportunity.
In Bangkok multi-site groups we often show utilization beside first-time completion or rework. A high number with rising rework is not a win. A slightly lower number with stable quality and shorter backlog may be healthier.
Bring the floor lead into the briefing for ten minutes. Their context keeps executives from “fixing” utilization with a memo that ignores how the day actually runs.