Employee question?

RianS

I would like some opinions on what a normal service techs. billable hours are per 8 hour day. Any business owners have an average percentage? I have heard some are as low as 45% and as high as 80%. Thanks RianS

Al Letellier_9

billable hours

Obviously it depends on a lot of things....scheduling, size of your crew, your ability to respond to weather related demands, the ability level of your crew and the operating and reporting systems you use. I've seen a union oil heat shop @ 33% and I had an HVAC shop that we took from 72 to 92% billeable. That's 36 hours billeable, each man, per week. It took a lot of work and organization, but the hardest part is getting the crew on board with your plan. They have to be a part of what is happening, not just tools in your tool box......you have to have a good team effort, from top to bottom to make it work. Obviously that is the exception, but I usually figure about 1700 billeable hours/man per year. That allows for vacations, sick leave, training and various non-chargeables. Look at your call back rate first.....it's a big killer of profitability in a service department

RJR

never an easy task, I have been comfortable fiquring 34 billable hours a week. I have built those costs in to our labor rate, If we do better its a plus, if not its a minus week

RianS

hours

wow Dr., thats 85%. It seems that is a little above the average. I thought i was doing good at 30 hrs. or 75%. I have heard some of the larger shops are as low as 38 to 40%. Thanks for the input guys.

oil-2-4-6-gas

--i can and do bill out 10 hours or more per/day --8hrs --but i also bill a crap-load of OT in the winter season and i usually bill out 8 hrs thoughout the summer and fall --the only lag time is April and May ( these 2 months i go around and set-up work for the coming months and fix -the issues from the previous season) and even those days i'm billing -at least 6.5 hours -- ad this season --minimal callbacks - 1 or 2 jobs with intemitent problems ------you gotta hustle --#1 eat lunch while driving-#2 gas up the night before ,#3 lots of pictures of next day jobs --#4 order parts before arriving at the supply houses

Mike Thomas_2

industry average

The industry average for 1-4 man shop is 42%. Get over that and you are better than average! Shocking, I know, but those are the numbers.

Rich Kontny_3

AL

I have seen union shops with over 90% billable hours.In fact I would guess our present shop is in the 80-85% range.

I detected a little jab there at union shops. I can assure you that through more job classifications and top shelf training the unions have become more cost effective and competitive.

I have worked both and truly it is the teams you assemble and the quality of the service techs.While the perception is that you have more control with a non-union shop, reality is that your top people are more apt to get picked off with the pension plans,401Ks and health insurance unions have that lure quality people(productive people) away from non-union shops.

With the current shortage of skilled and productive help one has to keep their lead people happy!

R Kontny

Make Peace Your Passion!

tim smith

Billable hours

I average appx 6 hrs out of an 8 hr day including call backs and shop time per tech. This is appx but pretty close.

Rich W

Old saying?

The figures don't lie. But...liars can figure. Not meant for anyone here- just my boss.

My question. Exactly, how do you calculate this? Line by line, what info do you use?


My boss says we need to be at 90% minimum. When I go to a service call and the ht.exch. is bad- I have to; do a bid/sales job on the spot, take the measurements, make a drawing for the installers, take inventory of code upgrades and venting requirements, order equipment and transition and C/A drop if needed, order the lift truck for chimney liners....This whole thing is counted as non-productive time. Then the boss says,"You didn't actually get any work done did you?"

Not counting this time as productive seems unfair as well as strange to me. Is there an industry standard for figuring these numbers?

Paul_11

everything you describe doing, needs to be done & counted

Rich,
I agree with you, your boss doesn't seem to be crediting you for your work done.

First of all, let's make sure we all are looking at the same things.
billable hours sold / hours worked = Billable efficiency.

At my shop here in NYC we are around 45%. You can do this many ways. Lower hourly rates, but lots of hours associated with jobs or high hourly rates and fewer hours associated with jobs. The bottom line is having a good bottom line, no matter how you get there.

If you charge $90 an hour and sell 8 hours a day, that is 100% BE but only $720.00 a day sales.

If you charge $300 an hour and sell 4 hours a day, that is 50% BE, but $1200.00 a day sales.

Which would you rather have?

Many shops base their billable hour rate using 50% BE. That is what we do. We have some software that does helps us do this. We enter all of our financial information from our Income report and get our selling price for an hour of labor.

If one tech sells a job and does the job, he or she gets all of the billable hours. If you sold the job one day and did work to make the job happen the next day, the billable hours are split between days, if you want to look at each days BE.
We have software that tracks all of this which helps.

For example let's say you sold a job one day and spent 3 hours setting the job up.
Then another tech went the next day and did the job and spent three hours doing the job.
If the job had 4 billable hours associated with it, then we would split those 4 BH between the two techs. One would get 2 BH and the other would get 2 BH.

If you are selling jobs and setting them up for another tech to do, and you are not getting any BH for this, this is not fair. Frankly, where is the encouragement to sell more work if you get no Bh for doing so.

This would create bad feelings in a company as it appears to have with you in this case.

As owners we need to do what is fair, which will promote good will in a company, which is critcial to be successful.


Respectfully,

Paul B. Shay
pshay@arealgoodplumber.com
LMP 1307
LMFS 654B
OUR MISSION: TO PROVIDE WORLD CLASS PLUMBING, HEATING, AND SPRINKLER SERVICE TO EACH AND EVERY CLIENT WE SERVE, FAR EXCEEDING THEIR HIGHEST EXPECTATIONS!

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