The Good Kind of Non-Billable Hours

If managing employee utilization is all about making sure employees are working enough billable hours, how are you supposed to assess non-billable work?

While non-billable hours do not directly generate revenue, certain types of non-billable work are critical to ensuring an organization's growth and survival.

Recruiting

Searching for and interviewing quality candidates can be challenging for a business of any size. But if you’re going to grow, you’ll need to bring new talent onto your team. These potential employees, of course, must be qualified for the position but also fit in with your team. So the more employees that can interview and help select the right candidate the better. Yes, this time is non-billable, but it’s an investment in making the right decision for the company.

Employee Onboarding

Congrats! You’ve hired new team members. Now, you never have to think about them again! All their hours will be billable and they will never leave! Back to reality: It takes time to acclimate new hires to company culture, vision, and values. According to a study by the Wynhurst Group, employees who go through structured onboarding are “58% more likely to remain with the organization after three years.” Just like recruiting, employee onboarding is part of the cost of running a business. Proper investment here can pay dividends in terms of reduced turnover, increased employee engagement, and stronger relationships across the team.

Team Building

Effective teams are made up of employees who trust, help, and respect each other. Sometimes, the best way to get everyone working well together is to host a team building event. This can be anything from a happy hour to a baseball game to a trip to Hawaii. (If you’re taking your employees to Hawaii, please consider temporarily hiring some of us at ClickTime. We love it here, but we also love Hawaii.) As a bonus, team building events make for some pretty good recruiting posts on social media.

Team Decision Making

For small businesses, it’s critical that the entire team is looped into the decision-making process around company culture, values, and even what types of customers you should service. Internal meetings and collaborations of this nature can’t be billed back to clients, but they are essential if you’re attempting to build employee engagement and align the firm around one clear set of goals.

Account Post-Mortems

What happens when you lose an account? Or when your team is able to turn a one-off project into a long-term customer partnership? Top-performing businesses understand why sales, BD, and account management efforts are or are not successful. Does this take time? Absolutely. Is it billable? No, but it’s worth it.