You may not be extracting the most value from your utilization data. Here are a few ideas on how you can use it for more efficient processes and operations.
When most people hear "utilization data," they think of a simple metric - how much time employees spend on billable work versus their total available hours. But there's far more beneath the surface.
Yes, utilization data can help you gauge how efficiently your team is working. But used strategically, it becomes a powerful lens into the health, productivity, and potential of your entire organization. It can drive smarter resource planning, reveal growth opportunities, prevent burnout, and guide critical decisions around hiring and development.
In this post, we’ll explore five practical and proven ways to harness utilization data - not just to measure performance, but to sharpen your operations, align your teams, and fuel sustainable growth.
Utilization data provides a high-level view of how your organization's time and talent are being spent. By aggregating data across teams, departments, and projects, you can spot trends and imbalances that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Are certain teams consistently overutilized while others are underbooked? Is client work taking precedence over internal initiatives? Are there seasonal peaks and troughs that require better planning?
When you zoom out and analyze resource utilization holistically, it becomes a strategic tool - not just to monitor individual productivity, but to align your resources with your company’s broader goals, anticipate capacity issues, and make more informed business decisions.
Using Runn for resource planning and utilization reporting, Cindy Tan, General Manager of IT Planning at TPG, points out:
Being able to show overutilization is so helpful for explaining why something has been delayed, or why something cannot start yet. When we can show our stakeholders that overutilization is so high, they can empathize and understand the constraints of the situation. It helps facilitate conversations about priorities, about moving things back if needed, because they can clearly see that we’re at capacity. It gives us the ability to go back to other parts of the business and say, ‘Look, these individuals really can’t take on any more work.’
Keep reading Cindy's conversation with Runn here.
Utilization data is a powerful lever for driving two of the most important business outcomes - cutting costs and boosting revenue. By analyzing how your people are currently utilized, you can uncover inefficiencies and set targeted utilization goals to optimize performance.
The key is to align your efforts with the function of the team in question. For example, improving the utilization of internal-facing teams - such as marketing, IT, or operations - can streamline workflows and reduce overhead, leading to significant cost savings.
On the other hand, increasing the utilization of client-facing or billable teams directly translates into more revenue-generating hours and improved profitability.
In both cases, utilization data provides a clear roadmap for doing more with your existing resources - whether the goal is to scale up or operate leaner.
As one of our customers in IT put it:
We needed visibility into who was working on what, their utilization, and which projects were aligned with company goals. With Runn, we could quickly understand where teams were expected to spend time and where they were actually spending it. Then, we evaluated how resources aligned with costs and revenue. That clarity helped us make data-backed decisions to rebalance labor. This software is exactly what business managers need.
Continue reading: Ollion’s Path to Reduced Operational Footprint and Increased Profitability with Runn
Your utilization data signals demand for skillsets too - helping inform decisions related to upskilling, reskilling, and even hiring more people with the same or adjacent skillset.
A high utilization rate, for example, reveals that a person’s skills are in high demand. This allows you to create an informed list of in-demand skills. Grouping utilization by skills at Runn, for example, you can see the demand:
You can also tally the list against skills per your market research - essential for maintaining your position as an industry expert, guiding business development, and staying on top of the competition.
Read on: How to Measure Capacity vs Demand in PS Businesses
When certain team members consistently show low utilization or are frequently sidelined from core projects, it could signal a mismatch between their current skill set and the organization's evolving needs.
Rather than viewing this as a performance issue, it’s an opportunity to identify where targeted training or re-skilling could unlock untapped potential. Similarly, high utilization in niche areas may indicate a risk of skill bottlenecks - where only a few individuals carry specialized knowledge.
In both cases, utilization data becomes a proactive tool for workforce development, helping you build a more adaptable, resilient, and future-ready team.
Hiring decisions carry significant financial weight, so making a compelling, data-backed case is essential.
Utilization data offers concrete evidence when current team capacity is stretched too thin. If certain roles or departments consistently operate at or above optimal utilization levels, it’s a clear signal that workloads are exceeding what existing staff can sustainably handle.
This kind of insight is especially powerful when paired with project demand forecasts or revenue growth projections. Instead of relying on anecdotal input or gut feeling, utilization metrics provide leadership with a quantifiable rationale for expanding the team - helping secure buy-in faster and ensuring new hires are aligned with actual business needs.
It all starts with correctly gathering your utilization rates and interpreting them with empathy.
At Runn, we emphasize optimal productivity, not overwork. It’s how we use the utilization reports we make using our tool to increase employee engagement and grow the business.
And it’s what we highly recommend you do too - because, ultimately, all successful businesses are built on a foundation of strong, engaged workforces.
On a parting note, we’ll leave you with this helpful guide to optimize your human resources.
