How much bench time is normal in IT services?
Normal bench time in IT services is short and planned: the gap between one project ending and the next starting, known weeks ahead. Bench becomes a problem when it runs long, arrives unannounced or keeps landing on the same people. PeopleMuster shows it on the capacity grid as people with no billable hours booked, before the gap begins.
Being on the bench means a billable person has no client work booked. They're still paid, still in the team, and still costing a full day. Every services firm carries some bench, because projects never end and start on the same afternoon.
No single figure fits every firm. Contract lengths, pipeline and how you count training all move it. Measure bench in hours per person per month instead. Write down the limit you're comfortable with, then check the real number against it each month.
Here's the arithmetic. A developer with 20 working days at 8 hours has 160 hours. If 5 of those days have no billable work booked, that's 40 bench hours, or 25% of the month.
Bench comes in three kinds, and each has a different fix. A planned gap between projects is healthy. A pipeline gap, where nothing new has been sold, is a sales problem. A skills gap, where work exists but nobody free can do it, is a staffing problem.
The capacity grid shows upcoming bench before it starts. Filter PeopleMuster's grid to billable work and group it by people. Days in the Under band, or rows with no client hours at all, are next month's bench. Leave shows as an L, so time off is never mistaken for an idle day.
Skills make the second look faster. Each profile carries the person's skills from a shared taxonomy. When a project needs a React developer next week, you can check who on the bench has React before hiring a contractor.
Put bench to work and log it. Many teams run an internal, non-billable project for training, pre-sales or tooling. When people log bench days against it, the utilisation reports show exactly how much time went there and who carried it.
Related questions
What does it mean when an employee is on the bench?
The person is employed and available, but has no client project booked. In IT services it usually happens between projects, and the firm still pays their full salary while they wait.
How should I fill in my timesheet while on the bench?
Log the hours against the internal, non-billable project your company uses, such as training or pre-sales. That keeps the day accounted for and shows your manager you are free for the next project.
How can a manager see bench time coming?
Look at next month's capacity plan filtered to billable work. People with empty or Under-band days have no client hours booked, which is the bench before it happens.
Is bench time the same as non-billable time?
No. Non-billable time also covers meetings, admin and internal work done by fully booked people. Bench time is specifically time with no client work booked at all.