Bench time
Bench time is paid working time during which a person has no work assigned to them. Also called idle time, it is created by a gap between projects, a delayed start or a cancelled engagement. The person is available and willing. There is simply nothing allocated.
Bench time is a planning outcome, not a personal one. It appears when finished work and starting work fail to meet, and that meeting is somebody else's job to arrange.
Some of it is unavoidable in any firm doing project work. Engagements end on their own schedule and the next one starts on the client's. Building a plan that assumes zero gaps means every slip becomes an emergency.
It is also the cheapest window a firm ever gets for the things that never fit: writing up a method, fixing the internal tool everybody complains about, learning something the next project needs.
What makes it expensive is silence. Bench time nobody records is invisible until the quarter ends, and by then the choice about how to use it has already been made by default. A fortnight seen in advance is an opportunity. The same fortnight discovered afterwards is a cost.
Where this shows up in PeopleMuster
PeopleMuster's capacity grid shows an Under band for days holding very few planned hours, so a gap appears as a run of light cells on a person's row before the period starts.
Questions people ask
Is bench time the same as idle time?
Yes, in normal use. Both describe available paid time with nothing assigned. Bench is the term services firms use; idle time is the older and slightly harsher label for the same thing.
How much bench time is acceptable?
Enough that projects can end without panic, and not so much that it stops being noticed. The figure depends on how lumpy your engagements are, not on a published norm.
What should people do on the bench?
Work that is genuinely useful and never urgent: internal tooling, documentation, learning. Decide in advance, or the time fills with low-value tasks nobody chose.