Workforce Utilization translates workforce underutilization into financial metrics by quantifying underutilized FTEs and associated salary costs. This dashboard helps executives identify cost-saving opportunities by department, location, or productivity threshold, informing resource allocation decisions and productivity improvement programs.
Workforce Utilization is available with the following ActivTrak packages: Workforce Management, Productivity Optimization, and the Workforce Management + Productivity Optimization Bundle.
To access Workforce Utilization, navigate to Executive Summaries > Workforce Utilization. Admins and Configurators will have access by default. Admins can manage access for other User Roles via the Role Access page (Settings > Access > Role Access).
This dashboard is powered by Insights, which presents processed analytics with historical context. Data refreshes on a regular schedule rather than in real time, so it’s best for spotting trends and comparing activity over time. For a complete explanation of how Live Data differs from Insights, see Understanding Live Data and Insights.
Tip: Add Workforce Utilization to your Favorites for quick access.
Contents
- Requirements
- When to use Workforce Utilization
- Navigating Workforce Utilization
- Subscriptions
- Practical applications
- Frequently asked questions
- Learn more
Glossary: Workforce Utilization
For a deep dive into each of the terms and metrics found in Workforce Utilization, check out the supporting Glossary.
Requirements
Before diving in, make sure the following are configured. Taking time to set these up correctly will ensure your data is accurate and your insights are meaningful.
- Groups (or Teams): Organize your users into teams or business units that reflect how your organization actually operates. Without well-structured groups, it's difficult to pinpoint productivity gaps or understand their impact at the department or team level. If you haven't set up groups yet — or need to update your existing ones — start with Group management before moving forward.
- Goals: Define the productivity benchmarks your groups are measured against. Setting goals at the group level lets you track performance trends, spot areas of concern, and quantify the gap between current and target productivity. Goals should reflect realistic expectations for each team's role and work patterns. Set productivity goals before digging into your data.
When to use Workforce Utilization
Workforce Utilization translates productivity data into financial metrics, helping executives:
- Identify where workforce capacity is underutilized across teams and departments to help mobilize remediation initiatives
- Quantify the financial impact of productivity gaps in dollar terms
- Track improvements in productivity and resource allocation over time
- Make data-driven decisions about headcount and resource allocation
Navigating Workforce Utilization
Filter settings
Workforce Utilization can be customized using the filter options at the top of the dashboard:
- Month: Select which month to analyze from the past 12 complete months
Pro Tip: Set up your subscription using the "This Month" or "Last Month" option in the Month filter, and it will automatically update each month accordingly.
- Team: Filter data by specific departments or business units
We recommend selecting the departments and/or business units that represent the top line of your business (n-1 groups or the key organizational divisions (i.e., Sales, IT, Customer Success) that roll up directly to executive leadership and provide a high-level view) to provide leadership with a high-level view of the organization
- Avg Annual Salary: Select an average annual salary figure to calculate the financial impact
Click the refresh icon ⟳ in the top right corner after making your filter selections to ensure they are applied to the dashboard.
Monthly Summary
The Monthly Summary panel provides a high-level overview of productivity gaps for the selected team(s) and month, including:
- The number of active users working below their productivity goal compared to the total users
- Total productivity gap in hours per day
- Equivalent number of full-time employees (FTE)
- Monthly and annualized financial impact based on the specified average salary
This summary quantifies the scale and cost of unused capacity across your organization.
Monthly Financial Loss by Team
The By Team panel breaks down productivity gaps by team or department, showing Financial Loss (Monthly), Users Below Goal, % of Team, and Untapped Capacity FTE.
Teams are sorted from highest to lowest financial impact, helping you quickly identify the most significant areas for improvement.
Note: When multiple teams are selected in the filter, users who belong to more than one of the selected teams will be counted multiple times in this grid. This may result in the sum of users across teams exceeding your total user count.
Click the three-dot menu to the right of any Team listed in the first column and select Productivity Achievement to view the activity data for users on that team in detail.
This dashboard shows exactly how each team member spends their time, letting you compare productive time against goals and assess how they use their time. You'll see side-by-side comparisons of activity types per user, plus category percentages that reveal where users focus their attention throughout the day.
Monthly Financial Loss by Productivity Threshold
The By Productivity Threshold panel segments users by the following productivity tiers:
- Less than 5 hrs/day (< 5 hrs/day)
- Less than 4 hrs/day (< 4 hrs/day)
- Less than 3 hrs/day (< 3 hrs/day)
For each tier, the panel then shows % of Total, Untapped Capacity FTE, Financial Loss (Monthly), and Users Below Threshold. This breakdown helps identify the severity of productivity gaps across your organization.
Note: The data in this grid uses cumulative counting across productivity levels. Users who work less than 3 hours/day are also included in the counts for "Less than 4 hrs/day" and "Less than 5 hrs/day" rows. Similarly, users who work less than 4 hours/day are counted in the "Less than 5 hrs/day" row. This approach lets you see the full impact at each productivity threshold, but it means that summing the values across rows will exceed your user count.
Productivity Goal Achievement Trend Summary
The Productivity Goal Achievement Trend Summary panel compares productivity metrics between the first and last month of the available data range (up to 12 months), showing whether:
- The number of users below their productivity goal has increased, decreased, or remained the same
- The percentage of users working less than 5 hrs/day has increased, decreased, or remained the same
This comparison provides context about whether productivity gaps improve or worsen over time.
Productivity Goal Shortfall Trend
The Productivity Goal Shortfall Trend chart displays a monthly visualization of Users Below Goal and Users Below 5 Productive Hrs/Day. This visualization helps identify patterns and seasonal fluctuations in productivity.
Recurring Productivity Goal Shortfall
The Recurring Productivity Goal Shortfall panel shows the persistence of productivity issues by categorizing users based on how many months they've worked below their goal:
- Between 2 and 4 Months (2 - 4 Months)
- Between 5 and 8 Months (5 - 8 Months)
- More than 8 Months (> 8 Months)
For each category, the panel shows Users, % of Total, Office Only Users, Remote Only Users, and Hybrid Users. This breakdown helps distinguish temporary productivity dips from chronic underutilization and identify correlations with work location.
Subscriptions
Set up a regular email subscription so executives receive this financial data without logging into ActivTrak. Executive visibility is the primary goal of this dashboard, so when you introduce it, set up a monthly subscription right away and frame it as their “monthly financial opportunity report.” Click the Subscribe button in the upper-right corner of the dashboard to get started. Consider adding C-level stakeholders, department heads, and financial decision-makers, and schedule delivery for month-end so the insights can inform upcoming resource allocation decisions. When sharing is enabled, you can also add non-ActivTrak users by email, such as board members or consultants.
Pro Tip: Set the Month filter to “This Month” or “Last Month” before you subscribe, and the subscription will update automatically each month.
For step-by-step instructions, delivery options, and sharing settings, see Insights Subscriptions.
Practical applications
Identifying recurring productivity gaps
This dashboard provides executives with actionable insights to address systemic productivity issues:
- Spot persistent problem areas: quickly identify teams with consistently high percentages of users below their productivity goals
- Distinguish between isolated vs. widespread issues: determine whether productivity gaps are limited to specific departments or represent organization-wide challenges
- Correlate with work location patterns: analyze whether productivity gaps show different patterns among office, remote, or hybrid workers to inform workplace policies
Optimizing workforce allocation
For executives facing headcount decisions, this dashboard offers critical financial context:
- Validate headcount requests: identify departments with significant untapped capacity before approving new positions, potentially saving hundreds of thousands in unnecessary labor costs
- Enable strategic reallocation: support data-driven decisions to shift resources from teams with excess capacity to those facing resource constraints
- Inform hiring freezes or reductions: provide data-driven financial justification when considering workforce optimization initiatives
Quantifying productivity ROI
Help executives measure the financial impact of productivity programs in concrete terms:
- Establish financial baselines: document the financial impact of productivity gaps before implementing improvement initiatives
- Track improvements in dollar terms: measure the direct financial benefit of successful productivity programs over time
- Build executive support: demonstrate the ROI of productivity initiatives in the financial language executives understand and value
Pro Tip: When introducing this dashboard to executives, emphasize how it translates abstract productivity concepts into concrete financial metrics directly impacting bottom-line performance and strategic decision-making.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate Untapped Capacity FTE?
The productive hours per day goal is what ActivTrak uses to determine the full-time equivalent (FTE) for each employee. The Untapped Capacity FTE metric is calculated by subtracting each employee’s average productive hours per day in the selected time period from their productive hours per day goal, and then aggregating the results for all employees in scope. This helps executives understand how much employee-equivalent productivity you are missing, to compare with proposed or potential new-hire requests.
How are the productivity goals defined?
Goal-setting capabilities vary by package type:
- Workforce Management + Productivity Optimization Bundle: Set goals at the team and account level
- Productivity Optimization: Set goals at the team and account level
- Workforce Management: Set goals at the account level
- Work Activity Tracking: Default goal applies to all users in the account (7 Productive Hrs/Day for accounts created after September 2024; 6 Productive Hrs/Day for accounts created before then)
How is the Financial Loss (Monthly) metric calculated?
Financial Loss (Monthly) is calculated by multiplying the Untapped Capacity FTE by the Average Monthly Salary (i.e., Average Annual Salary divided by 12). This is then annualized in the summary section by multiplying by 12.
How to avoid double-counting in the groups?
Avoid double-counting by selecting mutually exclusive groups (i.e., without members appearing in multiple groups). We recommend choosing groups that represent your departments or business units (n-1 of our organization), as they are usually mutually exclusive.
How do you account for part-time employees?
We can account for this by filtering for groups or teams with part-time employees and selecting a lower annual salary.
Salaries in my organization vary significantly, and a single average may be misleading. How do you manage that?
We believe Untapped Capacity FTE provides valuable, actionable insights by translating underutilization into employee equivalents, even if the salary amount isn't granular enough. In other words, knowing the Sales team has the equivalent of 11 underutilized employees (for example) is actionable for staffing decisions, even if the Financial Cost is only directional. However, if you are looking for highly accurate financial cost metrics, two options are available:
- Export the grid and multiply the Untapped Capacity FTE metric by a different salary amount.
- Level ActivConnect and the ActivTrak for BI - Financial Loss Report to specify more granular salary amounts for each team.