The correct utilisation percentage can still support the wrong appraisal

I once supported a performance measure because it seemed to make appraisal more consistent. Every reviewer could be discussed through the same chargeable-hours percentage, and managers would have a common starting point. The apparent fairness was attractive. What I had not examined carefully enough was the work the firm required but the measure left outside its preferred category. When technical assurance appeared as non-chargeable time, the report invited managers to treat it as a shortfall even though the professional service depended on it. Consistency in the arithmetic did not make that management conclusion sound.

The review concerned twenty-four colleagues and 1,600 recorded hours. Of those, 1,180 were chargeable and 420 were assurance. The chargeable share was 73.75%. Nothing needed correcting in that calculation. The problem was its use as a complete assessment of contribution. We could have made the percentage appear better by changing which work entered the category, but that would not have answered the underlying question. I wanted the business to see the activities it required, the evidence about their quality and the economics of supporting them without hiding one question inside another.

Arithmetic does not choose the management meaning

A metric usually describes a defined part of a system. Management then decides what the description means for a person, a team or a business choice. Those are connected steps, but they are not the same step. A chargeable-hours share may help explain a fee model or compare the commercial use of capacity under suitable conditions. It does not automatically establish whether necessary review was performed well, whether assignments were appropriate or whether a particular employee had control over the work available. Those questions require additional evidence and a clear account of responsibility.

This is especially important when the company asks professionals to challenge work produced elsewhere in the same organisation. Review can be inconvenient, and its value may not appear as a new invoice. If the performance system consistently treats that activity as a burden to minimise, employees receive a message about which obligation will matter in their appraisal. A general statement that quality comes first may not overcome the practical consequence of a narrower score. HR should examine that interaction before assuming that a well-worded professional standard and a commercial metric will coexist without tension.

The commercial leader who challenged the reviewers' utilisation had a reasonable concern. A consultancy cannot simply classify every unbilled activity as essential and ignore the cost. Assurance effort can be poorly organised, duplicated or disproportionate. Recognising it should not create immunity from examination. My disagreement was with using exclusion from chargeable time as though it already established those conclusions. The firm needed evidence about why the work was required and how it was carried out. A stronger performance discussion would preserve financial discipline while making the professional responsibility visible enough to scrutinise properly.

Recognise assurance and continue to examine it

We spent ₹32 lakh on the review programme and ran an eight-week trial of a fuller appraisal account. Technical director Dev Dovzethi and qualified engineering owners determined the assurance responsibilities. Finance retained the chargeable-time evidence, while HR worked with managers on how to use both categories in performance discussions. I did not ask that every assurance hour be praised. I asked that necessary work stop appearing as an unexplained absence before anybody examined its purpose. The revised account made room for questions about quality, capacity and cost which the single percentage had prematurely settled.

A separate examination covered 120 review packets. Thirty-four required changes and eighty-six cleared the defined process. Those figures helped describe what happened in that particular review. They did not establish a count of operational failures prevented, and they were not a general estimate of the quality of all the firm's work. The distinction mattered because a correction to an incomplete commercial story could easily be replaced by an exaggerated assurance story. We needed to resist the temptation to justify every hour through an invented counterfactual about what would have gone wrong without it.

Managers also needed to understand what they could change. An employee may carry out assigned review well while having limited influence over whether the assignment is chargeable. A manager may be able to improve scheduling, clarify the scope or address avoidable repetition. A commercial leader may need to reconsider how the service is priced. Putting all those responsibilities into one employee percentage makes accountability look precise while placing it at the wrong level. A useful account distinguishes the decisions available to each person and directs the next question to whoever can actually answer it.

The fuller discussion took longer. Managers could no longer point to a single number and expect it to explain the judgement. That additional effort was a cost of doing appraisal properly, but it still needed proportionate design. We did not want a reporting exercise so elaborate that it absorbed the time it was meant to understand. The trial therefore focused on the work categories and decisions relevant to the review, with specialist assessment where necessary. The aim was a more defensible conversation, not a complete numerical model of every contribution an engineer could make.

Correct the discussion as well as the report

Because I had endorsed the earlier use of the measure, I needed to revisit the affected appraisal discussions rather than leave the correction as a technical improvement for the next reporting period. A revised chart does not automatically undo the message an employee has already received. We explained what the percentage could support and what it could not. I acknowledged that the earlier framing had been incomplete. That was more useful than claiming the reviewers had misunderstood a metric whose management purpose I had helped establish. Ownership of a measure includes responsibility for how it is used.

I would not describe the change as proof of improved productivity or retention. Those outcomes would need separate evidence, and the trial was not designed to settle them. The immediate result was a performance account that recognised required assurance while keeping its cost and quality open to review. The wider economic question remained: could the firm deliver the professional standard it promised within a viable commercial model? Making review visible helped management ask that question honestly. It did not remove the need for pricing, staffing and operating decisions that might be uncomfortable in their own right.

For directors, the relevant question is whether incentives are compatible with the work the business depends on. They need not approve each employee's appraisal or supervise engineering reviews. They can ask management to explain where important obligations fall outside preferred performance categories and how those tensions are addressed. My own test is simple: if a person does necessary work well, can our performance account recognise it without pretending that time alone proves value? A correct percentage is useful evidence. It should remain evidence in a judgement, rather than become the judgement by itself.