Bench Depth Review (Retention)

Bench Depth Review (Retention)

1. 01

   Pull 90 days of booked-versus-actual hours per person from your scheduling layer

   Export from Float or Resource Guru at the person level, not the project level, so you can see who absorbed the overruns. Flag anyone whose actual hours exceeded booked hours by more than 15 percent in two or more consecutive months.

2. 02

   Tag every active retainer with its single-point-of-failure count

   A retainer with one named specialist and no documented backup is a concentration risk. Count how many client accounts depend on a person who has no second trained operator behind them.

3. 03

   Cross-reference utilization against billable rate to find quiet revenue leakage

   Someone at 92 percent utilization on a low-rate retainer is not a capacity win. Pair time data from Toggl or Everhour with the rate card and list every person whose effective billable rate sits below the account average.

4. 04

   Interview each delivery lead on which skills are one resignation away from a gap

   Ask a single question: if this person left next month, which client deliverable slips first? Record the answer verbatim, because leads name risks that dashboards do not surface.

5. 05

   Score each gap on likelihood and client impact, then rank the list

   Use a simple three-tier scale. A gap that touches a top-three retainer and has no internal backup outranks a gap on a project that closes in six weeks.

6. 06

   Assign a named owner and a 60-day close date to every tier-one gap

   Owners should be delivery leads, not operations staff. The close action is usually one of three things: hire, cross-train a named backup, or renegotiate scope with the client.

7. 07

   Schedule the next bench review before the current one closes out

   Quarterly is the practical cadence for agencies under 80 people. Put the date on the calendar during the meeting so it does not depend on someone remembering.