Professionals who are responsible for billing their own hours often misrepresent the amount of work they do on behalf of clients, according to a new study by Kimble Applications, a firm that provides professional services automation.
That's not to say lawyers and accountants are submitting inaccurate bills in order to get paid more. In fact, some (22 percent) are doing the opposite: They're claiming fewer hours than they actually worked.
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To be clear, the study, which is based on a survey of 1,200 U.S. employees who bill for hours, focuses on those who work at firms as employees, not self-employed professionals who submit bills directly to clients. Thus, in many cases management is unaware employees are working overtime and that the billing is inaccurate.
The result, suggests the study, is management has a flawed perception of the work needed to deliver a service for a client. The firm thus submits billing projections to prospective clients that are overly optimistic, leaving the lower-level employees feeling pressured to not claim more hours than the client was told it would take.
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"In many cases this really more than confirmed our hypothesis, with regard in particular to the gap between the hours being recorded for billing purposes and the actual hours," Rob Bruce, vice president of strategy at Kimble, tells BenefitsPRO.
In some cases, the underbilling appears to be the result of management putting pressure on employees. About a fifth of employees surveyed say that they believe their firm "lowballs" its projected hours in order to land clients.
Bruce adds that in many cases the inaccurate hours are simply the result of confusion. At many firms, he explains, there is a monthly rush to submit hours worked, but it is too often done in the context of billing, rather than as an attempt to find out how much employees are actually working.
Employees, says Bruce, will often simply bill a day's work as eight hours, for instance, even if they actually spent 10 hours working that day. They might not be missing out on money by doing that, since they are often salaried. The problem is management is often in the dark about how much employees are actually doing.
In general, the study finds professionals are evenly divided on whether working overtime leads to burnout. Thirty-five percent say they feel worn down by their schedules, while 33 percent say they are fine working extra to get the job done.
While 21 percent of burnt-out employees say they are passively searching for another job, a much higher percentage (34 percent) say they are not seeking new work, despite being burnt out.
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