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Workforce productivity for field crews

See the workforce patterns behind jobsite performance.

Construction workforce productivity is output per labor hour, and the labor-hour half needs a record of where the hours went. ZeroBadge supplies that half from badge-recorded shifts: hours by project, crew allocation, overtime and schedule exceptions, plus a weekly 0 to 100 score for each worker, jobsite and the company. Installed quantities, such as feet of pipe set, stay in your own production tracking.

Get startedHow the score works
  • Hours by project and crew
  • Overtime and schedule exceptions
  • Weekly scores, drivers askable in ZeroBadge AI

Labor by jobsite

Recorded

1,045.2 h

Overtime

95.7 h

Workers

24

  • Riverside Medical Pavilion

    375.0 h

    ▲ +129.9 h vs prior week · OT 38.3 h◆ Plan 340.0 h

  • Harbor Yard Distribution Center

    300.8 h

    ▼ −97.0 h vs prior week · OT 3.8 hPlan 310.0 h

  • Northgate Tower

    328.9 h

    ▼ −1.4 h vs prior week · OT 17.6 hPlan 330.0 h

What changed

Riverside Medical Pavilion recorded 375.0 hours, up 129.9 hours (+53%) from the week of Sep 28.

3 workers (Ben C., Mateo G., Rosa D.) recorded time at Riverside from Tue Oct 6 after working at Harbor Yard. Their time accounts for 108.8 of the added hours.

Overtime rule shown: after 8 hours in a day or 40 regular hours in a week. Overtime cost adds a 0.5× premium on base wage to the loaded hourly rate. Your own payroll rules apply.

Why it matters now

Labor overruns show up in the job cost report weeks too late.

When crews are hard to staff, where their hours go matters more. Most contractors still see that picture weeks after the fact, in a job cost report.

45%

of construction firms reported project delays caused by shortages of their own or subcontractors' workers.

Source: AGC and NCCER, 2025 Workforce Survey

  • Crew allocation drifts

    Workers get pulled to the job that's behind, the plan isn't updated, and two weeks later nobody can say exactly who was where.

  • Overtime builds quietly

    An extra hour a day at one site looks small on Wednesday. By Friday it's a week of premium time charged to a job that wasn't budgeted for it. See overtime tracking.

  • Schedule slippage hides in averages

    Late starts at one jobsite disappear inside a company-wide total. You need them by site, and by week, to see a pattern.

  • Budget burn shows up at closeout

    Labor variance usually becomes visible after the hours are spent. By then it's an explanation, not a decision.

Weekly workforce scores

A score for every jobsite, with the reasons attached.

Every week, ZeroBadge scores each worker, jobsite and the company from 0 to 100 using three defined drivers. Site scores are weighted by the time each crew spent there; the company score is weighted by hours.

A score never stands alone. Each one opens to the drivers behind it and the days that moved it, so a manager knows whether to look at start times, site coverage or travel between jobs.

  • Punctuality against schedule

    Late starts, early finishes and missed scheduled days, measured against the hours you set, after a 5-minute grace.

  • Share of the shift on site

    Time inside a jobsite, shop or office geofence as a share of the recorded shift.

  • Transit

    Time between locations, compared with an allowance, so a normal drive between jobs isn't penalized.

Jobsites

Company · hours-weighted

97.8/ 100

Punctuality
97.4%
On site
97.6%
Transit
1.8%
  • Riverside98.4−0.2

    Punctuality 97.9% · On site 98.4% · Transit 1.2%

    ◆ Late start 18 min (Thu)

  • Harbor Yard97.6−1.0

    Punctuality 97.7% · On site 96.3% · Transit 2.6%

    ◆ Late start 24 min (Mon)

  • Northgate97.5−1.0

    Punctuality 96.5% · On site 97.8% · Transit 1.7%

    ◆ Late start 22 min (Wed) · Early finish 75 min (Fri)

Scores use schedules set for each crew.

The arithmetic

How one jobsite's weekly score adds up, line by line.

Missing data lowers a score's confidence, never the score itself. Time off is excluded, and a week with under four recorded hours reads as not enough data rather than a guess. Scores are visible to office admins only.

Northgate Tower · Week of Oct 5, 2026 · 341h 26m recorded

  1. Punctuality against schedule

    12 of 40 shifts started or finished more than 5 minutes off schedule · 2 flagged as exceptions

    0.965 × 50 = 48.25

  2. Share of the shift on site

    Time inside a jobsite, shop or office geofence

    0.978 × 35 = 34.23

  3. Transit

    1.7% of the shift between locations, against a 15% allowance

    1.000 × 15 = 15.00

Weekly score

48.25 + 34.23 + 15.00 = 97.48 ≈ 97.5

Components are averaged over the site's shifts, weighted by recorded time. Lateness counts after a 5-minute grace and reaches zero at 60 minutes.

What the score measures

Output per labor hour needs production quantities. ZeroBadge measures the workforce side: where the hours went, against which schedule, with how much travel.

Pair it with your production tracking (feet of pipe, tons of duct, fixtures set) to get output per hour. ZeroBadge never scores effort, and it never produces a "percent productive" for anyone.

Context: Federal Reserve Board researchers found that among major US industries, construction alone shows negative average measured productivity growth since 1987 (Garcia and Molloy, FEDS 2023-052r1, 2025).

Pairing recorded hours with your own quantities

A week of conduit: 7.7 feet per hour against an estimate of 8.5.

ZeroBadge does not measure output, so this one comes from your foreman's count and your bid. Assumptions, all invented for this example: 2,400 feet installed, 312 hours recorded at the jobsite for the week, and an estimated 8.5 feet per hour. Use on-site hours, not paid hours, so transit and supply runs do not blur the comparison.

  • Actual rate

    The sum

    2,400 ft ÷ 312 h

    The result

    7.7 ft per hour

  • Hours at the estimated rate

    The sum

    2,400 ft ÷ 8.5 ft per hour

    The result

    282.4 hours

  • Hours over the estimate

    The sum

    312 - 282.4

    The result

    29.6 hours

  • Share over

    The sum

    29.6 ÷ 282.4

    The result

    10.5% more labor than the estimate

The finding is about the work, not the people. Ask whether the cause is the estimate, access to the work area, rework or a crew moved in late. Scores and hours tell you where to look, and they do not say why. For the cost side of the same gap, see [labor cost tracking](/solutions/construction-labor-cost-tracking).

How managers use it

A five-minute Monday check: what moved, why, and where to go.

  1. 01

    Check what needs attention

    Jobs trending over their labor budget, sites whose score dropped, and records still waiting for review.

    5 minutes

  2. 02

    Read the drivers

    Is it start times, time off site or travel between jobs? The answer changes the conversation.

    Per site

  3. 03

    Plan crew allocation

    See which crews moved last week and where the hours went before setting this week's assignments.

    Weekly

  4. 04

    Talk from the record

    Open the day behind any number, so a conversation with a foreman starts from the same facts.

    As needed

ZeroBadge AI

Ask ZeroBadge AI what moved the scores

Weekly scores tell you where to look. ZeroBadge AI explains what is behind them in plain English, from your own records, with every figure linked and no ability to change a score. Admins control who can ask.

  • You ask

    Why did the Harbor Road crew's average score drop this week?

    It fell from 82 to 74. Three of six workers started late on two or more days and one missed a scheduled day with no time off. Each driver lists the days behind it.

  • You ask

    Who needs attention this week?

    Two workers scored under 60, and one other score has low confidence because of missing reports. Low confidence reflects missing data, not a low score.

  • You ask

    Which site has the highest share of shift spent on site?

    Pine Ridge, at 91% of shift time on site, against 84% at Elm Street and 79% at Harbor Road. The Harbor Road gap is mostly transit to the supply house.

Answers come only from your company's own records. Every number links to the records behind it. Read-only; admins control access.

How ZeroBadge AI works

Questions

Questions about workforce scores.

How do you measure labor productivity in construction and other field work?
Classically, as installed output per labor hour, which needs production quantities from the field. The labor-hour side of that equation is where ZeroBadge helps: recorded hours by jobsite, split by on-site and transit time, with overtime and schedule exceptions attached.
What's the difference between labor productivity and labor utilization?
Productivity relates output to hours. Utilization describes how the paid hours were spent: on site, in transit, or elsewhere. ZeroBadge reports utilization-style measures and the weekly workforce score; it doesn't infer output from location.
How can I tell whether a crew is productive without micromanaging?
Look at patterns, not minutes. Weekly scores, overtime by site and recurring late starts point you to where a conversation is worth having. The record behind each number keeps that conversation factual.
Is workforce analytics the same as employee monitoring?
ZeroBadge records only during paid shifts, while the badge is powered on. Measures are defined and visible, scores are limited to office admins, and workers can see their own hours in the worker portal. Raw location history is deleted after 90 days.
Can I ask questions about this data in plain English?
Yes. ZeroBadge AI answers questions such as which jobs used more labor this week or where overtime increased, from your company's own records, with every number linked back to the underlying timesheets. See AI workforce analytics.

Keep exploring

Next: labor cost, AI answers and moving crews.

Last updated

Get started

See weekly scores for your own jobsites.

We'll walk through labor by project, crew allocation, overtime and weekly scores, set up around how your company runs.

Get startedExplore the platform

What we will walk through

  • 01Hours by jobsite and week-over-week change
  • 02Weekly scores and the drivers behind them
  • 03Jobs needing attention before closeout