Work ageing report: find the jobs that have been waiting

Key takeaways

A work ageing report groups open items by how long they have been waiting, such as under one day, one to three days, three to seven days and over a week. It shows stuck work that averages hide. Review it weekly, act on the oldest band first, and set a maximum age that triggers action.

• Group open items into age bands.
• It shows stuck work that averages hide.
• Act on the oldest band first.
• Set a maximum age that triggers action.

What is a work ageing report?

A work ageing report lists open work items by how long they have been open, grouped into age bands. Finance teams use the same idea for aged debtors. For operations it applies to tickets, orders, requests or any queue. It answers a simple question: what has been waiting too long?

• How outsourcing can improve business efficiency
• Work queue management: stop jobs waiting in the back office

Why is it better than an average?

An average lead time can look fine while a handful of items wait for weeks. Those are often the customers who complain or leave. The ageing report puts them in plain view, because they sit in the oldest band no matter how quickly everything else moves.

• Lead time vs cycle time: what your customers actually feel
• Support ticket backlog: how to clear it and keep it clear

How do you build one?

Export open items with their created date from your helpdesk, task board or system. Calculate age in working days. Group them into four or five bands. Add the reason each item in the oldest band is waiting, such as waiting on customer, waiting on approval or stuck.

• 1. Export open items with created dates.
• 2. Calculate age in working days.
• 3. Group into 4 or 5 bands.
• 4. Add a reason for the oldest items.
• 5. Review weekly.

• Task management for outsourced teams: one list, no chasing
• Shared inbox vs helpdesk: which does a small team need?

What does it show in numbers?

In an illustrative report, a team has 180 open requests: 120 under a day, 40 one to three days, 12 three to seven days and 8 over a week. Average age looks healthy. The eight oldest are all waiting for the same manager's decision. One conversation clears them. Example figures only.

• Approval bottlenecks: when sign-off holds up the work
• Escalation paths for outsourced teams: fast, not chaotic

How do you act on it?

Act on the oldest band first. For each item, find the reason it waits and remove it: chase the customer once and close if no reply, get the decision, or assign an owner. Set a maximum age, such as five working days, that automatically brings an item to a senior person.

• The process owner: who keeps an outsourced process healthy
• Outsourcing performance report: what a good one shows

When is ageing less useful?

Ageing is less useful for work that is meant to stay open for a set period, such as a monitoring task or a long project. Exclude those, or give them their own bands, so they do not hide the items that are genuinely stuck.

• Throughput: how much work your team really finishes

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a provider's weekly report shows good average turnaround, but a few customers keep complaining. Adding an ageing table shows their requests have been stuck for weeks waiting for an internal answer. The table makes the fix obvious.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Ageing report checklist

Use these for each queue.

• Export open items weekly.
• Group into age bands.
• Add reasons for the oldest.
• Set a maximum age.
• Clear the oldest band first.

• Outsourcing efficiency KPIs: prove the work got faster

Next step

Send us an export of your open items with created dates. We will build the ageing view with you and show where work is getting stuck.