What undocumented workcosts your organization
Four cost lines. One improvement rate. Creators are paid seats; Viewers are free. Defaults use published research, shown as hrs/week, days, % and $/hr — then you overwrite them.
Looking for how work is done
Time spent digging through inboxes and old files, or asking a colleague, instead of finding the current process.
Getting new hires up to speed
Extra hours a new hire spends asking how things are done before they can work independently.
Rebuilding after people leave
Time the team spends piecing back together how someone did the work after they leave or change roles.
Covering for absences
Slower or duplicated work on the days someone is out sick or on vacation, while others cover without full context.
Every default below is a conservative slice of published research — see where the defaults come from for sources.
Your organization
Same four formulas as the homepage. Advanced sliders stay optional.
Estimated return
- Searching for how work is done$546,000
- Getting new hires up to speed$21,000
- Rebuilding after people leave or change roles$21,000
- Covering work when someone is out$157,500
Estimate based on published research and your numbers. Not a guarantee.
Where the defaults come from
The one place every citation lives. Tooltips above explain what each number means in plain language; this section is where it comes from.
BLS OEWS (May 2025): business and financial operations median $39.74/hr; computer occupations $52.63/hr. Private-industry median is lower (~$24–25/hr). Default $35/hr is a blended knowledge-work wage between office/ops and professional medians.
APQC’s survey of nearly 1,000 knowledge workers, reported by Lauren Trees in KMWorld (July 7, 2022), found the median person spends 2.8 hours a week looking for or requesting information, and 1.7 hours finding the right person. Default is 2 hrs/week, just under that 2.8-hour search figure.
BLS JOLTS monthly quits in professional and business services run about 2–2.5%, which annualizes near 25–30%. Default new-hire rate is 10% — well below that sector churn.
Onboarding research (Brandon Hall Group / SHRM) often puts time-to-full-productivity at 6–12 months. Default is 40 hours per new hire — about one week of shadowing and repeated explanation, not the full ramp. Costed at your $/hr.
Uses the same quits-and-moves pace as New hires above (BLS JOLTS), applied here to the cost of rebuilding lost know-how rather than ramp time. This is the Knowledge loss line, not a separate Transitions cost — Transitions in the product means the ownership transfer itself.
APQC’s 2025 Great Retirement survey of 1,000 organizations found that only 8% consistently capture knowledge from people who are leaving, and 41% rarely or never do. Default rebuild is 40 hours (one week) per person who leaves or changes roles, costed at your $/hr. That week is an assumption, not a figure from the survey.
BLS National Compensation Survey (March 2025): private industry averages 11 vacation days after 1 year and 7 sick days. Default is 10 days out/year — a conservative slice of PTO, not the full 18.
Coverage drag when a teammate is out: others hunting for how the work is done. Default is 3 hrs per absence day (~38% of an 8-hour day). This is a conservative hours assumption, not a published survey rate, then costed at your $/hr.
A cap, not a measured ExactlyHow result. This rate claims 15% of the yearly problem cost back. You can raise or lower it based on your own conviction; ExactlyHow never assumes any single line is fully solved.
Product mix, not labor research. Default 25% of employees as Editor seats. Viewers are $0. Business is $19/mo monthly or $15/mo yearly per editor.
How the calculations work
Estimate based on published research and your numbers. Not a guarantee.
Searching and covering for people is already costing you.Put the how-to where the next person can find it.
Document the work once so onboarding, coverage, and knowledge loss stop running up the bill. Viewers are free.
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