In a recent episode of the Field Service Podcast, Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News was joined by Danny Wieder, Field Service Consultant with HSO to discuss the topic of Health and Safety in the field service environment and how technology casn play a critical role in ensuring we meet the standards we require.  

The original interview was part of an interview for a documentary that Field Service News have produced in partnership with HSO which puts together a case that field service managers and directors can take to their board to secure investment in the tools required to effectively deliver service in the modern age. 

Not wanting to waste any of the excellent insight that Wieder, who has a 15 year pedigree in implementing field service software and systems, provided during the interview we also asked the team at HSO if we could put the full unedited interview onto our podcast channel. They kindly agreed and the above is an excerpt from that episode of the field service podcast. 

You can find the full podcast alongside all of the other episodes here

Technology is essential for Field Service engineer safety

The importance of health and safety in any workforce is an absolute given.

In field service however, it is perhaps an even more challenging task than in many other industries. Not only are our engineers often working in hazardous environments, but the are also working in isolation. 

Technology is there to help however and embedded within the field service technology stack, and even within many FSM solutions, there are multiple tools to help ensure your field service engineers and technicians are working in the safest possible manner achievable. It is little wonder then that building an argument for investment in such systems is often built up around ensuring health and safety standards are met. 

"In a lone worker scenario you have the capability to avert a potential safety issue by identifying and reacting to it..."

"I would say technology can really help to make sure field service engineers and can also help companies make sure they excercise their duty of care towards their employees," explained Wieder during the interview. 

"Let's take geo-fencing for example which has recently been introduced to Microsoft Field Service. It monitors the GPS position of an engineer and can issue an automatic alert to the contact centre if the engineer has been on site for too long. So in a lone worker scenario you have the capability to avert a potential safety issue by identify8ing and reacting to it. 

"Another are is perhaps risk assessments. These have been around for a while but are often paper driven or sometimes companies are using something like Excel. The obvious issue with this it is this is not particularly easy to use. Today's modern mobile software can be configured so an engineer not only gets the risk assessment, but in fact they have to complete it before they can progrees to the call details. This is a real benefit.

"On top of this, the questionnaires now can be tailored so the content of the questions is different, depending on the work type. This makes them more relevant, perhaps more concise and I think all things being considered this is a massive improvement to the tool kits we have to keep our engineers safe," Wieder added. 

The safety of our workers, both in the field and in the office is of absolute paramount importance - if the technology is available to help us improve in this area - surely we are beholden to implement it? 

Want to know more? Check out our full documentary on the 'Three Core Arguments to Gain Investment in Your Field Service Management Systems'

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