In the next part of our video series published in partnership with Localz that looks at gig economy in field service, we take a look at some of the core misconceptions of the gig workers and employers...
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Apr 22, 2020 • Features • Gig Economy • Video • field service • field service management • field service software • localz • Blended Workforce
In the next part of our video series published in partnership with Localz that looks at gig economy in field service, we take a look at some of the core misconceptions of the gig workers and employers...
The Misconceptions of the Gig Economy in Field Service
Having outlined the growing case for the field service sector embracing the gig economy in earlier features within this series,, let us now take a moment to bust some of the myths surrounding the conversation…
Misconception #1 : The gig economy is just young kids on bikes
If you look at the various gig work platforms that are available, it quickly becomes clear that many are targeted at workers with a specific level of expertise. When we think of the gig economy we often automatically think of platforms such as Uber or Task Rabbit. But the truth is the gig economy is a broad and wide spectrum. For example at the other end of the spectrum high level, management consultants have essentially always been part of the gig economy, long before the term was ever coined. In fact over two-thirds (66%) of the gig economy are over thirty.
When we look at field service engineers, successful platforms have emerged such as FieldNation or WorkMarket that have allowed field service organisations to effortlessly tap into a contingent labour market full of qualified and experienced service engineers.
Misconception #2: The gig economy is only utilised by certain types of company
Actually, 40% of companies expect that gig workers will become an increasing part of their workforce.
Many businesses are clearly seeing the value in using freelance workers to meet their staffing needs. Companies like Swiss telco giant SwissCom for example are rapidly expanding their teams and building new service revenue streams by utilising an abundance of gig workers.
This is a trend that we have seen increasing in field service and as it offers a win-win for gig workers and field service companies alike we anticipate it will only continue.
More field service companies hiring gig workers will only serve to drive the acceptance of the gig economy further bringing more experienced engineers to the gig economy market.
Misconception #3: Gig workers are just waiting for a ‘proper job’
There is the common misconception that gig economy work is a means to an end whilst workers seek out a more traditional form of full time employment.
In fact research by Forbes shows that only 20% of freelancers would prefer full time employment Despite scare stories that position gig workers as vulnerable from exploitation and low wages, the reality is very different and that most gig workers wouldn’t choose full-time employment even if it was available to them. Nearly a half of respondents (45%) would opt to work independently and state that they would seek to acquire new clients in order to meet their financial goals.
All of this is noteworthy because as a group, freelancers do tend to work longer hours at less pay than their employed counterparts.
At the same time, they tend to state that they work on more interesting projects and enjoy the flexibility that gig work provides to them, including being able to work from home, and spending more quality time with their family.
Overall, this could reflect a shift in priorities among workers and has been aligned with the societal change of the workforce as boomers retire and millennials replace them.
However, further study of the available data would indicate that this is in fact a universal preference that transcends generational outlooks.
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Apr 15, 2020 • Features • Gig Economy • Video • field service • field service management • field service software • localz • Blended Workforce
As part of our series run in partnership with Localz exploring how field service companies can hardness the 'grown-up gig economy' we outline the benefits of a blended field workforce that marries internal and third party.
As part of our series run in partnership with Localz exploring how field service companies can hardness the 'grown-up gig economy' we outline the benefits of a blended field workforce that marries internal and third party.
Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now!
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The Benefits of the Blended Workforce in Field Service
The notion of a blended workforce (i.e. one that ‘blends’ internal resources with 3rd-party, or gig-economy workers) is one which is increasing in popularity, as field service organisations seek the benefits of a flexible labour force that can allow them to meet customer demands whilst reducing unnecessary financial risk.
Early adopters of such an approach have found that the use the gig economy can provide an excellent solution when it comes to meeting variable demand, responding quickly and effectively to their customer service requirements and simultaneously reducing their exposure to overhead costs.
By tapping into a third-party market of service engineers who already possess the required skill-sets, and leveraging technologies such as IoT, knowledge banks and Augmented Reality (AR) to ‘dial-in’ the job-specific expertise when needed, field service companies can tap into a contingent labour pool that meets around 80% of their daily repair and maintenance tasks.
The blended workforce also provides many other benefits:
- Skill diversity: Many companies benefit from widening their engineers’ skill sets to develop and establish new service offerings.
- Flexibility to scale with seasonal or variable demand: organizations that face significant swings in demand across varying seasons, like those in the HVAC sector, can scale up or down quickly with contingent labour.
- Business efficiency: By using contingent labour to ‘fill gaps’ in a service schedule, organizations can retain efficient service delivery and maximize core workforce utilization.
- Geographical coverage: 3rd-party labour markets can offer service organizations the ability to enter into new territories without the traditional excessive overlay.
- Customer satisfaction: A contingent labour force can enable service organizations to react and remedy issues in a timelier manner, particularly in peak seasons when the internal workforce is stretched thin.
There are potential problems, however.
As previously mentioned, customer expectations are higher than ever and the threshold for service excellence continues to increase.
Therefore, and underlying level of technology that allows the field service representative, whether they be internal or third party workers is crucial to ensure that the customer experience remains consistent and in line with their expectations. One of the most crucial aspects of this is the customer communication channels used - particularly on the day of service.
Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now!
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Apr 10, 2020 • Features • Gig Economy • Podcast • workforce management • FIeld nation • field service • field service management • ITSM • Blended Workforce • Mynul Khan • ITIL • Managing the Mobile Workforce
In a recent edition of the Field Service Podcast, Field Service News, Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland was joined by Field Nation CEO, Mynul Khan as the two discussed how field service organisations are turning to the gig economy and other third-party labour pools to balance their workforce needs.
The original interview was part of an interview for a documentary that Field Service News have produced in partnership with Field Nation looking at how field service organisations can harness the power of the 'blended workforce' in this manner.
However, the full interview contained a lot of additional insight from a man that has been a pioneer in bringing the technology that underpins the blended workforce to our sector. As such, we asked Mynul if we could publish the full interview on the Field Service Podcast. The above is an excerpt from this episode.
You can find the full podcast and our entire back catalogue here
The New Requirements of Field Service Management
There have been many crucial developments within the field service sector within the last few years. One of the most important of these, from Mynul Khan is sitting is how many field service organisations are now pushing their service offerings out to a wider reach of geographic areas.
"These are different types of service offerings, which require different types of skill sets," reflected Khan.
"This translates to having a different type of workforce that can provide the type of service needed that is more on demand, that is more agile and more nimble. Companies that are under pressure from industry to expand in different geographies and with different types of services are therefore having to adopt this more on-demand workforce model.
In parallel, we are also seeing that product based companies, so the OEMs or retailers, are also pushing more services and more solutions. The reason for this is fairly obvious - there is not much margin in selling hardware. So we are seeing large OEMs, VARs, and retailers developing their own service and solutions arm."
"There is an increasing trend to go beyond the traditional layers of service-centric revenue and to move towards a more servitized, or outcome focused approach within modern service offerings..."
Indeed, this is something that we are seeing more and more of as the trend continues.
Those companies now who don't explore the routes to developing their own field service operations to deliver such offerings, which deliver not only high margin revenue but also recurring revenue, are in danger of missing the boat and getting left behind.
Of course, this is just one mega-trend within a rapidly changing landscape of field service management.
There is an increasing trend to go beyond the traditional layers of service-centric revenue and to move towards a more servitized, or outcome focused approach within modern service offerings. At the same time automation is changing the way we think about field service, just as it is changing many other industry sectors.
The role of technology within this change, is an important one that cannot be understated.
"Technology and automation is playing an absolutely pivotal role," Khan comments.
"Another mega trend that has emerged is that all hardware is becoming IoT enabled hardware. This connectivity means that we can remote monitor and remotely trouble shoot the problem that the device is having. On top of this we are also seeing the rise of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms which are being used in preventative maintenance.
"All of this is coming together to really drive the cost of service down for field service companies and enables faster repair time and ore uptime for the customer. Even for a company like Field Nation, we are deploying mMachine Learning algorithms for better matching of workers to the service ticket," Khan added.
Want to know more? Check out our full documentary on the 'Rise of the Blended Workforce.'
If you are a Field Service News subscriber the link below will take you straight to the documentary.
If not, the link will take you to our subscriptions page so you can join 30,000 of your field service management peers and subscribe now and get access this documentary and all of our other premium content!
Sponsored by:
Data usage note: If you're subscription is our sponsored complimentary tier, by accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content, FieldNation who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.
NEW! If you would prefer to access our full premium content library without having to submit data to our sponsors you can now do so with a paid subscription for just £15/month find out more @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/subscription-tiers
Apr 08, 2020 • Features • Gig Economy • Video • field service • field service management • field service software • localz • Blended Workforce
In the first part of our series run in partnership with Localz exploring how field service companies can hardness the 'grown-up gig economy' we outline why the field service sector needs to embrace the gig economy...
In the first part of our series run in partnership with Localz exploring how field service companies can hardness the 'grown-up gig economy' we outline why the field service sector needs to embrace the gig economy...
Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now!
This premium content is sponsored by:
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.
NEW! If you would prefer to access our full premium content library without having to submit data to our sponsors you can opt for a paid subscription for as little as £15/month find out more @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/subscription-tiers
The growing pool of field service gig workers
The pressure on field service companies is perhaps greater than it ever has been. As we, as a society embrace an everything now culture, where on-demand is the new norm, time has become perhaps the single greatest commodity of all.
Companies like Deliveroo, Uber and Amazon have changed the benchmark when it comes to what is possible - both in terms of operational efficiency and customer convenience. This has led to a surge in customer expectations.
We now demand the services we use are intuitive, convenient and affordable.
And while this was a phenomena that emerged within the Business to Consumer (B2C) world, it is one that has seeped into the Business to Business (B2B) realm as well as lines between the two continually become blurred.
The reality of course, that field service is a complex beast with many, many moving parts. It is obviously, harder to get a skilled engineer to a job than it is to get a taxi driver. There are simply less of them available, especially if you only have the limited pool of your own internal resources. Yet, the customer cares little for the reasons why you cannot meet their demands.Only that you can’t.
It is of course, an unfair expectation, some may even go as far as to call it unrealistic even, but in the world of the experience economy, where service standards and rapid responses are becoming increasingly linked with our top-line revenue streams, it is one that we as service providers have to face up to. It is one we have to adapt to. What makes this more challenging is the simultaneous increase in internal expectations of field service delivery.
"Beyond the headlines of millennials on bikes, there is an increasingly mature pool of experienced gig-economy workers who are ready and able to fill in the gaps in your existing field workforce..."
With the rise of digital transformation projects, improvements can be made across the whole service delivery cycle. Indeed, technology is undoubtedly an enabler in allowing field service organisations streamline their processes.
However, while modern field service management systems can help drive efficiencies in all manner of aspects of field service, the fact remains that field service is by its very definition an inherently people centric sector.
We have yet to be able to replace the most dexterous tool at our disposal, a pair of human hands, with industrial automation - and it is unlikely we ever will.
And so it is to the gig-economy, savvy field service companies are turning. Beyond the headlines of millennials on bikes, there is an increasingly mature pool of experienced gig-economy workers who are ready and able to fill in the gaps in your existing field workforce.
They are not a replacement for your existing team but an addition. With freelancer and internal employee working side by side in what is termed the blended workforce.
Would You Like to Know More? There is a Field Service News white paper on this topic available exclusively to fieldservicenews.com subscriber. Click the button below to access it now!
This premium content is sponsored by:
Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.
NEW! If you would prefer to access our full premium content library without having to submit data to our sponsors you can opt for a paid subscription for as little as £15/month find out more @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/subscription-tiers
Mar 27, 2020 • Features • Gig Economy • Podcast • workforce management • FIeld nation • field service • field service management • ITSM • Blended Workforce • Doug Lacy • Pivital • ITIL
In a recent edition of the Field Service Podcast, Field Service News, Editor-in-Chief, Kris Oldland sat down with Doug lacy, CEO and Founder of Pivital an ITSM company who have embraced the power of the blended workforce.
The original interview was part of an interview for a documentary that Field Service News have produced in partnership with Field Nation looking at how field service organisations can harness the power of the 'blended workforce' in this manner.
However, the full interview contained a huge amount of insight so with Doug's permission we took the audio from the session and published it in its raw unedited form as an episode of the Field Service Podcast.
You can find the full podcast alongside all of the other episodes here
Transparency in the Field Service Cycle:
In the excerpt above we hear from Lacy as he describes the importance of transparency in the whole of the field service cycle especially when it comes to understanding customer challenges and perceived poor engineer performance.
"We were providing a router deployment for a very large bank in the US which involved thousands of sites. We did a pilot and our techs were really struggling and we got the feedback that our techs were not doing a good job and they were taking too long to do the install," Lacy begins.
Knowing the regular performance of his own team to be of a very high standard, he realised that something wasn't quite right for there to be this much negative feedback. His response was to take a closer hands-on look at the situation himself by doing a site visit himself on a job near their local headquarters in Colarado, USA.
"While such C-level site visits are important, Lacy believes they shouldn't be necessary as technology develops to offer the transparency we require..."
As Lacy, thought the situation wasn't as clear cut as it had seemed.
"My experience was that first of all I waited 20 minutes just for someone to show up and take me to the network closet. I then spent another 20 minutes looking around for where the network closet was and where the routers were. We finally figured out that they were behind all of the Christmas decorations that had just been piled up on top of the router. It turned out to be issue after issue that was nothing to do with the tech's performance.
"Having some of that visibility, it had been four hours since I had arrived there, and it had been challenge after challenge, and all environmental challenges nothing related to our tech. I could then bring that visibility to our client and explain what I had experienced."
However, whilst such C-level site visits are important, Lacy believes they shouldn't be necessary as technology develops to offer the transparency we require.
"If we could find a better way for our clients, through technology to just be able to see, where the tech is struggling and what are the actual reasons why that tech is struggling - that insight makes a big difference in client satisfaction. Plus, it also sets the tech up for success.
"It is all about the communication and being able to understand what are techs are experiencing on site, and if we can use technology to do that, even better."
Want to know more? Check out our full documentary on the 'Rise of the Blended Workforce.'
If you are a Field Service News subscriber the link below will take you straight to the documentary.
If not, the link will take you to our subscriptions page so you can join 30,000 of your field service management peers and subscribe now and get access this documentary and all of our other premium content!
Sponsored by:
Data usage note: If you're subscription is our sponsored complimentary tier, by accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content, FieldNation who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.
NEW! If you would prefer to access our full premium content library without having to submit data to our sponsors you can now do so with a paid subscription for just £15/month find out more @ https://www.fieldservicenews.com/subscription-tiers
Oct 18, 2019 • Features • Management • Blended Workforce • Mynul Khan • Field Workforce • Managing the Mobile Workforce
Field service organizations are under constant pressure to do more with less. As customer expectations for competitively-priced, high-quality services continues to grow, companies are looking for innovative ways to complete more work without taking...
Field service organizations are under constant pressure to do more with less. As customer expectations for competitively-priced, high-quality services continues to grow, companies are looking for innovative ways to complete more work without taking on additional overheads. Mynul Khan, CEO, Field Nation discusses...
Aug 28, 2019 • Features • Management • Ageing Workforce Crisis • workforce management • FIeld nation • field service • Blended Workforce • FieldNation
There are three key considerations that field service organisations must take into account when building a modern workforce, including the changing demographics from Baby Boomer to Millennial, the impact of technology on field service operations,...
There are three key considerations that field service organisations must take into account when building a modern workforce, including the changing demographics from Baby Boomer to Millennial, the impact of technology on field service operations, and the growth of the ‘gig’ economy. In the first article in this series, run in partnership with FieldNation, we looked at why the field service landscape is changing, and in part two we discussed how you should approach building a modern field service workforce. We then turned our attention to the technology that underpins such transformation and now in the final article in this series we hear from two experts on the blended workforce to hear their insights...
Aug 21, 2019 • Features • Management • Ageing Workforce Crisis • workforce management • FIeld nation • field service • Blended Workforce • FieldNation
There are three key considerations that field service organisations must take into account when building a modern workforce, including the changing demographics from Baby Boomer to Millennial, the impact of technology on field service operations,...
There are three key considerations that field service organisations must take into account when building a modern workforce, including the changing demographics from Baby Boomer to Millennial, the impact of technology on field service operations, and the growth of the ‘gig’ economy. In the first article in this series, run in partnership with FieldNation, we looked at why the field service landscape is changing, and in part two we discussed how you should approach building a modern field service workforce. Now we turn our attention to the technology that underpins such transformation...
Aug 14, 2019 • Features • Management • Ageing Workforce Crisis • workforce management • FIeld nation • field service • Blended Workforce • FieldNation
There are three key considerations that field service organisations must take into account when building a modern workforce, including the changing demographics from Baby Boomer to Millennial, the impact of technology on field service operations,...
There are three key considerations that field service organisations must take into account when building a modern workforce, including the changing demographics from Baby Boomer to Millennial, the impact of technology on field service operations, and the growth of the ‘gig’ economy. In the first article in this series, run in partnership with FieldNation, we looked at why the field service landscape is changing, now in part two we discuss how you should approach building a modern field service workforce...
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