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.

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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! 

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