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Technology’s critical role in blended workforce management

To recap the discusisons within this series so far, the changes field service companies face today and the impact of these changes on building their field workforce:

1. Customer expectations around field service are at an all-time high and will increase further.
2. Boardroom expectations demand field service organizations to achieve greater efficiency with the same, or even fewer, resources than before.
3. Almost all field service organizations are facing an ageing workforce crisis, and the incoming Millennial generation of field workers is unlikely to remain in a role for more than two years. This scenario puts immense pressure on field service organizations to replace their retiring workforce and get as much productivity as possible out of a less loyal, incoming workforce.
4. These demographic changes have led to increasing adoption of a two-pronged approach to the field workforce; a blend of contingent field workers tackling routine tasks and a specialized internal group of field engineers tackling complex tasks.
5. The blended workforce not only has the advantage of minimizing risk for the field service organization as they transition from the retiring Baby Boomer generation to the incoming Millennial generation, but also brings several other benefits and opportunities.
6. However, with customer expectations at an all-time high, service excellence is an essential part of both brand perception and customer engagement strategies.

Achieving a level of consistent service excellence is the biggest challenge a field service company must overcome when opting to use a contingent workforce. So how can a field service organization ensure that the service delivered by a third party meets their standards? Technology plays a crucial role in resolving this.

How technology enables a blended workforce to deliver consistent service

It is essential that field service managers, schedulers, and dispatch teams can manage a blended workforce in one place.

Since the advent of the cloud, the sharing of data from one application to another via APIs is significantly easier. However, to make a blended workforce truly optimal, solutions designed specifically with the blended workforce in mind are essential.

Field Nation ONE, for example, is a solution designed with this challenge in mind, allowing an organization to manage its entire workforce in one place.

An organization can post work, manage projects and assign talent from a single dashboard. Not only does this holistic view provide easier reporting, it also provides complete visibility into service delivery, reducing the potential risk of jobs being double-scheduled or slipping through the cracks entirely. 

By providing field service organizations with the ability to manage private vendors, full-time employees, and independent contractors in one platform, Field Nation ONE enables organizations to route work to their private network first and then search the Field Nation Marketplace of independent contractors to fill coverage gaps.

"Technology should enable field service organizations to ensure that any third-party worker has been both vetted and onboarded to meet company standards in an efficient, streamlined, and intuitive manner..."

This flexibility gives field service companies increased efficiency, improved workflows, and better internal communication across multiple business units such as field service operations, HR, accounting, and payroll.

Additionally, technology should enable field service organizations to ensure that any third-party worker has been both vetted and onboarded to meet company standards in an efficient, streamlined, and intuitive manner.

Onboarding, in particular, is critical to optimizing the use of a blended workforce. It is also an integral part of the Field Nation ONE platform. Building upon the Field Nation Marketplace ‘Provider Quality Assurance Policy’— which ensures that 92% of the independent service technicians on the platform possess a 5-star rating—Field Nation ONE’s on-boarding process is customizable, allowing it to be tailored to an individual service organization’s needs.

This flexibility gives field service companies the ability to bring any third-party worker through the core steps needed to represent the brand to the same standards expected of their employees. Only once these criteria are met and approved by the service organization will the third-party worker be available to receive and perform work on its behalf.

Finally, much of the ability to harness contingent labor lies within an organization’s ability to put the same tools their field service engineers use in the hands of third-party workers. While this is still new territory for many organizations, it is developing rapidly.

Now is the time to factor in broader applications of tools like IoT dashboards, knowledge banks, and remote assistance for third-party workers into the equation. Over 80% of companies now use some aspect of a contingent workforce, so this phenomenon will be a mainstay of field workforce structures. It is therefore essential to incorporate blended workforce thinking into all future field service operation improvements.

"Technologies like Augmented Reality will play a bigger role in the standard field service operation of the future..."

Other technologies like Augmented Reality will play a bigger role in the standard field service operation of the future – the need to transmit knowledge as efficiently and effectively as possible demands it.

However, as with almost any transformational technology, the products that grab headlines may have a “cool” factor, but the reality is that they are just interfaces and little more. The real power of any solution is in the engine room where the foundation of the entire system resides. A platform like Field Nation ONE is an essential part of that engine as it delivers the single most crucial element required—transparency—to make blended workforces succeed.

The relationship between a field service organization and a third-party worker is built upon trust. To protect both sides, support that trust with an effortless flow of information, tracking, and visibility. 

Among the benefits Field Nation ONE delivers – this is the most important of all.

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