In the field service industry, everyone wins when you empower your staff. When field service workers are empowered, they’re more engaged, productive, and proactive in the field. Employees who are given the opportunity to use their strengths, skills, and abilities daily are 8% more productive and six times more likely to be engaged at work. Empowered employees feel valued and add value to your company.
So, what’s the key to creating an engaged, autonomous field service team confident in their abilities? Here’s how you can empower your field service workers.
Make it easy to capture information on-site
No matter what industry you’re in, every field service business collects and processes a lot of data. With so much information to collect, a paper system is inconvenient for field workers, which is why you should ditch your paper system. With a mobile solution like Job Management Software, your team can easily access the documents they need on-site, helping them save time and work efficiently in the field. Because the documents are stored on a cloud-based system, your workers can share information with anyone who has access to the system, including their colleagues and supervisors.
Develop your team’s skills
When field workers have the right skills and knowledge, they can work productively, complete tasks successfully the first time, and meet their targets. But developing your team’s skills goes beyond improving efficiency. Training and skills development puts employees on the path to reaching their full potential and improving their self-confidence. When employees are confident in their abilities, they’re empowered to work hard and become eager to take on new roles and responsibilities. To effectively develop your team’s skills, you can introduce on-the-job training or start a mentorship programme where your supervisors work with your employees to expand their expertise.
Delegate effectively
Many managers and business owners micromanage their team because they fear failure or don’t trust their team. Unfortunately, micromanagement has the opposite effect leaders believe it has. It leads to a lack of productivity as employees become dependent and dissatisfied. To overcome micromanagement, you must show your team that you trust them to complete tasks independently. Workers who are given opportunities to develop their skills and grow their expertise become proactive employees with excellent problem-solving and decision-making skills. When you give them more responsibility, they have the chance to learn how to think critically, helping you create a flexible workforce that doesn’t always have to be supervised or told what to do. To delegate effectively, play to your employees’ strengths and provide them with the resources they need to succeed.
Give your team access to a mobile inventory system
A mobile inventory system makes it easier for your field workers to see where the stock they need is, without travelling from one warehouse to another, which is time-consuming and unproductive. With an Inventory Management System, you can create picking lists for your field workers to transfer stock from your warehouse to their vehicles. You can also set default pickup points for your workers so they always know where to collect their stock. Your team can also create their own picking lists, transfer their stock to another technician, create a list of unused stock to return to a warehouse, and complete a stock check of their vehicle via a mobile app. An Inventory Management System gives your field workers control over their stock, ensuring there’s no confusion about where to collect the items they need for their jobs.