Flawless Field Service Employee Engagement

Transcription

1 YOUR GUIDE TO Flawless Field Service Employee Engagement A must read for Service Managers or those with operational control of the field workforce In this third instalment, we consider the role employee engagement plays in overall company performance. And specifically how it s particularly important, yet challenging for mobile workforces. After all, field service is all about people. With the right tools and attitude, businesses can transform their culture which can have positive effects on customer satisfaction, productivity and profits. Cognito iq have 25 years of working with the UK s leading field service companies. Our technology supports over 40,000 field workers on a daily basis. Every ounce of our knowledge and experience has driven our product development which is why the most forward thinking service businesses rely on our mobile platform and our operational performance analytics to drive their success. 3GUIDE

2 Introduction In our first and second digital guides, we looked at how you can improve productivity and give your customers moments of magic if you have high quality data, employ advanced analytics and commit to continuous improvement processes. But whilst all of these things are necessary, they are not sufficient to ensure that you will consistently achieve excellent results. Field service is not just about IT and processes, nor is it just about parts and engineering. It is about people. That s why we have devoted this, the third and final of our digital guides, to employee engagement we believe that flawless field service depends on it. CHAPTER 1 What is employee engagement? Page 3 CHAPTER 2 Why employee engagement matters Page 4 CHAPTER 3 Employee engagement in field service Page 5 CHAPTER 4 Changing the culture with employee data Page 6 CHAPTER 5 Employee management at Konica Minolta Page 9 CHAPTER 6 Making it happen Page 11 2

3 CHAPTER 1 What is employee engagement? Trust, integrity, two way commitment and communication So what do we mean by employee engagement? If you Google it, you ll get any number of definitions, but we like this one from not-for-profit organisation Engage for Success. Employee engagement is a workplace approach resulting in the right conditions for all members of an organisation to give their best each day, commit to their organisation s goals and values and contribute to the organisational success, with an enhanced sense of their own well-being. Employee engagement is based on trust, integrity, two way commitment and communication between an organisation and its members. Employee turnover costs businesses an estimated $11 billion annually. Disengaged employees cost business between $450 and $550 billion annually. Engaged employees can help businesses achieve an average of around 50% more productivity. It s also important to say what employee engagement isn t. It isn t manipulative. It s not a cynical attempt to wring productivity from employees with spurious benefits. It isn t an annual employee engagement survey although it can be measured - and it should only be measured if doing so leads to positive change. This means that employee engagement must be win-win for employees and their employers. It can t be imposed from above. It s about creating a cultural shift in the way organisations behave. Key drivers of employee engagement include the following: Culture of trust, fairness and respect for employees and management Culture of teamwork and co-operation Clarity on goals, constructive feedback and support to succeed Quality training and clear job progression Work-life balance and work that makes the most of people s skills Empowerment, autonomy and a sense that people s ideas are valued 3

4 CHAPTER 2 Why employee engagement matters In the UK, only around a third of employees are engaged. Engaged employees tend to be happy in their jobs, enthusiastic about their work, committed and driven. This matters, not only for the wellbeing of the remaining two thirds of UK workers, but also because study after study has linked employee engagement to improved productivity, customer satisfaction, growth and profitability, as well as a whole raft of other business metrics, including employee retention; innovation; safety incidents; product quality and defects; shrinkage and theft; and sickness and absenteeism. And whilst engaged employees can bring business benefits, the reverse is also true. A US study found that there are 51% of US workers who are not engaged, and a further 16% who can be defined as actively disengaged ; whilst workers who are not engaged tend to be indifferent they are just showing up for their pay-check - those that are actively disengaged can be resentful and disruptive, taking up managers time, seeking out ways to cheat the system and even sabotaging the work done by others. A five-point increase in employee engagement is linked to a three-point increase in revenue growth in the subsequent year. High engagement companies have twice the annual net profit of those with the lowest engagement. 40% less employee turnover in companies with high levels of engagement than those with low levels. 4

5 CHAPTER 3 Employee engagement in field service Employee engagement is particularly important in field service for a number of reasons: 1. The nature of the work: Remote workers can feel isolated, which reduces engagement. It is important to ensure that they feel connected to the main office, and also feel part of a team, whether that is at a local or regional level, or by job specialisation. As backoffice management don t always have good visibility of how work is actually done in the field, they might not understand how to empower and enable workers to do their jobs, and may have created processes that are unhelpful or counter-productive. In addition, field service has traditionally been low-tech which has meant a lot of tedious paperwork necessary but not as satisfying as helping customers and solving service issues so it is important to automate some of these admin tasks, as well as give workers electronic access to the information they need to do their jobs, such as product manuals and parts databases. 2. The nature of the workforce: There is an aging workforce, with the average age of the field service worker being 40 years old and many of the older baby-boomer generation engineers are starting to retire. To fill the skills gap in field service will mean both keeping older engineers on for the long haul by retraining and re-skilling them, as well as attracting and training new younger engineers. Engagement is essential here as it is costly to train up new workers only to have them job-hop to a competitor for a slightly better rate pay, or better benefits. 3. The nature of the industry: As products become commoditised, companies are relying on the quality of their service to differentiate from competitors. Field service workers are the face of the brand and often the only company representative that customers interact with. Engaged employees are more likely to give great customer service than disengaged employees. The most forward 62% more accidents in companies with lowest levels of engagement than those with the highest levels. 12% higher customer advocacy in companies with high levels of engagement than those with low levels. thinking companies are wise to the potential of field service workers. They are considering ways to upsell other products and services during their visits and are turning field operations departments into profit centres. Technology is also changing the skills needed on the job. Connected devices are reducing some of the tasks that field workers need to do, such as routine maintenance checks, but they are creating new data, which means that workers will need analytical skills. Technologies such as virtual or augmented reality are also changing the ways that workers carry out their tasks. Workers may see these new skill requirements as a threat however companies that are good at engaging their employees see these developments as opportunities to offer training, career progression and the satisfaction that comes from being part of an up-to-date and modern company. 5

6 CHAPTER 4 Changing the culture with employee data Our solutions give you the detailed performance data which you can use to understand how best to manage, motivate, incentivise and develop your people so that they feel engaged. Cognito iq Mobile is a cloud-based mobile workflow solution, that connects workers in the field, such as engineers and technicians, or drivers and couriers, with the back office, in real-time. Cognito iq Mobile guides field workers through each shift, helping ensure that the basics SLA compliance, first-time-fix, on-time-in-full delivery - are right first time. The mobile application gives workers access to information and updates and gives back office managers unrivalled visibility of the mobile workforce, enabling them to anticipate issues before they arise, and proactively fix any problems that do occur. Cognito iq Mobile is our starting point for connecting with and engaging field workers, but we are seeing the most exciting results from adopters of our flagship product, Cognito iq Operational Performance Analytics (OPA). Cognito iq OPA takes real-time mobile workforce data from Cognito iq Mobile or other mobile workforce solutions, and presents it in a series of clear, easy to understand dashboards. This enables you to drill down into granular detail for a thorough understanding of both operational and individual employee performance. Imagine being able to analyse every activity using Cognito iq OPA, you have the data and analytics you need to support your employee engagement strategy. 6

7 CHAPTER 4 A balanced view: The Worker Scorecard Many companies use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to manage and monitor their staff, but if they don t reflect the reality of the field service operation, they may not be achievable which can be demotivating. Even worse, they can have unintended consequences or encourage employees to work around the rules. For example, if workers are judged on number of visits per shift, they are less likely to take the time needed to fix more complex jobs, which would reduce firsttime-fix rates, and leave customers dissatisfied. Alternatively, if productive time is the key metric, they may feel they have to skip breaks, or log breaks as work time. In contrast, Cognito iq OPA uses a balanced scorecard approach, where you can build your own fully customisable KPIs in six key performance areas (KPAs). These can be aggregated to give an overall performance score for an individual worker s completed shift. Each KPA score is derived from a weighted calculation that aggregates a range of measures: attainment against KPIs, geolocation information and actual shift timings. The Worker Scorecard also shows an interactive map and shift timeline, which visualises the time and location of each activity. This communicates clearly what happened, where and when, and leaves little room for misinterpretation. The balanced score objectively measures and assesses performance and enables you to review individual employees work over time, looking for strengths and weaknesses, to identify training needs as well as candidates for reward and promotion. Employees may feel threatened by this level of scrutiny but you can avoid this by making the Worker Scorecard part of a drive to enable each worker to reach their potential. You can then adjust these metrics as required, depending on actual performance in the field, and taking on board feedback from employees to help you analyse and interpret the results. This also helps employees to feel that the analysis works to their benefit rather than being a tool for management to keep tabs on them. 7

8 CHAPTER 4 Six powerful KPAs for a complete view of performance: Productivity Time spent on activities that directly deliver service to customers. Each job to be done is defined as a Task ; the Productivity KPA measures time spent on Tasks and travelling to Tasks, within the actual shift working time. Utilisation The proportion of the planned duration of a shift that is productive (this can include productive travel time). Efficiency The average time over the shift spent travelling to Tasks and working on Tasks, compared to the expected average time. Also, the number of Tasks completed per shift hour (known as the Velocity). Effectiveness Measures the worker on their first time fix rate, service level attainment and net promoter score to show how well the intended result has been achieved. A culture of collaboration and competition: The League Table The League Table ranks the workforce based on the performance score achieved. You can look at scores for the entire workforce, or isolate and compare particular regions or teams. The heat-map makes it easy to identify the best workers across all dimensions of performance. You probably have an instinct for which of your field workers are the best performers; the League table gives you hard evidence, and you have the data to evaluate why they are the best so that you can use their behaviour as a model for others. You probably also know which workers consistently fail to hit their targets; again the League table identifies them objectively, and performance analysis will show you what to do to help each of them improve, and to monitor their progress. Again, this must be sensitively used, as a carrot, not a stick; if this is done, the League table can be the basis for a management culture that is dedicated to excellence, and engenders healthy competition between teams. Compliance Measures how well the worker s behaviour has complied with the plan. In particular: How soon after they started a shift, did they actually start a Task? How long after the last Task completed, did they end the shift? Was the shift duration as expected? Consistency Compares the time spent on activities directly related to each Task, including the Task itself, establishing how consistently positive behaviours continue over time. 8

9 CHAPTER 5 Employee Engagement at Konika Minolta Using Cognito iq OPA to enable an innovative programme of employee engagement initiatives Our customer, Konica Minolta Business Solutions (UK) has used Cognito iq OPA to enable an innovative programme of employee engagement initiatives. The company, which manufactures and services multifunction peripherals (MFPs) has over 900 employees and a turnover of over 180 million. Installations, service and maintenance are carried out by more than 250 field based engineers in UK. In 2012, the service operation was facing a number of issues. MFPs are commoditised, so differentiation must come from customer service There is competition in the market for skilled engineers Investment in training is risky as engineers will job-hop for small salary increases Engineers are typically not engaged seeing their role as just a job, as opposed to a career Konica Minolta set out a strategic objective to transform the service operation, with the following aims: Our products are just printers, they put ink on paper; it s the quality of our engineers which differentiates us now. Ged Cranny - Head of Service, Konica Minolta Today my engineers are looking to stay because they see a future and a clear career path. Before, they saw themselves as gardeners, or plumbers who just happened to fix printers. Now they refer to themselves as Service Professionals. Phil Payner - Area Service Manager Establish their service offering as a key differentiator in the market place Deliver outstanding customer experience via the service teams Be seen as Employer of Choice within the service industry Capture both the UK enterprise and SME market 9

10 CHAPTER 5 Cognito iq OPA data is made available to engineers as part of their innovative PathFinder employee development programme, which gives engineers control over their career progression and earnings. To advance through PathFinder career levels, engineers have to pass exams at each stage and achieve defined performance scores which are measured directly from Cognito iq OPA. Requirements at each level and the associated earnings are transparent to engineers. This has driven a culture of employee engagement, improved productivity, halved attrition, reduced recruitment costs and delivered industry leading customer satisfaction scores. Within 18 months Konica Minolta has seen the following results: Employee attrition down 50% from 18% to 9% We ve given the engineers the platform for success. The right tools, the right knowledge, the right information and the right rewards to provide an outstanding service to our customers. My engineers now see themselves as Service Professionals rather than just people who happen to fix printers. I m proud to work for Konica Minolta and I would recommend them as an employer to anyone in the service industry. Rob Smith - Engineer and Production Print team leader Average worker score (from OPA Worker Scorecard) increased from 61 to 66 Overall 30% increase in productivity (the equivalent of hiring another 78 engineers) Increase in Net Promoter Score (NPS) from 74 to 86 Finalist in 2016 Engage Awards in the category Best use of Technology in Employee Engagement 10

11 CHAPTER 6 Making it happen Working with us is your first step to engaging employees... Quite simply we develop the most advanced mobile workforce solutions and operational performance analytics in the world. That s the reason why the biggest names in Field Service, Facilities Management, Courier and Retail Logistics and Utilities rely on the Cognito iq platform to run their mobile workforce operations. Let s see if we can make it happen. Get in touch enquiries@cognitoiq.com +44 (0)