When it comes to field services, managers work hard to balance productivity with safety. Without proper safety mechanisms in place, accidents become more likely to happen. Accidents can lead to severe injuries, the loss of key workers and bad publicity for the company. In some cases, they can even trigger an audit or lawsuit. This is why so many companies are looking for ways to digitize and automate their field inspection and safety management processes.
What to expect from field service apps
Companies all around the world are upgrading business processes to improve efficiency and agility. This primarily involves the adoption of automation and cloud computing technology. Is it worth the investment? One study found that businesses could save as much as $20 million per year. Considering that many of these apps cost as little as $20 per month, this is an extremely high return on investment.
Most companies use field service apps with the hopes of improving client satisfaction with the final product. Employee engagement is another important consideration, especially in fields where there are a lot of collaborative work processes. To meet these needs, field service apps must do more than just provide logistics support.
How digital service can transform your field service
Not all software is created equal. The specific perks you gain depend on the software solution you choose. At Fluix, these are the many ways technology transformed the way clients do business.
- Training: Whether you need to train a new hire or provide new training for long-time employees, you can do so remotely. It’s as easy as approving employees for different training materials within the app.
- Safety policies: Ensure everyone knows what your company’s safety policies are by easily distributing documents. You can also ensure these policies are always on their devices and accessible offline.
- Safety inspections: Follow company protocol and remain compliant by completing safety checks automatically on your devices. You can even complete your checks while offline.
- Documentation: Modern-day businesses generate a lot of data that people from multiple disciplines may need to access. Use cloud storage to organize it all and facilitate collaborative efforts.
- Rich content: When you document incidents, it becomes easier than ever to attach photos. This also makes it easier to follow up with incidents, investigate concerns and provide evidence.
- Data tracking: Keep track of incidents on the job in a way that lines up with your key metrics. Clients often use total recordable injury frequency to determine safety trends and identify risk factors.
- Reports: Whether you need to generate reports for clients, shareholders or in-house use, it is easy. Create instant reports that are easy to understand with the click of a button.
- Data security: Some incidents are of a sensitive nature and should only be accessible to authorized persons, such as the human resources manager. The app encrypts data and allows you to restrict access within the organization.
How to digitize field service operations
Getting workers to adopt digitized processes can take time. Employees may air valid concerns about using devices in their line of work. Concerns might include the risk of dropping the device or it sustaining damage. The protective gear worn can also make it difficult to use devices. Because of this, you need to take time to determine how you will roll out your digitized changes.
- Consider Work Processes: Review the different work roles and determining when would be a good time for workers to use devices. You may realize some roles do not need on-the-job access at all, which can significantly cut costs for your business.
- Create policies: You don’t want to wait until phones start falling from 20 stories high to figure out what the policies are. Remember to consider company goals as well as legal compliance concerns. Doing so at the start can help prevent problems later on.
- Digitize forms: Create digital versions of the forms you commonly use. These could include inspection checklists, safety checklists or incident reports. Then, use the software to roll out these new changes.
- Provide training: Upskilling is an important part of ensuring compliance with the new procedures. While it might be tempting to remove all printed backups, there may be occasions when workers need to use physical copies, such as during power outages.
- Automate processes: Streamline and automate as many processes as possible. This frees up your workers to complete other tasks. Automating the safety compliance process also increases the likelihood of compliance.
- Save time and money: It may take a few tweaks to match the software capabilities with business needs and employee needs. Once they are effectively lined up, however, you begin to reap the rewards. You could save hundreds of labor hours and improve safety at work.
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