Defeating the Field Services Labor Shortage with a Modern ERP

Employer Challenges in Field Services

As a company that provides field services, your organization is dedicated to dispatching the right person with the right skills, parts, and tools to the right place at the right time to service your customers. And that means different things in different industries. Field services is a far-reaching industry operating in a wide variety of markets. But in a broad context, it involves dispatching technicians (who can be contractors or employees) to customer locations in order to repair, maintain or install crucial components for other businesses, families, and individuals. 

But like many industries, field services is plagued by a shortage of skilled employees. Recently, a comprehensive report by FieldAware stated that the impacts of this shortage include: 

• 42% of employers surveyed report a reduced ability to serve their clients, reduced competitiveness, and reduced productivity 

• 30% reported increased turnover 

• 26% reported lower staff morale 

• 25% needed to offer higher compensation to recruit or retain staff 

The Field Services Employee Perspective

The most recent Gallup State of the Workplace Report found that $8.9 trillion (approximately 9% of the global FDP) was lost in 2023 due to low employee engagement. And employees across many industries, including field services, report that their low engagement is due to factors such as few development opportunities, frustrating manual procedures, little opportunity for innovation or higher-level thinking, and technology that is not optimized for their jobs. 

Workers in field services face unique challenges that can be either hindered or helped by technology. For example, managers may find themselves without the necessary up-to-date information to assign jobs efficiently; they may be using outdated technology that gives them little visibility into their teams’ locations and work status. Or they may be using manual processes for workflows, daily job reports, timecards, and other important tasks that could be automated. All of this adds up to lost productivity, lower profits, and higher employee frustration. 

Most Common Day-to-Day Challenges for Field Services Organizations 

A day-to-day view of the most frequently reported challenges includes: 

• Scheduling, including low utilization (less than 80%), slow response time, limited visibility of the team, and the need for repeated follow-ups 

• Compliance and Safety, which is often handled by manual processes 

• Managing inventory in the field, including stock losses, billing issues, low first-time fix rates, and delays in parts requests 

• Asset management and history knowledge, including extra time spent locating assets (and time calling the home office for information), time searching for assets, and no asset history in the field where it is often needed urgently 

• Paper-based systems in the field, resulting in delays in paperwork back to the home office, time spent managing customer disputes, and no real-time visibility in the field 

• Limited metrics and insights from the service team, leading to slow decision-making, poor resource planning, lost revenue, and lost customers 

Addressing Labor Shortages with Practical Solutions to the Most Common Challenges 

To start, leadership can address the challenges outlined above by streamlining as many processes as possible. An important first step is to assess your company’s current business processes and find those that include a high number of manual steps that could be automated.  

Some of the most impactful processes to begin streamlining can be identified in Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable. In these functions, there are often many opportunities for eliminating manual data entry, such as collecting payments, billing, data analysis, and intercompany transactions. And streamlining these and other processes gives your employees more time to tackle more interesting, higher-level, and innovative tasks that can help them remain deeply engaged members of the team. 

Solutions to outdated manual processes come in the form of modern Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms that can address common challenges by: 

• Streamlining scheduling and dispatch – A modern ERP for field service operations can easily assign jobs and match resources based on skills, location, and availability. 

• Improving field visit outcomes – With a modern ERP, technicians have access to real-time customer data, asset history, and service records needed to complete work efficiently. 

• Increasing customer satisfaction – Through better access to data, field services companies can deliver timely services and solve customer problems in one visit. 

• Reducing costs – Better utilization of technicians can cut overtime costs, and centralized inventory management increases first-time fix rates and reduces inventory loss. 

• Improving business performance management – By leveraging data from a single system, you can make better informed decisions and gain deeper insights. 

• Allowing perpetual inventory tracking – The real-time data available from a modern ERP can be used for automatic notifications when stock falls below a certain threshold and can even be configured to place orders automatically. 

• Scalability – All of these functions can be scaled up as your organization grows, priming you for further expansion and reducing the need for new employees in the face of continuing labor shortages. 

Additionally, better data and automation processes can help your organization more easily add employees in the specific departments where they are most needed, helping your hiring processes become as impactful as possible. 

A Modern ERP Helps Create a Culture of Digital Innovation

Anyone who has undergone an ERP implementation knows that it can be a daunting endeavor, but a skilled technology advisor can help your company avoid many pitfalls both during and after the implementation itself. Technology advisor services can include consultation tailored to your company’s needs, including helping you make the most of your modern ERP by adopting new practices that will create a culture of digital innovation. Three of our top recommendations for creating such a culture include: 

• Looking for ways to utilize the cloud, AI and automation technologies that are included in your modern ERP.  Employees who appreciate the innovation and efficiency that are made possible by the new ERP can be the foundation of a digital innovation committee that identifies potential issues that can be addressed via technology before they become pressing problems. 

• Invest in skills development and training programs. These programs create the internal corporate advocates that your organization needs to enhance its reputation, thus helping strengthen your recruiting and employee retention. 

• Encourage innovation from all employees. As previously mentioned, frontline workers are usually the most likely to quickly recognize opportunities for change. If your businesses can motivate and tangibly reward innovation, this will go a long way to helping you stay at the forefront of your market. 

The adoption of a modern ERP can empower everyone in your business to grow and develop. Ultimately, the best solution will be the one that most closely meets your company where you are now and has the proven ability to grow and scale with you for many years to come.