As a field service business, you send your staff out to meet customers instead of having customers come to your location. That means your field service employees are your only opportunity to wow your customers. You need people who are not only great at their jobs but able to handle customer service issues on the fly. How can you attract such top-notch employees during “the great resignation” when it’s hard for any business to stay staffed?
Your Job Listing Is Your Sales Pitch
When you think of a sales pitch, you typically think of clients or customers. However, just as you sell the idea of using your company’s services to potential customers, you need to sell potential field service employees on why they want to work there and what you can offer them.
A creative job listing goes beyond a mere list of responsibilities and qualifications to catch someone’s eye and interest them in your company. Formal job descriptions may appeal to some people, but you’ll likely get many more applicants if you inject some personality into your postings. More applicants mean you have more opportunities to find the right people who will represent your business well in the field.
Develop a Company Culture Employees Love
Some companies might go a little overboard when trying to catch potential applicants’ attention. They may offer employee lounges with pool tables, and catering of lunches, and some creative businesses have even offered a refrigerator stocked with craft brews.
That may not fit with your business so well and certainly not with field service employees, but you get the idea. People are looking for a friendly work environment and coworkers they enjoy being around since one spends so much time in the workplace.
A comfortable break room or lunchroom fits with pretty much any business and can make employees feel more involved — even if you don’t put a pool table in there. Offering things like fountain soda, snacks, or even catering lunch once a week or once a month will help create a stronger sense of community within your workforce and a chance for your workers to have time to bond over breaks and meals.
Carefully screening employees to hire those who work well within a team and are friendly with their coworkers helps create an environment that people want when seeking a job. A quick tour introducing an interviewee to a series of friendly employees creates a great impression. As does meeting a lot of employees who have spent an extended time working in your business — when employees stay long term, it speaks volumes about your company culture
Show Them the Money!
This one should be a little bit obvious, but offering competitive wages will certainly attract good field service employees. With the current rates of inflation and high gas prices, this component is more important than ever before.
In most cases, employees have put in applications at other companies, so you may need to compete with other offers. Also note that once they’re hired, employees struggling financially may be less productive if they are constantly worrying about financial issues outside of the workplace.
Reward Employees for a Job Well Done
Everyone likes to be recognized when they feel like they’ve done a good job. With field service employees, they may feel like management overlooks their contributions and may not notice a job well done when they spend so much time out of the office and in the field.
Customers tend to give feedback when they have a negative experience, but often forget to let you know when an employee did a particularly good job. Giving incentives for leaving feedback will help you see which employees are doing the best job, then you can recognize them, reward them, or even promote them. Reward and recognition can motivate employees and keep them engaged in your workplace.
Help Field Service Employees Get More Training
Another incentive could be helping with educational programs. That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be helping with college tuition on a bachelor’s degree if you’re a small business with limited funds, but supporting training certificates or seminars on a specific job so employees add new skills.
It also shows employees that you care about their professional development beyond just clocking in and clocking out every day.
Provide Employees with Opportunities for Advancement
Applicants also look at how many advancement opportunities your company has to offer. Do you frequently hire from within or offer new job openings to your employees before advertising them outside the company? Do positions for field service representatives offer opportunities to advance into management or supervisory positions?
Potential employees will likely be particularly impressed when you introduce them to employees that started in entry-level positions and then moved up to management over time. This tells them there is plenty of opportunity for advancement within your company so they don’t need to look for another job to advance in whatever career they choose.
Manage Your Field Staff Employees Effectively
Managing employees effectively can be a tremendous challenge for business owners. Advertising open job positions, interviewing, training new employees, and then supervising them in the field is tough. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if you had an employee that just tracked the entire process?
It might be easier, but it would be expensive. That’s where ServiceWorks can help. With our software, you can make an efficient schedule for service calls. Track exactly where employees are and where they’re going for smooth communication with dispatch. That means less hassle for customers and field service employees.
You don’t even need a credit card to try it out. What have you got to lose?
