For many of the businesses I work with, mobile worker enablement is a big challenge. Too often, Field Services workers are slowed down by lack of access to the right information in a timely manner, and office staff are frustrated by the poor quality of data that comes back from the field.
The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that way. In my role as Digital Sales Specialist at Certus, I have worked with many organisations to help them better manage and enable their mobile workforce. To help you do the same, I will share some of the insights and knowledge I've gained through this work in a series of short and sharp blog posts. Starting today with:
Many organisations capture and store a lot of information about their assets. This information is instrumental for the people out in the field. However, the challenge often lies in giving them access to it. Being mobile means they are not always connected to the internet, and they don't want to carry lots of paperwork or bulky computers around with them. Moreover, even if they could bring all the paperwork they need for a job with them, this would still leave them unprepared when things change or unexpected work comes up.
Worker enablement is about making sure these field workers have access to the right tools, information and resources, at the right time, from their mobile devices. It’s also about enabling them to connect to other people who maybe have the knowledge they need for a specific job.
Even if you hire the best and smartest, and train them regularly, today’s increasingly complex assets, and the speed at which equipment changes, means it is extremely hard to keep everyone's knowledge and skills up to date for all possible jobs. In addition, things can change very quickly, and workers in the field need to be able to respond to evolving circumstances and work orders at a moment's notice.
In short, it is almost impossible to prepare and train all your field workers for every single scenario before they leave the office.
That is why mobile solutions for worker enablement are so important. It doesn’t only enable but empowers your workers to be more efficient and safe by giving them access to the most up-to-date and relevant information they need at the right time – and if the situation changes, they also have access to the other resources they need.
Just as importantly, mobile worker enablement is also about making sure information flows back from the field to the office in a structured and usable manner to make sure managers know precisely what is happening, when and where, and to ensure knowledge flows freely to whoever needs it to do their job as efficiently as possible.
Now you have a better idea of what worker enablement is. In my next blog post, I will dig deeper into the problems that worker enablement with mobile solutions is solving.
