Any company’s most valuable asset is its reliable technical staff. Particularly in the pool and spa industry, there are accelerated retirement rates as well as a history of inability to recruit young tech-savvy workers. It’s a problem that can have a negative impact on a company’s bottom line and hinder growth.
The pool and spa industry are not the only ones dealing with this issue. The AARP reported that more than 37% of Americans are 55 years old and that approximately 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day. We’ve seen a decrease in skilled workers since the COVID-19 epidemic began. Many people approaching retirement age are choosing to retire earlier.
Recent research has shown that the skilled labor shortage has had a significant impact on employers in these ways:
- 42% of employers said they had a decreased ability to service customers.
- 42% of respondents reported lower productivity and competitiveness.
- 30% of respondents reported an increase in turnover.
- 26% reported lower staff morale.
- 25% of employees were required to accept higher salaries in order to retain or recruit staff.
In the face of the dramatic changes in the workforce, companies have needed to adapt to the changing environment. They adopted innovative technologies to increase efficiency. This included a greater acceptance of remote workers and diagnostics. It also increased the focus on field service automation and the rapid adoption of new collaboration tools.
The field service industry is struggling to find the right talent, so pool and spa services need to continue to look for ways to increase operational efficiency. Implementing cloud-based field services management (FSM), which helps companies maximize their existing talent, is one way to do this successfully. The pool and spa industry workers spend a lot of time out in the field. This means that optimizing field services can be difficult because they must reduce time on repetitive tasks such as reports and time management.
Digitizing field operations can help improve efficiency and productivity. It also attracts new talent. Digital FSM modernizes tedious, outdated administrative tasks. Digital mobility makes it easier for organizations to hire younger staff than those who are stuck in the past processes. Digital natives expect digital experiences regardless of whether core tasks of the job are manual.
These are five ways FSM Technology can automate and streamline a variety of processes in order to increase productivity in times of talent shortages.
- Managers can quickly access customer details such as location, billing terms and activity notes. They can also view invoices, payments and audit history.
- Efficient scheduling features and dispatching tools can reduce the time required to schedule jobs and give managers an insight into team members’ activities, availability, and productivity. Map-based scheduling can clearly show the location of jobs and the times they occur, in one place. This eliminates the need for paper schedules, and also reduces the chance of whiteboard appointment information being accidentally erased. FSM tech allows scheduling and dispatching to be done on any device. This eliminates data silos and connects a small workforce with the information they need.
- Technicians can manage digital work orders and estimates from their mobile devices. It also includes useful features like project quotes, product or service demos, and the capability to capture photos, sketches and notes. The estimates can be converted into work orders easily. Managers can see and track estimated reports to gain insight into wins or losses and help them understand the most popular products. It also gives advanced insight into performance, helping to keep the business growing.
- Businesses can create invoice templates tailored to their business using logos, photos, or sketches. Then, they can export them as a PDF to send to the customer. Managers can create a catalogue of products, services and bundles that include pricing and tax rates. This eliminates the need to manually invoice. Digital invoicing also allows customers to pay on-the-spot, optimizing customer experience and cash flow. This allows companies to ensure that every invoice is accurate and provides assurances to all parties that the work was done correctly.
- Smart accounting takes out the hassle of entering accounting information and payments across multiple locations. This is a tedious, time-intensive task. The potential for human error is eliminated by a real-time, two way sync with third party digital accounting software. It allows you to automatically update customer records, invoices and other information.
FSM tech will make pool and spa professionals more productive by streamlining their work flow. This will allow them to concentrate on the tasks that need greater attention. Digitized FSM will reduce staffing gaps and allow for more efficient field service. This is more than just advanced insight for top management to analyze. This will allow you to attract more talent by balancing employee expectations with customer expectations.
Enda Hennegan is a senior product manager for GPS Insight.
