by Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

In today's competitive service landscape, employee experience has emerged as a critical differentiator for organizations seeking to maintain high-performing field service teams. There’s ample research that shows companies with highly engaged employees outperform their competitors. Yet, many service organizations struggle to create meaningful connections with their distributed workforce.

In last week’s episode of UNSCRIPTED, I welcomed Jason Anthoine, who has an extensive background in communications, including in his former role as VP of Corporate Communications at Newell Brands. Jason and I discussed how the pandemic accelerated the need for a more intentional approach to employee engagement, how companies must reimagine employee experience for the modern workplace, and why the risk of sub-par communication is higher for field service organizations.

With field service technicians spending most of their time at customer sites, the risk of disconnection from company culture is high. In fact, many field service professionals feel more connected to their customers than their own organizations – a challenge that demands attention from service leaders. Here are three areas of focus from Jason and I’s podcast discussion that could provide immediate benefit to any company needing to put more focus on employee engagement.

Balance High-Tech with High-Touch

Jason and I discussed various method of corporate communications, which he refers to as the “big C” communications. These are the channels for the distribution of company-wide messages, and as you’d expect in today’s digital landscape many are tech-oriented. Whether this is an internal social media platform, company newsletter, companywide video conferences or webinars, or anything of the like, Jason urges leaders to understand the importance of balancing any “big C,” high-tech communications with a far more personal touch.

“As good as these platforms are and as good as some of the content is that's coming out from a ‘big c’ perspective, all of that just feels quite rational. But humans are also emotional, and so there’s a need for a high-touch approach by leaders to supplement that formal communication,” he says.

The importance of high-touch leadership is a sentiment that is shared by many leaders I talk with who emphasize the need to invest time in regular one-on-ones and share the ways they prioritize building a personal feel to communications with their teams. A big part of this is ample recognition, in ways that feel tailored to the individual you’re recognizing. Leaders should remember that often it’s the very small actions that yield the biggest impact – like taking the time to send a hand-written note or to FaceTime an employee to say a personal thank you. While high-touch communications are by nature manual and can be time consuming, service leaders leading highly engaged teams will tell you there’s no substitute that that the investment will pay dividends.  

Invest in Your Field Service Culture

As mentioned earlier, often field technicians spend more time with the customers they serve than they do company leadership or their colleagues. While the close relationships they develop with customers are wonderful, the risk is that those relationships become stronger than the relationship they have with the company they are a part of – and leaders need to take steps to ensure this isn’t the case. "The more time that they spend on customer sites, the more they begin to identify with that culture,” says Jason. “That shows you it is possible, and that it is also imperative that you do as much as you can so that they continue to identify with your culture."

Employees want to feel a part of something, and as leaders, you want them to feel a part of a team and invested in the mission of your company. With a distributed workforce, this is unlikely to happen without a concerted effort. Not only are your leader-to-employee communications crucial, but it can be very worthwhile to invest in building camaraderie among your teams.

When Venkata Reddy Mukku, Vice President Worldwide Service & Support Organization at Bruker Nano Surfaces & Metrology, was on the podcast to talk about his success using service as a competitive advantage, we spoke about a number of steps he takes to build a strong culture. One of those is investing in bringing his field service team together, in-person, to help foster relationship building and team feel. While he recognizes that it is an expense, it’s one he feels is very worthwhile in having the level of engagement and team rapport that he’s striving for.

Lean On Internal Influencers

Jason points out the major miss that occurs when an organization isn’t leveraging its internal influence, “In most organizations, about 12% of the workforce is what we would consider to be leaders, and they can only directly influence 50% of the rest of the employees. As opposed to internal influencers who are typically 3% of the workforce and can directly influence 90%."

While examples come up in field service of bringing key employees onside to help aid in change management or with communication around a certain initiative, Jason and I’s conversation left me feeling like the average current use of internal influencers is leaving a lot of potential on the table.

He suggests starting by trying to identify all your internal influencers. "The best way to find this out is to see who your own employees go to for ‘the meeting after the meeting,’ Jason says. Who is the one everyone goes to for their opinion? You can also ask your employees directly.

Once you’ve identified who these influencers are, collaborating with them can be incredibly helpful for implementing changes and maintaining team engagement. Leaders should focus on building authentic relationships with these influencers, not trying to make them formal corporate ambassadors. This approach allows for more organic and effective communication flow throughout the organization. The key is to maintain authenticity and avoid manipulating these relationships while leveraging their natural influence for positive organizational change.

What have you tried that’s worked in any of these three areas? I’d love to share your tips and tricks with our audience!