A Field Service Business’ Guide to Looking After Employees

🔍According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), UK companies lose an average of 38.8 million working days each year due to work-related illnesses and workplace injuries.

Not only are occupational ailments inconvenient for workers and field services companies alike, but they also damage your reputation and have the potential to destroy your bottom line.

So, for field service organisations to thrive in a competitive, post-pandemic landscape, they must make employee health and safety their number one priority.

Fortunately, thanks to technological advancements in recent years, maintaining visibility over your workforce and health and safety procedures needn’t be a headache.

Let’s delve into how you can use state-of-the-art field service management software to look after both your field staff and office staff, and avoid disruptions to field service operations.

LOOKING AFTER FIELD SERVICE EMPLOYEES: HOW DO I ENSURE MY STAFF ARE SAFE AT WORK?

Historically, it has been tricky for field service organisations to gain a bird’s eye view of their entire field service operations to guarantee that health and safety procedures are being followed to the letter. 

Why?

Because reliance on outdated legacy systems and manual paper-based administration methods create a significant margin for errors to occur.

So, how can companies obtain accurate information and keep their field workers safe?

At the opposite end of the spectrum, modern technology has the power to handle your health and safety measures without creating extra admin for your back-office team.

Here are the top three ways field service software can enhance health and safety in the workplace:

1. MANAGE TIMESHEETS ELECTRONICALLY ⏰

🔍Around 44% of businesses struggle with timesheet errors — some of them on a weekly or daily basis.

However, apart from being time-consuming to correct, timesheet mistakes can prevent you from keeping an accurate record of working hours, leading to field service technicians potentially working over the legal limit per week. 

The good news is, field service management software can massively help here 👇

Inadvertent errors caused by manual timesheet processing can be a thing of the past when you move over to a digital field service management platform. By providing your field technicians with a mobile application, they can easily log their start and finish, breaks, and travel times directly from their mobile devices.

Plus, the field service management software instantly logs the data from your technicians’ devices and reconciles it against detailed vehicle tracking reports and time-stamped records of job activities. 

The end result? You’ll have an extensive, accurate record of each workers’ day and can ensure that they’re working within legal limits.

2. MAINTAIN YOUR EQUIPMENT AND ASSETS 🛠

🔍Data collected by the Labour Force Survey (LFS) suggests that around 44,000 non-fatal injuries are caused by machinery at work each year.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of being seriously hurt only increases when you don’t properly maintain your equipment and assets. 

And that’s where field service management software comes in 👇

Predictive and preventative maintenance is key to lowering the risk of harming one of your technicians on the job. With field service management software, you can easily keep track of all your equipment and assets to ensure that they’re in excellent working condition for both field staff wellbeing and to provide the best service delivery.

For example, technicians can perform daily vehicle walkarounds and log the results in the app in real time. 

The end result? Your field service managers can then get an instant alert and see common, recurring issues and work to mitigate them before they become a dangerous or costly hazard.

3. CARRY OUT RISK ASSESSMENTS ⚠

As an employer, it’s your responsibility to protect your staff and anyone who visits your site from illness or injuries caused by the work environment. A risk assessment enables you to identify all hazards and work to prevent them before they affect people.

🔍In fact, if you employ five or more people, it’s a legal requirement to document your findings.

However, keeping a paper record of your risk assessments can be a logistical nightmare, especially if you need to refer back to them further down the line. In contrast, when you manage your risk assessments electronically, you create and view a complete record of your appraisals in an instant.

But, with a field service management software like BigChange, risk assessments aren’t limited to your site exclusively. You can protect your technicians on customer visits by providing them with mandatory digital risk assessment forms that they must complete before beginning any work.

The end result? The risk assessment results instantly appear on your back office’s system, enabling your team to mitigate hazards and safely get the job back on track without any delay. 

FIELD SERVICE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE MAKES LOOKING AFTER EMPLOYEES STRAIGHTFORWARD

With businesses across the country shelling out an estimated £16.2 billion due to injuries and ill-health caused by the workplace, it’s evident that a lack of proper health and safety procedures presents a costly issue.

Since COVID-19 has impacted many companies countrywide, very few can afford to risk the fallout resulting from occupational harm. Luckily, technology provides a straightforward solution and ensures that your people feel safe at work.

Using BigChange’s field service management software, you’ll have access to the following key features to boost health & safety:

✅ DVSA-compliant vehicle checks

✅ Driver behaviour analysis

✅ Risk assessments and method statements

✅ Individual resource profiles that show how many hours technicians are working

And as a result, you and your field staff can rest assured that health and safety remain at the forefront of everyone’s minds, regardless of their location.

CREATE ROBUST HEALTH AND SAFETY PROCEDURES WITH BIGCHANGE

Your people are your most important asset. 

BigChange gives you the power to keep your field staff working safely and ensure their personal information is secure and up-to-date.

With our online driver behaviour analysis, risk assessments, method statements and vehicle walkaround checks, you can rest assured that health and safety are a number one priority. Want to find out more? Discover how BigChange can make your business grow stronger here and arrange a free demo today.