Field service workers and tradespeople play a critical role in ensuring housing organisations offer safe, affordable and well-maintained housing. Working on the front line and dealing directly with tenants means the role of a field service worker can be demanding, performing essential tasks ranging from routine maintenance to emergency repairs.
That’s why retaining your best mobile operatives is essential for operational efficiency and providing the quality of service that tenants need.
In this article, we tackle the challenges housing organisations face in hiring and retaining these highly skilled professionals, so they can keep team morale high and reward tenants with a best-in-class service.
Challenge 1: Navigating a competitive market for skilled labour
The labour market for tradespeople is highly competitive, as skilled workers – electricians, plumbers, carpenters and decorators – possess desirable skills that are in high demand across several industries.
This means that their earning potential can fluctuate depending on the industry they work in. For example, tradespeople may be able to command higher wages in the private sector or through independent contractors.
The challenge for housing associations is that they may have tighter budget constraints, struggling to offer competitive salaries and benefits. This can make attracting and retaining the top tradespeople tricky, as they are likely to go where the money is.
Challenge 2: Avoiding mismanagement and exploitation
In the past, housing organisations could have been accused of being guilty of treating field service workers as a resource and a focus has been on maximising productivity, without enough focus on employee wellbeing. The result of focusing so heavily on productivity in field service working has led in many cases to workers being “flogged” into delivering more work with little regard for their job satisfaction and work-life balance.
Unfortunately, this has meant that turnover rates can be high and the best talent is lost to other industries that are more accommodating.
Housing organisations need to be able to meet the increasing demands of providing safe, affordable housing without putting the strain on field service workers. Failure to do so will put increased pressure on the tradespeople they employ and the lack of support could lead to burnout and dissatisfaction, prompting workers to seek better opportunities elsewhere.
Strategies for retention: Valuing and motivating field service workers
To address these challenges and retain the best field service workers in the business, there are several strategies for housing organisations to consider.
- Competitive benefits and perks: Decent salaries, comprehensive benefit packages and bonus schemes all help to boost staff retention. This could include health insurance, retirement plans and overtime pay.
- Work-life balance: Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is essential in the modern working world. Whether it’s flexible work patterns, effective workload management, adequate time off or mental health support, it’s important your workforce doesn’t burn out.
- Positive working environment: A supportive and inclusive work culture helps mobile operatives to feel valued and respected. Offer regular feedback, recognise their achievements and help to build a sense of togetherness among the mobile workforce.
- Professional development: Opportunities for training and career advancement help to keep tradespeople motivated and show that their expertise is valued. Consider regular skill development programmes to add to their current skill set and give them opportunities to diversify their roles. It’s also good to offer clear career pathways that allow them to advance to higher positions within the organisation.
- Engagement and involvement: Ensure field service workers are involved in the organisation’s decision-making process, giving them a chance to voice their opinions. Surveys and forums are good ways to receive feedback from tradespeople and address their concerns.
- Recognition and reward programmes: Recognising the hard work and dedication of your field-based workers can boost morale, and rewarding them for doing so will motivate them further.
Retaining skilled field service workers and tradespeople goes beyond immediate operational benefits. It helps housing organisations achieve continuity in service quality, build stronger relationships with residents and produce happy and motivated workers who are more likely to go the extra mile.
From a business point of view, a stable workforce also helps to reduce the costs associated with high operative turnover, such as recruitment, training and the temporary dip in productivity.
ROCC can be part of the solution
Our latest innovation, ROCC Attend, is a new field service mobile solution designed to level the playing field for housing associations of all sizes and budgets with a fully scalable and completely customisable app.
Field service worker satisfaction and happiness are at the heart of its design, so you can ensure your housing organisation is well-placed to make the working environment for your mobile operatives as positive as possible. ROCC Attend can help to give operatives everything they need to succeed, including:
- Access to the right information in real-time
- Visibility of upcoming work
- Enhanced connectivity
- Encouraged and monitored breaks
- Reduced stress and workplace anxiety
- Safety and less risk of injury or abuse
ROCC Attend has been designed to give the power to housing organisations to build whatever they need without having to repeatedly ask suppliers for help.
It allows housing organisations to customise every part of the solution, build their own screens, add their own data sources and tailor every element to tackle the particular challenge they face, ensuring the solution works in exactly the way they want to get the best out of their operatives.
The solution was developed to ensure operatives have all the information they need on their phone or tablet to complete housing maintenance jobs, even if they are out of range. All updates made are uploaded with timestamps, giving full visibility of how much time spent on each job is productive. Plus, mileage and carbon footprints are reduced by avoiding unnecessary visits to depots for materials.
ROCC has always been a people-focused business and all of us genuinely care about the end goal of making homes better for all social housing residents. Some housing associations just cannot afford the right software to deliver the best service and that’s where ROCC Attend came from; our desire to give everyone a chance to own market-leading software regardless of their size and budgetary constraints.
It’s affordable and accessible for all social landlords, with scalable costs allowing small housing providers to have all the enterprise features a larger housing provider has.
Next steps
The retention of field service workers and tradespeople is crucial for the success of housing associations. By addressing the challenges we’ve outlined in this article while implementing some of the supportive strategies to help mobile workers feel supported, you’ll ensure you provide high-quality services to the communities you serve.
To foster stability and wellbeing for both workers and residents, why not get in touch with a member of our customer service team to see how ROCC Attend can help your housing association?
