Falling short on-field workers can be one of the most difficult things to handle especially during a busy season. Being short staff will cost the company profitable job opportunities, which is something no business owner wants to give up. To combat this it is important to ensure that you have the right amount of staff for the job. 

In this blog, we will discuss the three clear signs that indicate your company is short-staffed and that it’s time to hire more fieldworkers. 

Current employees have full schedules 

Dispatching field workers to work orders can become stressful when there is limited bandwidth available. When there are not enough field workers in place, the dispatcher has no choice but to double book or sometimes triple a book a worker to work orders. Overbooking your employees can lead to employee burnout and reduced productivity. A good sign where it is time to hire more field workers is when you start having your current technicians travel across cities to complete orders. This is considered inefficient as your workers will be spending more time traveling than on billable work which essentially is not profitable. With a low-staffed team, last-minute work orders or emergencies will be difficult to handle, as the employees will not be able to pick them up. In that case, these work orders will be pushed for another day, leaving an unsatisfied customer and downtime for the company. When running a field service business, it is best to ensure that you are able to serve all your customers and confirm that you don’t lose any deals. Overall, if your dispatcher is constantly booking field team employees to multiple work orders outside of their normal schedule, it is time to consider hiring new employees.

Turning down revenue-generating opportunities

All field service businesses operate for profitable job opportunities and so when they cannot fulfill these jobs and turn down these opportunities, it can become frustrating. Denying profitable opportunities because of not enough bandwidth is considered to be a huge loss. Turning down work orders or delaying them can hurt your relationships with your customers and lead them to consider your competitors for faster and friendlier service. 

Unable to promote current workers

With limited resources and workers,  the company is unable to give out promotions or assign more important responsibilities because employees are confined to low-level tasked jobs. This can be demotivating for employees, especially if they’ve been with your company for a long time and haven’t received any recognition or advancement. With fewer opportunities for advancement within the company, current employees will most likely begin to look for other opportunities and leave the company. This will increase employee turnover and cost the company more money and time to train new employees. To ensure that these indicators are not being experienced in your workforce, look out for these signs and act on them. Spending some time in the beginning, recruiting a good number of field employees can save your company money and time in the long run.

At ServiceEcho we know how impactful your field team is to your business which is why we created an easy-to-use field service management solution that aids them in their day-to-day activities and simplifies their jobs. To learn more about how our solution will help your company overall, book a demo and speak to an expert.