When you hear the term ‘job tracking’, you may think of micromanagement; excessive control, overbearing supervision, and employee demotivation.🤨 But in the field service industry, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Job tracking is a tool designed to empower both field service professionals and managers – to support independence, not stifle it.
In this blog, we’ll dispel the myths and look at how job tracking can be the key to efficiency and growth across the business.
But, before we delve into the benefits, let’s break down why job tracking is there to make your life easier, not harder.👇
Job tracking facts: What job tracking is and what it’s not
Micromanagement is a managerial approach where supervisors closely monitor and direct employees. In field services, this approach doesn’t work because field workers are specialists entrusted with fixing customer problems.
They know their stuff and micromanagement would simply undermine their expertise and quickly decrease morale. So, how can managers keep a close eye on jobs, whilst respecting engineers’ needs?
Cue: Job tracking. More specifically, job tracking software.
With the right job tracking software, you can track job statuses and engineer availability 24/7 – without directly checking in with engineers throughout the day. This has the power to boost operations and deliver greater profit margins, without affecting team independence.
Here’s how. 👇
On top of this, it's also a great way to keep customers in the loop with ETAs and job status reports – all automated, saving you time and administrative costs.
📕Read more: Job tracking software: Your ultimate guide.
Benefits of job tracking for engineers
One of the most stand-out benefits is job tracking’s ability to streamline workflows. For engineers, this means less stress having to juggle paperwork, manually updating jobs, and having multiple phone calls to update the back-office team.
With job tracking software, manual processes are digitised, meaning you can send customers ETAs and back-office teams know straight away that a job is ready for invoicing. Everything is paperless, better organised, and less time-consuming. And it’s faster to complete job sheets and nothing is missed, because of built-in prompts and functions like photo and signature capture.
What’s more, when things don’t go to plan – like an emergency pops up or there’s congestion up ahead – engineers can receive instant updates and automated reroutes.
Keen to hear more? Here are some additional benefits:
- Improved safety: Some job tracking software includes alerts for jobs that have additional safety requirements.
- Skills matching: Ensuring the right person is sent to the job.
- Faster data input: A lot of manual tasks are replaced, like updating customers and back-office teams of an engineer’s arrival on site.
- Time savings: There are huge time savings which relieves frustration and means engineers aren't forced to do overtime.
Benefits of job tracking for managers
Access to instant updates and real-time data is a major benefit for managers. Managers literally have a range of performance metrics at their fingertips – everything from how long jobs take to complete, through to customer satisfaction ratings.
And with these two examples alone, they can better forecast, run more accurate invoicing, and make decisions to improve service quality.
But beyond this, it also creates a sense of accountability within teams. Managers and the engineers they work with know what tasks are expected of them, they can see the performance metrics, and they can take ownership of their roles – without it feeling like micromanagement.
Job tracking becomes part of usual processes. Ultimately, it creates daily insight to allow managers to make quick decisions, as well as the data to make more long-term decisions.
And that’s not all. Here are some additional benefits:
- 🌿Reduced waste: Everything from tracking parts through to labour helps to track KPIs and keep profit margin percentages higher.
- 💼Compliance monitoring: Managers can track job performance against KPIs, SLAs and other industry standards, thanks to real-time updates.
- 🫶Higher team morale: When everyone knows what’s expected of them there’s less stress and greater levels of employee satisfaction
- ↗️Scalability: The more efficient the operations, the greater the customer satisfaction levels, the more work that can be scheduled in. Job tracking systems make it easier to manage complex operations.
Bottom line: Job tracking is empowerment, not micromanagement
As you can see, job tracking is a powerful tool for boosting efficiencies across field service operations. With real-time visibility into people, parts, and equipment, everyone can get on with their jobs without constant check-ins.
The transparency allows them to take ownership and quickly adapt to changing conditions on the ground.
In fact, field service businesses that use it boast 5 times more services carried out per month, 10% revenue increases and fourfold business expansion.
These figures speak volumes about the impact job tracking has on both field service teams and ultimately the bottom line. It’s not just about oversight - it’s about optimisation.
The data and visibility empowers teams to:
- Route more efficiently to finish jobs faster
- Spot bottlenecks and delays before they happen
- Accurately set customer expectations
It literally helps field service businesses accelerate growth by doing more with the same resources. 🚀
Why 1000’s of field service businesses choose BigChange job tracking software
Keen to use job tracking software in your business? Make sure you choose the right tech. Put simply, Big Change is the go-to for field service businesses.
Here are a handful of reasons why:
- 👍One platform for all to access: Manage everything from job scheduling to invoicing and track KPIs.
- 👍Real-time updates: Designed specifically for mobile, BigChange is even accessible when engineers are in the most remote locations with no signal. Updates simply sync up as soon as the signal is restored.
- 👍Easy to use, yet configurable: It’s not often that tech is both intuitive and flexible to meet your exact needs.
- 👍Training for all: And if there are additional training requirements, we provide a 24/7 support line and have dedicated training courses.
- 👍Compliance seal of approval: Highly regulated sectors trust us to support compliance needs – so you avoid hefty fines and reputational issues.
Pssst. You can also check out our case studies (here) and customer reviews (here) to see what your peers say about us.
Or, dive straight in and book a demo today.
Looking for more job tracking insights? Check these out:
- 📘Read: 5 reasons your business should use job tracking
- 🔎Discover: 4 things to look for in the best job tracking software
👉Download: Your free PDF guide to job tracking software
