Make ‘focusing on people’ a strategic advantage

In March of 2015, Forbes hosted an event in Chicago called the ‘Reinventing America Summit,’ featuring a tagline of “Leading The Next Industrial Revolution.” In a summary article about ‘how to win the Big Talent Game,’ Kip Wright -- the SVP of Manpower North America -- is quoted as follows:

“How many of you spend months looking at your talent plan? Do you, every month, look at your financial plan? Of course. We’ve got to fundamentally think very selfishly and aggressively about how we manage our talent.”

This is a very important idea in field service organizations. Let’s discuss further.

How companies compete and become profitable

We produced an eBook on field service paths to profitability; you can download it for some ideas and guidelines.

In general, though, there is a belief in many business communities that you only become a high-performing, profit-driven organization if you spend a lot of time analyzing and re-adjusting financial metrics. Those are seen as tremendously important, and rightfully so -- as Kip Wright says above, most companies look at their financial plan every month, if not even more frequently.

The attitude about people -- “talent,” in other words -- has long been summed up by a quote from the award-winning show Mad Men:

Peggy -- the secretary turned copywriter -- tells Don -- the leading creative -- that he never says ‘thank you’ for the work she does.

He bellows back, “That’s what the money is for!”

Companies have often approached the idea of people/personnel/talent as a transactional concept -- essentially, they are paid salaries to do work, and the work results in organizational profits. Everyone should be happy.

But what if your people themselves became a strategic advantage?

Making your people into a strategic advantage

Consider MGM Resorts. For decades, they were focused on customer ‘whales’ -- people who would fly to Vegas and spend tens of thousands of dollars in a given weekend (or a given night). In the last few years, they’ve shifted that model and are thinking about internal ‘whales,’ or high-performing employees. That model has fostered greater engagement and helped to drive more profitability for the casinos.

It’s a simple concept, then:

Treat your employees the same way you treat your customers.

They’ll work harder for you, and you can achieve greater results.

How does this apply in field service organizations?

Massively. And here’s why: field service is all about individual interaction points, be in technician to customer, back-office manager to customer, back-office manager to technician, etc.

We worry about financial metrics, of course. But much of how a field service organization functions comes from three core concepts:

• The technology
• The operations model
• The people

Of those three, the people might be the most important. If our technicians love their jobs and feel valued, they’re going to naturally pass that feeling on to customers. That will lead to repeat business and increased chances at profitability. If our back-office managers feel respected and taken care of, they’re going to go the extra mile on projects. That can lead to revenue, but also innovation -- when someone really cares about his or her job and feels connected to it, this person is more likely to look for solutions to problems (as opposed to going with the flow).

Your employees and talent are a massive strategic advantage if you focus on them with the same intensity you focus on your customers. Remember that.

For more paths to profitability, download our eBook: 10 ways to make your field service organization a profit center.

Written by Jim Hare