In any industry, employee and staff retention is important. This leads to consistency for the team, the customers, and the business as a whole. When working with contingent technicians or any sort of freelance workforce, retention becomes an even more important consideration. Having a consistent team of technicians you know you can rely on at a moment’s notice as customer needs arise, can make your job easier.
Right now, especially, consistency is important as we are living in the COVID-19 climate. As the situation continues to evolve, people and businesses are craving consistency more than ever. If you can provide stability for your team, vendors, and customers, you can significantly improve your customer experience. The best way to do that is by increasing the retention of your contingent workforce. It might sound difficult, but taking the time to attract and retain reliable technicians will pay off in the long run.
Why Do You Need a Strong Talent Pool?
Even if you have an existing relationship with a few specific contractors, things happen, and they might not always be available when you need them. Having a wide, strong talent pool ensures that you won’t be scrambling at the last minute to find techs to meet your customer needs. This is especially true during this time: if you already have a pool of technicians you trust, you can feel confident with the service your customers are receiving.
With a strong talent pool, you’ll save time you’d otherwise have to use interviewing, vetting, and onboarding new technicians. You can batch-process these tasks to refill your pool, instead of every time you have a new customer project that needs a technician.
Additionally, you’ll also always have the right techs for the job. Sometimes specialty projects can require specialized techs, and if you only have a few of those customers each year, it likely doesn’t make sense to have a specialized tech on staff full-time. Instead, with a wide, strong talent pool, you know you’ll be able to find the perfect person for every job. And, since you’ve presumably worked with many of these contingent technicians before, you know they’ll deliver the level of customer service your company needs.
Improving Retention with a Field Service Management Platform
Believe it or not, implementing a field service management platform can actually help you retain your contingent technicians. Even before that, though, the right FSM can help you through the vetting, interviewing, and onboarding process to help you save even more time and energy.
One of the best ways to increase contingent tech retention is by offering them stability. While they work on a contingent or freelance basis, most people want to feel secure, and stability helps provide that. By creating a team culture where your techs know they’re part of your go-to pool, you can create incentives for them to stick around.
Using a solid FSM helps them to feel like they’re part of the team. The FSM allows your team to easily communicate and ensures that all techs have access to the proper information and documentation they need for a particular job. They’ll know they can rely on you to have their back, so they don’t waste time looking for paperwork. This can increase their satisfaction and make them want to stay.
Another key way to improve your contingent tech retention is by staying flexible. Understand that since they are freelancers, they work hard to fill up their schedules with projects. If you have a last-minute need arise, understand they may already be booked for the day. When you can be more understanding and flexible with them, they’ll be more willing to come back for more jobs.
On that note, the FSM can also help your contingent techs manage their schedules and block off time when they won’t be available. They can easily check their hours and schedules remotely, so everyone is on the same page.
Between implementing a field service management platform and utilizing other workforce management strategies, you can improve the retention of your contingent technicians. Building a strong team is important, and your contingent workforce is a key part of that. The way you take care of your freelancers and make them feel like they’re part of your team is crucial to keeping them around.
