“I think I can mirror some of Holland’s issues where the IT desks many years ago suddenly saw the value of the field service engineers and cherry-picked the best – and that’s the really, really hard thing to deal with was they cherry pick the best talent from the field service team,” commented Ged Cranny, Senior Consultant, Konica Minolta BEU. 

“However, we learned and now utilise that issue to our advantage, Cranny continued. “About a decade ago, we started looking at our attrition rates and decided, as a business unit, what a good attrition rate was for the business. We talked to people outside our own teams as well as our own HR people. For the first time, we spoke about attrition rates pragmatically, whereas previously, the level of discussion was generally ‘if someone was leaving, how was a sad thing’.

“It was at this point that we, as the service unit, decided that creating this chain was useful. We realised that if we were feeding the rest of the business, then in the long-term, this could actually be a great way of securing extra headcount for our part of the business,” Cranny explained.

“Essentially, we were able to turn around to the senior people in the business and show them how we were fuelling the company, to demonstrate how we were able to bring people in at the trainee level and accelerate their progression through the business faster than people had ever achieved in the past.

“So while it may have been counter-intuitive to begin, we eventually reached a position where we were actually happy for other departments to poach our engineers as it continuously re-enforced our position as the key starting point of the employment chain,” he added. 

“What is interesting about the process Ged is describing and which is something that is consistently coming to the fore in many conversations I’m having at the moment,” added Kris Oldland, Editor-in-Chief, Field Service News.

“For me it is all about taking a step back from the problem, looking at it from different angles and then being to reframe the issue so what is a weakness, can ultimately become a strength,” Oldland explained. 

“In this instance, it is essentially reframing the challenge of internal poaching of engineers as a proof of concept of field service as the entry point to the business that then opens up multiple different pathways across the business. We know both from the data of multiple studies, and I’m sure each of us anecdotally will recognise that a big difference in the workforce that we see as a result of generational change is that in the past, field service could be seen as a solid, and reasonably linear career option – which was attractive for a generation for whom the concept of a job for life was seen as something highly desirable.

“The incoming generation(s) have a far more transitory nature when it comes to a career journey, and I could see how field service as an entry point to multiple career pathways which may be more appealing to this new demographic entering the workforce and how in turn this could benefit the organisation as a whole, but also, of course, the field service organisation.

“What is interesting is that in both this and in the example Kevin referenced of the company finding technicians through an ad campaign on Mum’s Net, In both instances, the shift in thinking has been moving from looking at the situation with a different lens and in doing so making the roles more attractive to a wider pool of talent. How that looks will vary from company to company, but the essential idea of stepping back and looking at it from other perspectives is something that I think will be vital for all of us as we try and overcome what is a hugely prevalent issue.”