Empowering Employees Through Knowledge Management

Two of the articles in this series have discussed how to attract more women and young people respectively into the field service industry. However, now we need to get onto the topic of how we make sure this new influx of talent has the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their roles.

Training is a core component of any field service operation with some estimates placing the annual costs associated with it at around $19.7 million per annum and climbing. However, there is little point pouring all these resources – both fiscal and time related – into training programs if brands cannot be sure their methods are effective.

On the other side of the coin, brands with effective and engaging training programs will, not only see the quality of work being carried out by employees go up, but also likely experience higher levels of field service technician satisfaction and staff retention than those without.

Knowledge Management

One of the most effective ways of ensuring training is relevant and current is through knowledge management.

Knowledge management refers to a collection of methods centered around creating, sharing, using, and managing knowledge and information within an organization. Knowledge management efforts typically focus on organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration and continuous improvement of the organization.

This is particularly relevant in the world of field service as the industry needs more effective methods of retaining the knowledge and experience possessed by its ageing workforce and passing it on to the new generation of engineers.

"Our recent learning and development study backs this up," writes Learning360. "Here, 18% of respondents expressed concerns about understanding employee knowledge needs, and a further 14% faced challenges with keeping their training current. Thankfully, there’s a way to overcome these challenges – with the right knowledge management strategy, you can successfully identify, capture, and share information to become a true learning organization."

Essentially, knowledge management seeks to identify the sources of knowledge within an organization and find ways to make sure that information is retained and passed on – obviously, a core concept for a training application. Knowledge retention boosts company-wide collaboration, leverages in-house subject matter experts as a data resource, and increases employee engagement and retention.

Better Training

The first stage of knowledge management is to identify the sources of the knowledge you wish to retain. In the context of field service this is likely to be older technicians who are approaching retirement age, but that doesn’t mean you should limit the scope of your investigation to only those sources.

"Remember, information is everywhere," continues Learning360. "Knowledge can be held by specific departments, subject-matter experts, project teams and task forces. It can arise through individual learners when they identify their own learning needs in the flow of work. This knowledge might come from meetings, audits, reviews, or performance assessments."

The next task is to find ways to store and retain that information. Again, in the context of field service, this could involve getting technicians to construct guides and best practice papers on how to best perform various aspects of the role. If technicians lack the writing skills to construct these documents themselves, they can be interviewed for their knowledge, with the actual writing left to more appropriately skilled and qualified employees.

Finally, you need a method for sharing that information. The obvious choice is to use a cloud-based file sharing platform to make sure that all employees have access to the documents which are salient for their role. However, while you should certainly employ that option, we live in a time of unprecedented technological innovation which provides far more interesting and engaging knowledge transfer methods.

Augmented reality can be a valuable tool in knowledge transfer for example. Using mobile devices to superimpose schematics and other critical information over real world machines can improve skills development and increase the number of first-time fixes your organization achieves. You can even have a trainer guiding the trainee through a mobile communication device at the same time – facilitating effective training whilst affording the trainee a degree of independence.

"We know that implementing a knowledge management strategy won’t happen overnight," concludes Learning360. "It takes careful planning, consideration, and time. You need to embed knowledge-sharing into your company DNA and celebrate it as a key part of your learning culture."

Final Thoughts

Field service brands who want to take training seriously in 2022 would do well to consider a knowledge management strategy to facilitate the retention and transfer of knowledge and skills from one generation of technicians to another.

Empowering employees through training is sure to part of the conversation at Field Service Hilton Head 2022, taking place in August at the Marriott Hilton Head Resort & Spa, SC.

Download the agenda today for more information and insights.