Field crew management is not an easy task. If you're the one in charge of it - the scheduling, rostering, and last-minute shift covering - we feel for you. We really do. And if you're doing it without a field crew management app? Whoa - gold star for you! Manual field crew management is never as simple as writing up a roster and assigning jobs to your team. The challenges of today's dynamic and fast-paced work environment mean you'll likely come up against such difficulties as:
- attempting to predict the inequality of assignments - because not all jobs require the same time and attention
- ensuring regular clients get the staff member they are familiar with (if they request it)
- balancing scheduling around the urgency of each job
- scheduling for unforeseen circumstances (yeah, right!)
- accidentally scheduling two crews for the same job (or, worse, none at all!)
- managing unexpected changes to field crew requirements, such as if a customer cancels a job at the last minute or if a staff member calls in sick.
When things happen, you might as well throw the schedule out the window, right? That's why we'd like to show you how ditching the paperwork in favour of field crew management software can take out some of the stress of field crew management - it can pre-empt some of these issues and mitigate them before they snowball.
What Is a Field Crew Management Software?
When you run a team, you can use field crew management software to assign tasks to your field employees and manage their shifts remotely. A good field crew management application with an intelligent algorithm can match open jobs to the crew. It can process all changes automatically and, better still, update the downstream jobs affected by changes. A field crew management software will also keep your field crew up to date with the schedule and notify them of any changes as they come up. It's like a little digital assistant who keeps you up to scratch.
Should You Implement a Field Crew Software?
Field crew management applications are useful for any business with staff operating in the field. If you run a trade business, that's you! Realistically, field crew scheduling software cuts down on the admin time you're currently dedicating to managing your crew's schedules - time you could be spending bringing in more work.
If you're on the fence, consider this: great crew management software improves accuracy, supports a great customer experience, integrates, and has an automated algorithm to predict your needs. When you input a job, your software can assign the right team members with the skills to complete the task and, if it's really clever, will know which tools you have in your inventory and assign them to the job.
Let's say an urgent job comes up. Field crew scheduling software can locate your staff and assign the job to the team nearest to the worksite, cutting down on travel time. It will also factor in your crew's time off to ensure nobody is scheduled to work when they're supposed to be at the beach.
Scheduling can feel like a full-time job some days. Could you benefit from leaving it all to an app?
What Does a Crew Management Application Do?
Ok, let's dig a little deeper and work out what a crew management application can do.
Managing Crew on Location
Good field crew management applications can monitor work as it's happening, with geolocation capabilities to let you know where your crew is at all times. For their part, your team can update jobs on the go to keep everyone up to date with the correct information.
Communication
Manual communication - great for finding out how Terry's mum is doing with her recently acquired motorbike licence, not so great for keeping up with job information. When all communication goes through the same structured channels, traceability is easy. Field crew scheduling software ensures everyone has the same information at the same time, taking manual communication out of the equation.
Scheduling Jobs
Field crew management applications make assigning jobs to your crew easy. With the information you input about each team member, the system can assign jobs based on the skills required and the number of people needed to complete the job.
Time management
With field crew management applications, manual clocking in and out, physical timesheets, and hours spent deciphering poorly written paperwork are a thing of the past. Your crew members can check in and check out of worksites using their devices, with the geolocation capabilities offering an extra layer of checks for your peace of mind.
It will also offer maps capabilities to give your crew the best route to a job site.
Best Field Crew Management Applications
There are plenty of options when considering field crew management applications, but in our opinion, these are some of the best on the market.
AroFlo
Let's get you dispatching jobs to your crews in real time! With AroFlo crew management software, you'll get an instant snapshot of all your resources, contractors, and equipment, helping you keep your team organised and efficient. Our simple interface is easy to navigate, so you can respond to client inquiries faster and see an overview of your day, week, or month ahead.
Connecteam
Manage your crew with a single solution. Communicate, manage, and train your field staff with Connecteam's all-in-one business app. Easy to use, easy to scale, and easy to customise.
Skedulo
Skedulo makes managing your mobile crew efficient and pain-free. Their Deskless Productivity Cloud allows any business in any industry to schedule, manage, engage, and analyse their mobile crew.
Get it right every time
Eliminate the hassle of manual scheduling with some powerful field crew management technology and get it right every time.
Now, we're not here to toot our own horn, but we think our software can help make it easy to get the right person to the right place on time, every time. No pressure, but if you want to book a demo, we’ll show you what AroFlo technology can do for your business.
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