6 Ways to Monitor Employees Working in the Field
Great employees are the most important factor in every successful business. They deal with customers, drive your company forward, and represent your brand. When your employees are out working in the field, you need to be able to check that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. The vast majority of employees are honest, dedicated workers but you still need to make sure that they aren’t slacking off when they are working away from the office.
To help every business keep track of their workers, here are 6 ways to monitor employees working in the field.
1. Use Monitoring Software
There is excellent software these days which helps with every aspect of our businesses. Monitoring software enables you to view the status of each employee and how they are getting on with the job at hand. There are various options available for UK field service management software, so you will need to do your research to find out which best suits your business. Field management software allows you to assign your teams their next customer appointments, create instant job sheets, and provide any useful information they will need for each customer.
In terms of your employees, it will allow them to automatically update inventory numbers, track their sales figures, and work out their commission bonuses. Look for live tracking capabilities and advanced analysis technology and you will be able to choose the best software to monitor your employees.
2. Check Sales Numbers
If you have a company that sends your employees out to sell a product or service, then one simple way to monitor their work is to check their sales numbers. It is important that you have well-researched sales targets for your employees so that they know what is expected of them and do their best to connect with customers.
Many sales jobs work on some degree of salary plus commission, so most employees will be eager to sell as much as possible anyway, but stay in touch with their numbers and speak to them about any issues if they are not selling successfully. They may have suggestions about alterations you can make to the script or sales approach which will help to increase their conversion rates.
3. Send Out Field Supervisors
Another effective way for monitoring employees in the field is to send out field supervisors to check that everyone is doing their job. The supervisors don’t need to stay all day, they just need to make sure your employees are where they should be and are doing what they are paid to do. If you have employees in multiple locations, your field supervisors can rotate around the locations throughout the day to keep your employees on their toes. It is always best to promote from within when hiring a field supervisor because they will know about your field employees’ day-to-day tasks, and will also know about any tactics employees may use to evade monitoring.
4. Request Regular Check-Ins
Instructing your employees to check in with you regularly to keep you updated about where they are and what they are doing is very important for you to ensure that they are using their time wisely. You don’t want them to feel like you don’t trust them or that they are in the book 1984 under constant surveillance, but they do need to know that when they are out in the field, that they still need to work efficiently and professionally. Just updating you about when they will arrive at the next customer and how each meeting went should be enough to show that they are using their time effectively.
With the development and popularity of video calling technology, you can now speak to your employees face to face anytime, anywhere. Try organizing two face-to-face video calls throughout the day so that you can stay abreast of what each team member is doing.
5. Speak to Customers and Partners
Most employees will be sent out to meet current and new customers and partners and so a really easy way to check on their performance is to speak to those people after they have met with your employees. This will usually happen naturally as someone higher up in the chain in your business will do follow-up calls or meetings to take new deals onto the next stage. Ask for feedback about their experience with your employees and find out if there is anything they would change so that you can always improve your customer service.
There may be some issue between a particular employee and a customer where it would be beneficial to assign someone else to that customer. For example, if your employee is always late meeting the customer, you will need to check whether this is because they are being lazy or because their schedule makes it impossible to get there on time.
6. Check Travel Receipts
Your business may provide employees in the field with travel expenses upfront, or they may need to claim them back later. Either way, checking travel receipts is a really simple way to monitor what your employees were doing when they were out of the office. Check the route from the office to the different business locations they were supposed to visit each day and make sure that their travel receipts match up with that route.
The travel receipts will also give you a better idea of each employee’s daily routes. When you check them, you may notice a journey which takes them far away from their other customers and which may be better served with a different employee.
Monitoring your employees working in the field is very important to ensure that they are doing their best for your company. From using the right software to checking in with customers, the strategies in this article will help to ensure that all your workers are up to scratch when they are out representing you. You don’t want your employees to feel like they are under constant surveillance, but it is important that they know you are keeping track of them in order to get the best results.
