BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Workforce Incident Response: Ten Steps To Take

Forbes Technology Council

Vikram Takru is the CEO and co-founder of KloudGin, working to create transformative field service and asset management technology.

When storms hit and extreme weather affects essential services, the first responders on the scene are field service workers. These field service and asset management technicians provide essential, mission-critical services to assess and repair damage.

Extreme weather patterns are a constant worry. Recently, winter storms affected the Gulf Coast states and the West Coast, leaving millions without power and water across Texas and nearly 170 million Americans facing warnings about treacherous weather conditions.

Field service workers are on the front line in these situations and carry out their work in potentially perilous conditions. Multiple sectors are affected by these disasters, and the speed of the response is vital. The more that can be done immediately after disaster strikes, the better the chance of reducing its impact. This has the potential to save lives, as well as restore essential services and repair damage to assets and infrastructure. 

Engineering And Construction Workers 

Roads will need to be cleared for emergency vehicles to gain access to them, and electrical and mechanical contractors may be required to help in reconnecting essential services. Damaged roadways, buildings, bridges and other structures will need to be made safe. 

Electric And Gas Crews 

Utility field service workers need to get through to access and assess damaged power supplies. These can often be in remote and inhospitable locations. They must work in potentially dangerous environments to get power restored as soon as possible and, for example, any broken gas mains must be made safe and repaired.

Water And Wastewater Technicians 

Flooding from extreme weather phenomena may cause problems with water and wastewater services. Technicians and engineers will need to work in hazardous situations to manage the recovery work and ongoing risks from both rising floodwater and contamination. Damage may be caused by floodwater or other elements from a natural disaster, such as fallen trees or moving debris. 

Telecommunications Workforce 

Telecom networks may be affected, leaving many households, businesses and organizations without any form of communication. Telecom workers will be in demand to work around the clock to get networks back up and running in the shortest possible time. They will need to work in demanding and hostile conditions during natural disasters to reestablish affected networks and, if possible, protect against further damage. 

Renewable Energy Teams 

Field service crews in the renewable energy sector face some of the toughest working conditions. At the time of natural disasters and extreme weather, the issues they face are multiplied as they work to monitor and protect assets, equipment and infrastructure. They must close sites to prevent damage and carry out repairs where needed. 

Facilities Management Staff 

Those in facilities management will need to coordinate teams and reduce business interruption. Staffers may need help with evacuation from buildings in extreme circumstances. The field service team will be inundated with customer requests and will need to respond while maintaining asset uptime and protecting facilities. 

Managing Mission-Critical Work 

Technicians need very specific information when they are working in such conditions. These field service technicians and engineers must also be as efficient and responsive as they can be in difficult circumstances, where their safety is often at risk. Field service organizations must always ensure the safety of their workers, even when they are out of network range, and provide the remote workers in potentially hazardous situations with everything that they need to remain operational during their mission-critical work. 

Ten Steps To Take 

When developing a system for communicating and managing field workers, be sure that you consider the following:

1. Mobile solutions are critical in response efforts to ensure field workers are in contact with office and support teams, keep communication flowing, and ensure the safety of the teams working at high risk.

2. Your field service management must be able to easily monitor workflows and progress.

3. Automated scheduling and dispatch will help to optimize this work — so decisions can be made in real time based on workers, the work at hand and their location.

4. Visibility is critical — particularly with situations that will be changing and are unpredictable.

5. Communication with customers must be maintained so that timely updates can be given, expectations can be managed and fears can be allayed.

6. Contractors will need access to the same information as the workforce, so organizations can seamlessly bring in additional resources where required.

7. Dangerous situations need to be flagged, and technicians must be reassigned as needed. Schedules must be redone at the touch of a button so that teams can react and respond accordingly.

8. All assets must be carefully managed, ensuring that the right asset is at the right place at the right time. In field service, many vehicles with specialist equipment are critical to the work at hand.

9. Current Covid-19 restrictions need to be adhered to, so contactless best practices must be part of the workflow and an inherent part of service delivery.

10. The first response in disasters is critical, and field service management solutions enable work to be delivered efficiently in terms of time, safety, productivity and cost.

When developing or buying a field service management platform, select an application that is built with the field worker in mind. Before selection, make sure the application provides simplified, real-time and GIS-based data that workers can access and update online or offline. And be sure to have your field workers test out the tool before you invest in it.

You must also be able to easily monitor workflows and their progress and update them in a way that can be read and understood in the field at a glance — for the complete optimization of work and assets.


Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?


Follow me on Twitter or LinkedInCheck out my website