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  Why retention should be a priority even in a downturn
 
In tough times like this, why worry about retaining staff? You may believe you have more important things on your mind - things like keeping your customers happy, your costs under control, and your company afloat.
 
Retention, though, has a major impact on all these concerns. Retaining skilled employees is critical to the success of any company, and no-one is more vital than the mobile workers - the people who have day-to-day contact with your customers and can go straight to the root of their problems. Retention of experienced mobile workers can mean the difference between customer satisfaction and the demise of the organisation.
 
Unfortunately, far from recognising the mobile workforce as the key to customer satisfaction, companies have typically treated it as an afterthought. This oversight puts organizations at risk of losing their best workers to their competitors.
 
Are workers really likely to jump ship with the job market in its current state? Unfortunately, they are. There's always a market for excellent people (and at the first sign of the predicted upturn, the pretty-good ones will be tempted too). And because it's so hard to make mobile workers feel like part of the company, they're unlikely to stick around out of loyalty.
 
The high costs of recruiting and training replacement staff, too, are especially unwelcome when times are tight. The implications for the viability of your company are clear.
 
RETENTION ISN'T JUST A QUESTION OF PAYING HIGHER WAGES
 
"That's all very well," you're probably thinking, "but I can't afford to throw money at retention right now." The good news is that you don't have to. Pay needs to be competitive, of course, but there are smarter ways to retain staff than getting into an auction with your competitors.
 
So what can employers do to enhance the job satisfaction of mobile workers? Helping people develop their skills; giving them work that stretches them just to the right degree; respecting their personal circumstances and preferences - all that helps. So does a bit of autonomy in planning one's work.
 
FPA CAN RECONCILE THE NEEDS OF EMPLOYEE AND COMPANY
 
It's fairly obvious what sort of thing makes employees feel good, but if you have a large workforce to schedule, and only manual methods or primitive software of doing so, it may be easier said than done. When conflicts arise between the needs of the business and the needs of the individual, the company always comes first.
 
With the latest generation of fieldforce process automation (FPA) software, however, those conflicts are a thing of the past. FPA solutions collect full information about each employee's abilities, training profile, preferences, home location and so on, together with an up-to-the-minute picture of work in progress. This information is made available to the scheduling process, which, without incurring extra cost or delay, can try thousands of solutions until it finds one that will keep both workforce and customers happy.
 
FPA lets you give workers the stimulation of "stretch targets" without the stress of an impossible workload. It can help them practise the skills they've learned on their latest training course, yet automatically adjust timings to reflect the fact that they'll take longer than a seasoned practitioner.
 
If someone has family commitments that mean they need to finish work near to their home, the FPA system knows to avoid sending them to the other side of town last thing. And employees can enjoy maximum autonomy without jeopardising corporate targets - for example, they can be allowed to plan the sequence of their day's work to suit themselves, providing they get everything done. As a result, the company benefits from their local knowledge.
 
The other great contribution FPA brings to job satisfaction is that it makes the mobile workforce into an intrinsic part of the company, instead of an afterthought. Not only can office-based workers see what the mobile worker is up to; the mobile worker can also see what's happening in the company as a whole, and in particular, how their efforts are affecting customer relationships. That two-way transparency engenders a sense of belonging, making the traditionally detached mobile worker more loyal.
 
Incidentally, the benefits of FPA are not just limited to those mobile workers. Back at the ranch, anyone with the job of co-ordinating mobile workers will find their job a lot more stimulating. With the day-to-day frustrations of scheduling and re-scheduling taken care of automatically, co-ordinators are free to concentrate on more intellectually demanding challenges, such as measuring and improving customer satisfaction.
 
FPA MAKES THE MOST OF YOUR WAGES BUDGET
 
Money still talks, and FPA software helps you reward staff in a way that aligns the objectives of the business with those of the individual. For example, you can identify high-value jobs - those that mean most to the company - and ensure that these jobs get allocated to the mobile workers whose talents and training equip them best to tackle them. You can attach special financial incentives to these special jobs, rewarding quality as well as quantity.
 
You may also find you have extra money to spend on wages. Intelligent scheduling could deliver a productivity improvement of 30% or more - at least some of which savings could be fed into wages and incentive schemes.
 
CONCLUSION: THE COSTS OF NOT CONSIDERING RETENTION
 
Rather than ask whether you can afford to address staff retention, it's time to ask yourself whether you can afford not to. We've all observed the vicious circle that can arise when a business is getting poor results from its field organisation. Low productivity leads to low pay, low skill-sets and low motivation, which in turn generate even lower productivity.
 
With the right approach and the right technology, you can instead create a virtuous circle, where superior skills lead to better productivity and profitability. Naturally, that means better staff retention too: after all, what sort of business would you prefer to work in?