In any organization dedicated to maintaining equipment, infrastructure, or other essential systems, the skills of service technicians can make the difference between success and failure. Individuals provide maintenance, and the organization is only as good as the capabilities of its people.
Tracking these skills is not just a best practice; it’s a necessity for meeting and exceeding service level agreements (SLAs), whether delivered internally or externally.
When this skills catalog is available within a maintenance management application, the entire ecosystem of assets, locations, people, and work orders can rhyme in concert. As a maintenance manager or head of a service organization, here are some of the benefits of bringing that ecosystem together:
Plan and Forecast Effectively
Cataloging the team’s skills forces you to thoroughly assess their capabilities, helping identify gaps in your organization. This is a tougher exercise than it seems.
A skills dashboard provides a clear view of the total number of people with specific skills.
Assigning skills to work orders or tasks rather than specific individuals improves flexibility in your planning. This two-stage approach, from general to specific, allows you to start planning well in advance.
Deliver Quality Preventive Maintenance and React Quickly to Corrective Maintenance
When a breakdown occurs, the downtime counter starts. Providing the best technician with the right skills is perhaps the most essential aspect of resolving your problem as soon as possible.
Implementing maintenance schedules that are informed by technician experience and capabilities can increase the chances of avoiding breakdowns through better preventive maintenance.
Manage Team Strength and Workload
Balancing workload so your team doesn’t burn out and make critical mistakes in the field. If you can see how much demand you have for specific skills, it becomes easier to ensure you have enough people to meet that demand.
Forecasting your maintenance team’s capacity and hiring people with the right skills when you’re running behind. Doing this well in advance can help you deliver maintenance on time and within budget.
Deciding which skills are too niche or expensive to maintain in your organization. Instead, keep track of suppliers or freelancers by the skills they offer.
Maximize Safety and Compliance
Reducing the risk of accidents ensures a safe working environment by preventing individuals without the proper skills from causing unintended outcomes. These can be disastrous for both your individuals and your company.
Tracking the certifications that confirm an individual’s qualification for certain activities may be required by law, by your organization, or even by a customer’s organization.
Maintaining detailed technician training and certification records can support internal and external compliance audits.
Motivate and Develop Your People
Pushing your team to excel and achieve the next level in their skill development can be crucial for helping them reach their full potential.
Identifying opportunities for improvement for individuals and then providing them with training on specific skills.
Positioning your team to do work they are confident in delivering and helping improve their morale and self-esteem.
These are just some of the important ways in which tracking your team’s skills in your maintenance management application can make a big difference in your ability to deliver high-quality outcomes.
At Sensys, we believe that people are the foundation of a robust maintenance and service organization. We offer one of the only applications that can help bring your people, their skills and certifications, your assets, and work management into one central location.
Get in touch to schedule a demo so we can show you exactly how it works!
