Smart technology helping to address the skilled tradespeople shortage

It’s no secret that New Zealand needs more skilled, qualified tradespeople. From lumber workers, plumbers, and electricians right through to truck drivers and construction site operators, many trades are all in short supply. Coupled with increased demand and rising material costs, customers in many parts of New Zealand have their patience tested with waiting times from weeks to months.

Training more apprentices, getting skilled labour from overseas, and getting more people into the service industry is the long-term fix for the future. While the Apprenticeship Boost support programme is still available until the end of next year in the meantime businesses can rely more and more on smart technology to lift overall productivity.

Why safety culture matters

Plumbers, gasfitters, electricians, and other trades, work in varied locations each and every day. Although jobs are different, most of the time work is spread across a large geographical area and often involves driving for each day if they need to visit multiple sites. This is exacerbated in rural areas, where you may need to travel excess kilometres just to get to a customer.

In many industries time waits for no one – it’s common practice for businesses to take urgent requests, be on call 24/7 and assign technicians to do on-the-spot or ad hoc repairs as the day rolls on. The trade sector in New Zealand is also highly fragmented in the sense that most trade businesses are rather small with less than 5 people. All these factors contribute to the need for improved productivity.

There have been many studies confirming the link between safety and productivity over the years. For example, recent research from Science Direct suggested that workplace conditions have a direct impact on worker safety, health and wellbeing, and other significant business outcomes including turnover, productivity and healthcare costs.

With a mobile workforce, safety and productivity actually complement each other. When safety improves, so does productivity. As labour shortages persist, promoting workplace safety has a more pronounced role in staff retention, boosting productivity, and ensuring a strong, sustainable business into a foreseeable future.

What makes smart technology a game changer?

For businesses to be able to adhere to workplace health and safety legislation as well as provide highly responsive customer service, it’s critical to track the locations of staff and vehicles. This is one of the most popular uses of technology in trades – and the good news is a more high-tech approach not only meets this need but also uplifts business performance in many ways.

When there’s an urgent request in a remote, rural area, telematics is particularly useful for checking the status of employees and vehicles at all times, for both rural navigation and making sure lone workers get home safely. For example, a GPS tracking system lets fleet managers locate an employee in his/her vehicle to within four metres. They can easily use this information to decide which vehicle is closer to a job site, then assign staff to the most efficient route. It also helps when materials or equipment need to be collected as managers can have a quick look to see who is nearby, eliminating unnecessary side trips.

When it comes to ensuring duty of care, monitoring driver fatigue is a top priority. Long journeys without enough rest can increase the risks of being involved in incidents. A fleet management system provides a rich source of data including time spent driving, loading and stationary, which managers can use to stay in touch with staff on the road, ensuring that they are taking sufficient breaks and stay safe.

Maintenance made easy

As a fleet of vehicles and assets grows, you can start to have issues handling maintenance and keeping vehicles fit for purpose. Installing telematics and using a fleet management system streamlines maintenance, as you know how far vehicles have travelled, check utilisation, better understand usage, and then set up regular servicing and repair schedules with automatic alerts. These alerts can be created in advance to keep track of WOF, tyres, oil changes and so forth, helping reduce downtime and serious breakdowns.

This function also allows businesses to strategically plan for vehicle purchasing or switching the vehicles around, for example from a tradie who often travels to remote sites to another one who is based around town, for more efficient usage of mileage.

Efficient customer service

Many service businesses struggle with customers querying the invoice, particularly the charged-out mileage and time on site. But with in-depth information of time and distance travelled all recorded in a GPS fleet tracking system, business owners can ensure they’re always paid for their work while keeping customers happy. Instead of speculative calculations, managers can cross reference with their invoicing, charge the exact amount for travel and have solid proof in the form of mileage reports, giving customers peace of mind. This feature is also an advantage helping businesses to win more jobs, as preparing specific quotes allows you to be transparent and truthful, making it easier for potential customers to trust that they’re in good hands.

This is especially handy with a service business that has machinery on site, like a oval and parks mowing services that contract out to local government – with telematics fitted to the mowers, not only are they kept maintained and secure, you can show all location positions for each job if requested to show the work that was completed each day.

Using a GPS fleet management system also adds a level of transparency, as it gives businesses a better understanding of the accuracy of staff-time keeping. Operations and administration staff can be very accurate in letting customers know where the vehicles are and when they will come to sites, as well as assigning workers to exactly where they’re needed. This way, customers are kept informed and able to plan their days. Ultimately, it’s a tool for improving customer service and increasing efficiencies.

Visibility in all aspects of operational business including safety conditions, route efficiency, job progress, maintenance scheduling, invoices and so forth is necessary to ensure a fast, responsive and productive business. To better address the challenges and sharpen up day-to-day business operations, it is worth investing in smart technology solutions.