Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | JANUARY 2021 | 37 Operational Excellence report, Utility Week will host a dedicated vir- tual roundtable event for operations, HR and customer service leaders in utilities to discuss what is needed to fully equip eld personnel for customer service in February 2021. Contact Lizizard@fav-house.com if you are interested in attending. Digital training and development The bene ts of delivering distance-learning and modular training for eld-based sta have long been mooted, but rarely seen as a must-have until now. The pandemic has given digital training and development solu- tions a chance to show their worth and to break down barriers to adoption or engage- ment which might otherwise have seemed too troublesome to overcome. Many are now considering how to augment digital train- ing and development application, linking them to and making them more responsive to operational performance data which can suggest where individuals or teams need new or refreshed knowledge. Virtual management and convergence of consumer and industrial technology The pandemic has driven a ubiquitous uptake of virtual collaboration tools for con- ducting meetings and maintaining commu- nication lines between individuals or teams and their managers. More signi cantly, how- ever, the wholesale shi• to virtual manage- ment and stresses imposed by the pandemic on mental health have accelerated and magni ed a cultural shi• in management approaches, pushing leaders to maximise their accessibility to those reporting into them and ensure they are using technology e ectively to help monitor wellbeing as well as performance. Another consequence of the reliance on virtual tools for management and reporting during the pandemic has been an exposure of the outdatedness of some eld force devices. To head o frustration and ensure workers and their managers can communicate with ease, some rms are looking to refresh their eld devices and ensure they can deliver a consumer-grade user experience. Jane Gray, content director "Integrate enterprise, asset and customer data to maximise the benefi ts" Comment Michael Lewis Digital transformation director, Salesforce T he pandemic has undoubtedly cre- ated an envi- ronment of necessity which has sharpened the focus of utilities in getting the fundamentals of digital transformation in eld operations in place. Companies who were further behind on this journey at the start of 2020 – with paper- based reporting systems still in place in some instances – have levelled up in terms of digitising processes. Meanwhile, those who began the year from a position of rela- tive maturity have had the business case for initiatives to bring closer to real-time updates to eld workers and customers reinforced. It was encouraging, too, to hear from report contributors that the added emphasis created by the pandemic on connectivity is causing some companies to review how t for purpose the tools in the hands of their eld workers really are. A focus on closing that gap between consumer technology and the experience workers get from corporate devices is becoming ever more important to sustaining engagement and productivity. Excellent usability, intuitive interfaces and the ability to support seamless virtual inter- actions with colleagues from any location, need to become the norm. Another really positive message from the contributors to our report was the sharpened appreciation they say the pandemic has cre- ated of the role eld sta play as frontline customer service personnel. This is a key trend which has been building for a num- ber of years and one which is seeing utilities evolve from engineering-led businesses into service-oriented organisations with cus- tomer interests to the fore. It's clear utilities are making strides to enable eld sta to think of themselves as service providers and help them make deci- sions that are in the best interests of cus- tomers. However, there remains plenty of scope for transformation in this area. Better integration of enterprise, asset and customer data could unlock signi cantly greater agil- ity in the way work is prioritised deliver the biggest positive outcomes for immediate and long-term customer needs. in association with Read the full report The full report, "Accelerated transformation in eld operations" is available to download from utilityweek.co.uk "The reason we choose [to give fi eld workers iPads] is because of the ability to easily create your own applications [on these devices]. We've currently got 25 diff erent apps that we use, all of which have been developed in-house." Graham Halladay, director of operations, WPD "In one sense the area teams are the factory production team, with all the responsibility to get water services to customers at the lowest price." Simon Chadwick, digital services and central operations director, United Utilities "Our ambition is to get to a place where work technology mirrors our staff 's home life technology." Patrick Clarke, director of operations, UKPN In association with The lasting impact of the coronavirus pandemic is being felt in all corners of utility operations. The move for some staff from the company office to spare room might appear the most obvious shift, but those who spend most of their time out in the field have also seen employment habits re-shaped too. These armies of key workers who kept services running during lockdown - linesmen, jointers, repair and maintenance crews and water network operatives - also had to take onboard new working practices overnight. On a physical level, that involved splitting up from work partners and driving around in singly occupied vans, social distancing on site, and applying new practices when visiting customer's homes. But the pandemic has also caused an acceleration in digital transformation for field operations and placed a heavy emphasis on the need for workers to have reliable, easy to use mobile technology in their hands. In this report, created by Utility Week in association with Salesforce, we explore some of the key ways in which the field worker experience has been altered by the pandemic and how it has accelerated pre-existing trends for change in field operations. In a regulatory environment in which companies are being asked to deliver increasingly stretching efficiency and service improvements, these areas of catalysed transformation potentially position utilities more strongly to meet the expectations of the regulators in new and upcoming price controls. The insights included here are primarily based on in-depth interviews with senior operational and HR leaders at energy and water Utilities (details on the following page), as well as additional observations and information picked up in Utility Week's ongoing conversations with sector leaders and experts. I N S I G H T R E P O R T Accelerated transforma on in field opera ons How the pandemic has catalysed change in field worker experience and field force management Areas of accelerated field force change Digitisation of field processes Field workers as the front line of customer service Digital training and development Virtual management and convergence of consumer and industrial technology Quotes from report contributors Graham Halladay, director of operations,

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