Utility field crews are out on the front lines daily, overcoming formidable challenges to ensure customers enjoy reliable, safe power. They work long hours, battle difficult conditions, and traverse large service areas. Alongside the obstacles that come with the job, many field crews face additional hurdles that make a tough role even tougher—including outdated tools, cumbersome paper-based processes, and a lack of real-time data.
In a challenging labor market where talent is hard to recruit and retain—with more than 30 percent of utility workers within five years of retirement—utilities cannot afford missteps that erode job satisfaction for their most valuable field crews. The EpochField workforce management platform helps utilities mitigate this risk, equipping teams with modern digital tools and streamlined processes that enhance efficiency, improve safety and strengthen overall job satisfaction.
Why Traditional Processes Frustrate Utility Field Crews
Inefficient manual processes and technology limitations have long plagued utility field staff, contributing to job satisfaction and lost productivity.
- When systems don’t optimize scheduling and routing, field employees spend more time than they should in transit, wasting finite work hours.
- When the utility lacks the technology infrastructure to share real-time data, field crews lack the timely information to complete their work efficiently.
- When the utility relies on outdated or inaccurate maps, service teams lack the situational awareness needed to work effectively and maintain safety on the job.
Today’s utility workers expect to use digital tools and modern technology, but few enjoy that experience. According to a utility industry survey, 51 percent of employees say some of their company’s technology is “insufficient or out of date.” Workers recognize that a lack of proper technology slows their work, makes it difficult to keep track of work orders, impedes communication with the operations team, and hinders their ability to adapt to changing conditions.
All of this adds up to a frustrating, stressful experience that drives job dissatisfaction. Notably, 92 percent of utility workers said job satisfaction directly impacts productivity, either moderately or to a great degree. Poor morale also fuels turnover, which increases costs and can jeopardize customer service.
How Mobile Workforce Management Boosts Morale
Utilities that invest in modern technology avoid these risks by positioning their field crews to work efficiently, effectively, and safely. One of the most impactful applications is a robust mobile workforce management solution like EpochField.
EpochField is a map-first mobile workforce management platform that empowers utilities to digitally transform, automate, and streamline field service operations. This single application improves all field workflows and facilitates geospatially enabled back-office scheduling, work type authoring, and work order creation.
Utilities that rely on EpochField report significant gains in worker morale and improved talent recruitment and retention, driven by the following critical advantages:
- An Experience That Meets Expectations. Today’s field service workers expect their employers to provide digital tools that make the job easier. EpochField meets— and exceeds— these expectations with a robust mobile application that delivers access to real-time GIS data and maps via a smartphone or tablet, combined with an intuitive easy-to-use interface. The solution’s offline capabilities equip field crews to work uninterrupted on the go, even where Internet access is unreliable or unavailable.
- Improved Efficiency. More than 30,000 utility field employees use EpochField daily to streamline their work and complete more tasks, faster. The platform automates every field service workflow—including work order creation and distribution—so field crews can conduct inspections, repairs, and maintenance with ease. Automatic assignment and route notifications eliminate wasted steps and manual work.
- Optimized Route Planning and Dispatch. EpochField’s Work Scheduler enables back-office and field managers to optimize crew assignments and provide the fastest routes to the next assignment, improving employees’ experience and maximizing time on productive tasks.
- Better Communication. By connecting field crews to the back-office team, a modern workforce management platform keeps teams agile and aligned across different work sites as assignments or conditions change. Real-time communication ensures rapid response and effective collaboration.
- Enhanced Safety. EpochField delivers a visual, map-based view of real-time GIS data and improves spatial awareness and reducing risk on the job. The platform modernized and automates gas leak survey and vegetation management processes for improved safety and regulatory compliance.
Utilities Improve Job Satisfaction with EpochField
Many leading electric and gas utilities report that the EpochField platform has improved worker satisfaction by equipping crews with the modern tools they need to work smarter.
San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) describes how EpochField has transformed the way field crews work:
“Before implementing EpochField, SDG&E field workers relied primarily on paper maps – some 27,000 of them – to manually record infrastructure data collected in the field during its annual field patrols,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a consultant who worked with the utility to orchestrate the digital transformation initiative. “Not only did this process create incredible amounts of data entry work for SDG&E on-site employees, but it also made it difficult to keep records up to date throughout the year as the collection and recording processes were so time and labor intensive.”
Now, SDG&E field crews use EpochField’s intuitive mobile app on their smartphone, tablet, or laptop, avoiding the manual steps they once used to collect, record, and process field data ensuring records remain current.
Nashville Electric Service (NES) also benefited from a unified, digital system of record. Before EpochField, NES field crews wasted effort conducting damage assessments without consistent progress data. “Because we didn’t have consistent data on work progress, engineering damage assessment teams were repeatedly going over the same circuit, wasting hours and many vehicle miles,” said John Savary, who served as the main technical contact for the project.
“With EpochField we’re able to deploy these teams quickly, based on fresh data they can download quickly and display fast, even offline,” he noted. Storm damage teams can use the system’s breadcrumb feature to complete circuit span assessments without making unnecessary repeat visits, and can report their progress back to office staff in real time, helping operations coordinate critical restoration efforts.
“The field teams also find it valuable to have all the GIS data present in a map with NES’s custom symbology, and to be able to interrogate this data along with circuit training,” he added.
EpochField provides the foundation to transform your field service operations. If your utility is ready to equip field crews with the modern technology that improves efficiency, safety and job satisfaction, it’s time to evaluate the EpochField workforce management platform.
Contact an Epoch sales consultant to learn how our digitized, geospatial solution can improve field worker morale, reduce turnover, and keep your organization fully staffed to deliver reliable energy. Or visit our Utility Operations Resource Center for more insights and resources from the utility experts at Epoch Solutions Group.
