Author: Charlotte Wylde

June 10, 2026 | 5 Mins Read

Highlights from Future of Field Service Live NYC

June 10, 2026 | 5 Mins Read

Highlights from Future of Field Service Live NYC

UNSCRIPTED — EPISODE 369 • EVENT RECAP

In this solo episode, host Sarah Nicastro recaps the Future of Field Service Live event in New York City — surfacing the key moments, sharpest insights, and ideas worth carrying back from a day spent with some of the most forward-thinking service leaders in the industry.

There is still no real substitute for in-person community. That’s the takeaway Sarah Nicastro returns to time and again after the Future of Field Service Live events — and the New York City edition, the first FoFS Live since 2024, was no exception.

Held at Glass House Chelsea on a sunny morning with three walls of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan, the event brought together a select group of senior service leaders for a full day of sessions, conversations, and the kind of candid debate that only happens when you take people out of their inboxes and put them in the same room.

This solo episode is Sarah’s recap of the day — five sessions, five sets of insights worth bringing back to your organization.

Leading People Through Change Starts With Understanding What Motivates Them

The day opened with keynote speaker Sarah Aviram — author of The Scenic Route and a speaker who has worked across 12 countries in twelve months — setting the tone with a question that sounds simple but rarely gets the attention it deserves: why do you do your job?

Her point wasn’t philosophical. It was practical. If you can’t answer that question for yourself and for the people who report to you, you’re not equipped to lead them through change. Aviram’s remotivation method — built on six core drivers of fulfillment at work — gave the room a framework for thinking about motivation that goes well beyond the surface. Her distinction between freedom and agency was a particular standout: more freedom, she argued, doesn’t automatically produce more fulfillment. The right kind of agency does.

“If you don’t understand what truly motivates the people around you, you will not be able to effectively lead them through change.” — Sarah Aviram

Customer Intimacy Isn’t a Strategy. It’s a Commitment.

Natalia Schuman, President and CEO of MISTRAS Group — recently named Frost & Sullivan’s 2026 Global NDT Field Inspection Services Company of the Year — joined Sarah for a conversation about what it actually takes to deliver award-winning customer outcomes.

Her answer was rooted in something deceptively simple: listening. When Natalia stepped into the role in early 2025, she spent her first ninety days talking to a hundred customers. Not to pitch, not to reassure — to listen. That discipline shaped every strategic decision that followed.

She also spoke to the underutilized power of frontline knowledge — a theme that ran through the entire day. The technicians closest to customers hold a wealth of insight that many organizations never tap. And when it comes to digital transformation, Natalia was clear: it’s not a shift away from human skills. It’s the combination of both that creates genuine differentiation. Her guiding principle for the organization’s evolution? Not revolution — evolution. Moving at a pace customers can navigate alongside you.

Are You Measuring What Actually Matters?

Matt Tice, VP of Global Services at QuidelOrtho, built on his earlier UNSCRIPTED conversation with a session on what it takes to reposition service as a competitive edge. His insights were grounded, direct, and earned.

One of his sharpest observations: in service, the metrics we watch most closely aren’t always the ones that tell us the truth. At QuidelOrtho, that meant moving away from transactional NPS — where strong service relationships were masking a more complex reality — toward customer effort and satisfaction scores that gave lower numbers but far more actionable data.

Matt also reinforced a point he’s made before: data gives you credibility. Storytelling creates urgency. You need both to drive executive buy-in. And when you’re making the case for investment, don’t just show what you’ll gain. Show the cost of doing nothing. Model the gap. Make inaction visible.

The Frontline Is a Commercial Asset. Most Organizations Aren’t Using It That Way.

Dave Clement and Eric Flato from Simon Kucher led the afternoon workshop, anchored in joint research on commercial growth opportunities in field service. Their central argument: despite more pressure than ever to drive revenue, many organizations are sitting on an underutilized asset in their frontline technicians — and don’t realize it.

The workshop covered where service growth potential sits and what stands in the way of realizing it, the different approaches organizations are taking to technician enablement and incentives, and practical tactics for helping field teams identify and influence revenue opportunities in the moment.

A question from the audience connected the session back to Natalia’s morning keynote: the best way to motivate technicians to engage in growth is to frame it around customer outcomes. When the goal is genuinely to serve the customer well, it fits naturally with how technicians already see their role. When it’s purely about the numbers, it doesn’t.

Three AI Myths Worth Retiring

Nick Vandeveer, Chief Innovation Officer at IFS Nexus Black, closed the day with a think tank designed to cut through the noise on AI. Three myths, three honest conversations.

Myth one: AI is a strategy. It isn’t. AI serves the business strategy you already have. Leaders being told to “go do AI” without a clear strategic foundation are setting themselves up to fail.

Myth two: AI is a panacea. Once you identify a problem and look carefully at what it would take to solve it, some aspects of the solution may be AI — and some may be process changes, organizational shifts, or other tools entirely.

Myth three: data readiness is a prerequisite before you can begin. This one was the most nuanced. Nick was clear that advances in LLMs have made it possible to do more with unstructured data than was true even recently. But — and this matters — that does not mean the state of your data is irrelevant. You can work in parallel. You cannot afford to ignore it.

The day ended with drinks, views, and the kind of conversations that continue long after the formal agenda wraps. The next FoFS Live event takes place in London on September 24.

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Service Organizations Can’t Win the Talent War Without Strategic Employer Branding

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator and Editor in Chief, Future of Field Service

On last week’s podcast, I welcomed Marta Riggins, a strategic employer branding consultant who formerly held roles at Instacart, LinkedIn, and Pandora Music, to explore why employer branding matters so much for service leaders today and why she’s passionate about the opportunity for organizations to pave the way as “frontline-first.”

It’s clear that attracting, hiring, and retaining the next generation of frontline talent is one of the biggest challenges field service industries face. Marta shared some excellent advice on why, within your industry, it’s a must to consider the role employer branding plays, accurately assess your approach, and make adjustments to improve your position in the quest for tomorrow’s talent.

But as a resource that reaches across industries, I think there’s also something to consider around how field service as a whole creates an elevator pitch that succinctly explains what this unique collection of industries is, so that the ability to express the wealth of career paths within it becomes easier and resonates better. A couple of years ago my husband and I watched Halt and Catch Fire on AMC; one of the main characters made the statement that, “modern society sits on a foundation of services that we take for granted.”

I thought, wow, that simple phrase summarizes quite well what field service is and the important role it plays in our society. While each organization must consider how it positions itself as an employer of choice in its specific industry, influencing young people on the breadth of opportunity in field services will require a better understanding of the broader context. While an individualistic approach is necessary, greater collaboration on a collective identity I believe would be beneficial to create more momentum in youth visualizing the potential we all know exists.

With that food for thought shared, let’s get into some of the insights that Marta shared on last week’s podcast. Here I’ve curated seven levers we discussed that I believe many organizations may be underutilizing (or even missing altogether).

Lever #1: Understand the Importance of Perception

As you’ve heard, perception is everything. And while that isn’t entirely true as it relates to employer branding (which we’ll get into in Lever #2), how your company is perceived is crucial to your ability to attract talent. Is your brand presence confusing or clear? Boring or exciting? Fresh or outdated? What impression do you believe your ideal talent would have if they looked at your website, read a job description, or visited your company’s social media?

These are important questions to reflect on, and I’d surmise for many of you reading this should prompt action. One characteristic Marta stresses is personality, “The best employer branding really speaks to the personality of your company and even your industry.” She shared the example of Lunchbox from the restaurant industry, explaining how well it represents its space and reminding that it’s helpful to be playful, fun, unique.

Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? Marta explains how that factors in when creating the story of your employer brand. “It kind of goes back to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs where you're really looking at the progression of what draws people in: Am I going to get paid? Do I have compensation (basic) needs met? Then, do I have benefits that help with my health and my well-being? Is there stability? Is there flexibility? Am I learning something new?”

Lever #2: Recognize Your Employer Brand is Inextricably Linked to Employee Engagement

While you want to be creative in your employer branding, you also want to tell a story rooted in reality. “You could tell a story that's not true, but it will just create a revolving door,” says Marta. “You want to be creative and fun and even aspirational yet grounded in reality. What are the things that fundamentally are true in your culture or your work environment that you can speak to? There might be things that are aspirational where you know you're shifting but aren’t fully baked, and you can hint to those, but you can't go all in if it's not there.”

This means that you must reconcile the connection between the pitch of your employer brand and the reality of your employee experience and engagement. Otherwise you can tell a great story that doesn’t yield any lasting results. And this may cause some real reflection on changes that need to be made around the employee value proposition and employee experience, but to truly address this looming challenge that process, if required, is a necessity.

Marta suggests ensuring that as you develop your brand story, you have facts to support the picture you’re painting. “A good way to make sure that your branding is grounded in reality is to have data points. The way that I do branding is I'll write statements and I'll write copy, and then I make sure I can have multiple data points backing up what I'm saying,” she explains. “So, for instance, if I say we really value well-being at this company and time off, then I better back up what the policy is – what time off looks like, if there are shutdowns, what the benefits are, or tangible examples of how it’s present in the culture. That is one surefire way to make sure that you keep the employer brand story authentic to who you are.”

Lever #3: Turn Inward for Inspiration

One of the best sources of inspiration for your brand story is the employees you already have, across functions and levels of seniority. “I like to interview stakeholders when I develop this messaging. People from all different aspects of the company, geographies, levels, tenures. I like to ask people about why they joined and, if they’ve been there awhile, why they’ve stayed,” describes Marta. “Through this process you start to get interesting themes. I like to ask people, what do you think your unique cultural advantage is? What's unique to your company that I can't see on a career site or won’t read about in a benefit guide. You uncover these incredible stories that really speak to the culture.”

Lever #4: Don’t Ignore What the Talent You Want Wants

What today’s talent prioritizes may looks much different than what you’re accustomed to accommodating or tailoring to, but it’s to the organization’s detriment to ignore the realities of what’s important today. “Looking at the top value propositions that matter to candidates across generations, industries, and geographies, pay is number one. Number two is work/life balance and flexibility – flexibility is really the name of the game right now,” explains Marta.

Flexibility has been an area where many service businesses have defaulted to the reasons it’s difficult to provide rather than the potential solutions for how to offer more options and autonomy. But it’s an area that is increasingly important to address – and I believe that with the options available to organizations today, it’s a matter of unwillingness versus inability to do so.

Marta makes an important point that flexibility isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition or doesn’t need to look a certain way – there are many options for offering more control if you’re willing to think outside the box. “Flexibility can be agency over where you work or the hours that you work, the times that you work. It's not a specific demand so much as any agency you can give to people. It's about control if you go back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs again,” she explains. “There has been an increase of data 40% of employees will take up to a 5% pay cut just to have some sort of flexibility over their schedule.”

Job security is another high-ranking desire that many businesses seeking frontline talent are well-positioned to highlight. “Especially in the US, the job markets have been unstable. I think that's something that service industries can absolutely offer that a lot of industries cannot right now, and that is something to market,” Marta emphasizes.

Lever #5: Closely Consider Your Frontline Culture

As we discussed above, the employee experience needs to live up to the employer brand story – and many businesses are most at risk for falling short on that promise with their inability to effectively extend their company culture to field employees.

“87% of frontline workers aren't sure if the culture their company is marketing or talking about on their career site even applies to them, which I think is sad,” shares Marta. “And then 50% say that they don't feel they're even thought of or communicated to. I think these stats point to a massive opportunity to be frontline-first; to not only brand as such but be intentional about extending the culture to those employees.”

There are small and large ways to do so, and I’d recommend tuning in to Tetra Pak’s story to get some inspiration. It’s important not to underestimate the impact of really foundational efforts – better communication, consistent touchpoints, more listening, fostering connection among teams and to the business’s mission.

It’s well worth the time and effort to thoughtfully consider what the experience of your frontline teams feels like and where it’s leaving something to be desired. Filling those gaps not only will help you to improve engagement and retention but will help you in your quest to attract new talent as well.

Don’t overlook the impact of recognition – something that in many instances is reserved only for top sales efforts or executive-level positions. “I have clients with a president's club that’s not just for salespeople. It includes people who are cultural champions, people from finance and HR and all different parts of the business to attend. It has a great impact and, again, it's really just being intentional about extending existing programs and policies and recognition to all your workforce,” says Marta.

Lever #6: Ramp Up Creativity & Lean in to Change

Now is not the time to play it safe, to stay rooted in “what’s always worked,” or to stay married to overly firm beliefs about what “isn’t possible.” Rather, now is the time to be willing to shake things up, to take calculated risks, and to introduce a healthy dose of creativity into the process.

“There are stats that frontline industries would need to hire 250,000 people a month just to keep up with the rate of retirement. So, I think there's no choice but to change,” emphasizes Marta. “There's no profit without engagement and people. The industry is facing a talent scarcity in a real way, but I find that so exciting because I think this industry has such an incredible opportunity to rebrand as an amazing future path for people.”

Lever #7: Hire Marketing Talent to Level Up Your Approach

My discussion with Marta made me realize that in many instances, what’s lacking in creating the brand story to set yourself apart or ensuring that story resonates aesthetically and across the best channels is the specific skill set that marketers and consultants can bring. There are unique knowledge and aptitude that, when applied, make a remarkable difference in the outcome – and, in turn, make a meaningful difference in impact.

So perhaps another important lever to consider is where and how you might augment your existing skillset to help you in re-energizing your process, reconsidering your story, or reimagining your approach.

Highlights from Future of Field Service Live NYC

Highlights from Future of Field Service Live NYC

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Leading People Through Change Starts With Understanding What Motivates Them

Customer Intimacy Isn’t a Strategy. It’s a Commitment.

Are You Measuring What Actually Matters?

The Frontline Is a Commercial Asset. Most Organizations Aren’t Using It That Way.

Three AI Myths Worth Retiring

► Listen to Episode 369:

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