joanna.darby@ifs.com, Author at Future of Field Service

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

This Spring, I wrote about my less-than-happy travel experience flying from Cleveland to London. During that multi-day odyssey I experienced both the upside to automation (the impressive United Airlines app) and some of the downside effects on human interactions that these automated systems can have.

With AI conversations taking place at every turn, I keep thinking about that balance between automation and the human touch when it comes to service. I came across this Harvard Business Review (HBR) piece that has a fairly optimistic take on how workers can maintain their relevance as more companies evaluate AI tools like ChatGPT to take on everything from online service chat functions to writing marketing copy and even creating art.

The crux of the article is that AI is automating intellectual capital in the same way that machinery automated physical labor during previous eras. Just as machines, for example, allowed us to lift heavier and heavier things, AI helps us solve more complex problems because it can evaluate a lot more data than a mere mortal, and throw gobs of computational power into coming up with new solutions.

There are limits, though. AI is not thinking so much as analyzing an immense amount of information, and most of the information was created by flawed, biased people, which means those same biases can creep into the results – and in the case of automated service systems, programmers are often trying to restrict solutions to a fairly limited set of known scenarios.

Once you exhaust those scenarios, the human factor comes into play – a real person must intervene and evaluate the situation. This is where another AI risk surfaces – the limitations of the automated system can start to seep into how employees deal with customers. Service representatives start looking at problems through the lens of what the automated system allows them to do, rather than using their own knowledge to come up with solutions.

The HBR article touches on this, too. For real people working in tandem with an automated service system, it is important to remember the qualities that humans bring to the equation that AI lacks – creativity, empathy, and emotional intelligence.

Creativity, Empathy and EI Remain Critical in Service

Creativity is already critical, both in the call center and in the field, but will be even more important as AI-based systems handle most of the straightforward customer interactions that can be easily solved or routed via automation. When exceptions occur, we will rely on the knowledge of our people to apply a level of curiosity to the situation that AI systems just don't have.

Empathy and emotional intelligence are another story. We know that today’s definition of good service is not just about fixing a given problem, but also being able to effectively connect and communicate well with customers and, in many cases, play a role in driving their business outcomes.

If an automation system is in place, by the time a customer gets through to an actual employee they are usually pretty frustrated (this was true with my own travel experience last month). Their problem has not been addressed through the AI layers of service capabilities. The call has been escalated, probably right along with their blood pressure (speaking from experience). Making sure employees know how to recognize that frustration and respond accordingly (even if it means going off script) is critical to achieving high levels of service. Active listening and empathy at this stage goes a long way to helping the customer feel like their needs are being understood and addressed, even if the employee involved in the engagement cannot solve their problem right away.

This is why service organizations really need to understand that automation and AI are not an end unto themselves; they are tools that work best when they are put in place to unencumber frontline workers from menial tasks, democratize knowledge, and enable the irreplaceable human touch to be applied in the times it’s truly warranted.

Service leaders face immense pressure related to the challenges to hire capable workers at the same rate their most experienced technicians are retiring. AI and automation present a huge opportunity here to take some of the burden off these teams and organizations – these systems can not only manage mundane, repetitive tasks, but can potentially help technicians become even better at their jobs. But the human touch is always going to be the difference maker when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Last week at Field Service Connect in Denver, event organizer Mark Scherzer told of a billboard he’d seen that said, “AI took my job…to the next level.” I believe we need to put teams minds at ease about the risk of AI to their livelihoods; there’s plenty of work to go around. AI is here to uplift those teams, to make service more streamlined and seamless, to eliminate wasted time and efforts and focus truck rolls and in-face time to value-added activities, and to make knowledge it takes to help the customer accessible at the second it is needed. AI is here to take field service to the next level; the importance of human touch shouldn’t be in question.

Have thoughts on this issue? Please share your own experiences and thoughts on AI and how you see it innovating field service.

Sarah talks with Mark Hessinger, SVP Global Customer Success at 3D Systems, about what it takes to break down silos within the service lifecycle and truly create a customer-in, customer-centric organization.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro.

Today, we're going to have a conversation about shifting focus from customer service to customer success. I'm excited to have on the podcast today Mark Hessinger, Senior Vice President for Global Customer Success at 3D Systems.

Mark, welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast.

Mark Hessinger: Thank you, Sarah. Thanks for having me.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, thanks for being here. So, before we get into the meat of the conversation, just tell everyone a little bit more about yourself, your background, your role and what the company does.

Mark Hessinger: Okay. So I'm Mark Hessinger. I'm responsible for Global Customer Success at 3D Systems. 3D systems, we make solutions for additive manufacturing. We make printers, the materials, the software, and have services and support, so the whole solution for a customer going into additive and that in the plastic space and the metal space.

I've been with 3D systems almost seven years now. And over my career worked at several different companies and I've had the opportunity to work with customers in many different industries. So, a lot of global experience in working with customers and trying to help companies move forward in taking care of customers.

I enjoy listening to customers, getting feedback and solving messier problems. And then I also like to share what I've learned and know so I'm glad for this opportunity to speak with you today.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I'm glad to have you. We've run into each other many times on the event circuit. So this has been sort of a long time in the making. And so when we connected to talk about doing a podcast together and we were kind of thinking about, "Okay, what should we discuss," one of the things that came up is you have a fairly recent change in your role from SVP Global Customer Service to SVP Global Customer Success.

And so, what we started chatting about is how that shift in a lot of ways is reflective of your view of service and I think also kind of the way things are evolving and where things are headed overall in a more holistic approach, if you will. But you called this in our conversation the customer in view. So, can you tell us a little bit about what that means to you, why it's important and what you feel that shift from service to success means?

Mark Hessinger: Sure. There's a few things in the way we think about things and where we go after things when we make that shift. And it's changing the way we think about customers and what we're doing.

So in service, you typically think, "I have an issue, I resolve it, I've done my service." But in success, "Okay, so we have an issue, we resolve it, but did we achieve the goal for the customer?" For example, in 3D printing, a technician could say, "I fixed the printer, the printer's working," but is it making the parts properly? Is the software still working? Is the entire solution working for the customer? So thinking that way is a change in how you're approaching the customer.

It also takes you then from a more short-term perspective, "I'm resolving an issue," to a longer term perspective, "I'm helping a customer, can they achieve their goals? Are they going to be productive? Are they going to recommend us? So, I'm not resolving issue, I'm making sure they're hitting their goals."

And then also, as we have more of the functions now in success, we have the hardware team, the software team, materials and consumables, training, everything for the aftermarkets, we still can't resolve everything all the time with our team. So we have to make sure we're thinking more holistically and cross-functional. And the team knows it's their responsibility to make sure the customer is successful. So, they will need to pull in any resource in the company to make sure we achieve that goal.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it makes me think of a few things. I think that breaking down those functional silos is really, really important to the customer experience and the customer relationship.

A while back, I had Bob Feiner on the podcast from Dell and he talked about ... I loved his analogy like, "Think rings, not trophies." So, we shouldn't have teams that are trying to be the MVP of the service lifecycle. We should be working together to make sure that we're winning those Super Bowl rings or World Series rings on the overall experience.

The other thing that makes me think of though is how it aligns with the shift to delivering outcomes and where that means different things in different industries and people are at different phases in that journey. But the idea that customers today demand more and you're focused on, to your point, whatever that success looks like, it could be uptime and what's tied to that for the customer, it could be something else. But it's this outcome you're driving for them versus just making good on your commitment to come and fix something when it breaks.

Mark Hessinger: Yup. So first, just Bob's comment, "Rings, not trophies," previous company, Gerber Scientific, I moved from the EMEA team to the global team. And I moved to the US, everybody was talking about this one person in service that was winning trophies. He'd go in. He'd fall asleep with the customer. He'd spend all his time. And the team was surprised when I moved him into engineering very quickly and they're like, "Why'd you do that?" I said, "Because everybody becomes dependent watching him win a trophy, they're not working as a team to get the ring."

So, it's part of the team development in making sure you have the right players together to get to that outcome. As to the customers on their outcome, years ago, the conversation was around the service contract and fulfilling a service contract. Today, it's more progressive, advanced customers, it's uptime. They are producing and they don't care what the issue is. They don't care about your response time. They need to be making parts at a certain rate and that is their goal.

So it's aligning the achievements to be able to make sure we're talking the same language with the customer and we're not talking about we'll be there within two hours or whatever. It's you're going to be able to produce parts. And it's also in some of our industries like Formula 1 racing. We know their schedules and when they need to be doing things very aggressively. So we make sure that we have the right resource to support them. And there's other parts of the schedule where they're not as busy and we don't have to be as quick.

So, it's understanding how to manage to help the customer achieve their end outcome.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. And so, we spoke about the fact that one of the foundational elements of being able to do that is getting better at understanding our customers.

Mark Hessinger: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: So, where it used to be, "Hey, our offer is we'll sell you this and when it breaks, we'll come and fix it." We're not really living in that world anymore. But to understand how to achieve success in their eyes, you have to know what is important to them. So, how do you do that at 3D Systems?

Mark Hessinger: There's a number of touch-points we have with customers. We try to collect information. The one I like the most but is also the difficult from time is just sitting down and talking with customers. So I do that, but I can't meet all of our customers unfortunately.

So, listening to customers is very important and the listening part is important. I've had some meetings where I take a salesperson with me and the salesperson feels they got to be talking the whole time. I was like, "No, calm down. You can pause and then the customer will just start talking and really explaining." And you're not talking about your products and services, you're talking about their business and what's important to them. That's the conversation you need to have to really understand what you need to do to help them.

We also survey our customers. That gives another data point. And then we will extensively look at our data, how customers are using our systems and products. We take that information. And then, we also add information that we want to capture from different customer sites on field service debriefs there at customer sites and where allowed by the customer. They will give us information if they're using a competitive product or not. And that's where I say we're allowed because they have to make sure the customer's okay with passing that information through.

But it's finding those different touch-points and collecting that data and trying to then assimilate that and find what are the priorities short term and long-term, because we need to take care of some short-term things, but we need to make sure the long-term is aligned to the vision that we're driving and we want to get to.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, okay. So, let's say foundationally, you know you need to do a better job of really understanding the customer's businesses, the customer's objectives, really what they're trying to accomplish.

To your point, you go into those conversations talking about what you can do, you miss the opportunity to learn so much more of what you could do because you're busy talking, right? So, that makes sense. But then I guess the next kind of block in the foundation is becoming easier as an organization to work with, right?

Mark Hessinger: Mm-hmm.

Sarah Nicastro: So, as you understand how they're viewing success better, being open to evolving as a company and restructuring, reorganizing, changing processes, whatever it is to really take the burden on of streamlining some of the complexity that goes into ultimately delivering that success, right?

So, can you talk a little bit about the changes you've had to make there? I know we talked about the negative impact silos can have and I know that's part of the change in your role. But how have you worked to become easier for your customers to do business with?

Mark Hessinger: Yup. So on the silos terms and I don't think there's any company that designs their organizations that were going to create x number of silos. But silos exist just the way companies operate. And they're not intentional but you need to be able to identify them and best ways are from your customers or from your employees.

So, in the early years I was at 3D Systems, I would visit customers and they would say, "I have to talk to someone in your team for hardware service. I talked to someone else about software. I talked to someone else about materials. I talked to someone else about my next printer."

Time and time again, hearing from customers we are difficult to work with. They don't necessarily always say it that way, just, "I'm doing this. I'm doing that." And you can just hear their confusion. And some even say, "I don't even know where to go. What do I do? How do I order materials?" We have broad portfolio of materials and it's difficult when you hear from a customer that they don't even know how to order.

So, it's taking those things back. And then as you said, so then you come back in the company and I think ours is not different than a lot. People just don't say, "Okay, let's just change everything around and make it easier." So you have to present that market, that perspective.

But the change happened for us when we did an organization change. A pretty significant new CEO joined and designed how we're going to do with the business units. And then it was like, "Yeah, we should put together these different functions in the customer success team and call it the customer success team."

So sometimes it will happen slowly and naturally but I think more times, you need something that just spurs you need to change and the company says, "Okay, we're going to try something different."

And if you can point to examples where it's been successful, it helps you also say, "Look, this is something that's been proven and it works," if you have key stakeholders as customers that you can reference and say, "Here's what Sarah told me. She's told me these things." And I think we can address them. It's not just saying, "Sarah told me this," but, "Sarah gave us this input. Here's a potential solution," and reinforcing that.

So eventually, I think you can get to where you need to be. But customers aren't going to wait, right? You have to start making progress. So, whether we are together in one organization or separate, it's still important to communicate to our teams, to listen to the customer.

And I've been in customer meetings where the service manager said, "Oh, I'm not responsible for that." We had a conversation after that meeting, said, "Yes, you are." We kind of course-corrected in the meeting, but that learning experience that, yes, you don't own that particular task, however the company does and if the customer's asking you and you're in front of them, you can say, "I will take that issue and I'll get the right person to talk to you." And those baby steps I think makes it a lot different from the customer perspective.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. And it's making people feel their purpose in the overall customer experience and mission of the company, right? It's not just about, "Well, that's not my job." Well, it's everyone's job if we're a customer-centric organization, right?

Mark Hessinger: Mm-hmm.

Sarah Nicastro: And I think that's what's interesting about a topic like this is you talk about customer in and you talk about the customer experience. There are things that no one would say don't matter or that they're not thinking about or working on. But the reality is a lot of times if you're really listening and I guess listening to learn versus listening to respond, then what you uncover in a lot of instances is going to require some pretty significant change.

And that's where I think we see this disconnect of, okay, then we'll just focus on getting better at this one thing or this one thing, but we don't really want to become customer-centric because of the work it would take to do that.

So, that's where the conversation gets interesting because I think sometimes depending on the size of the company and the legacy, this, that and the other thing, it can be very cumbersome to say, "Okay, we're going to sort of restructure. We're going to reset. We're going to bring these things together. We're going to break down these silos. We're going to make sure everyone knows that this is everyone's responsibility," and so on and so on. That's a tremendous effort.

So, I'm curious then, as you've done that, what has that change looked like for the frontline workforce? Because we're talking about a more holistic view of what service is, we're talking about usually that then impacts the offering and what that relationship looks like. When we were talking about the customer listening, I was thinking, "Well, boy, that probably has to require quite a bit of upskilling for anyone that's interacting with the customer that has an opportunity to listen."

So, as you've worked through this process of bringing these silos, breaking down these silos and bringing things together under customer success, what has that looked like for the workforce and what challenges has it brought?

Mark Hessinger: So the challenge I think in any of these things is we kind of call change management more of a buzzword, but it is a challenge and it is not easy. So, change management is very important and the communication on why we're doing what we're doing and making people understand how it connects to the vision, where we're going, what change we're going to make, then you do it, then you communicate why you did it and reinforce that.

And if you're in the middle of it, sometimes you feel that, yeah, I know what's going on, everybody else should know what's going on. But the further you get away from where you are, you get out to people in the field, they need that reinforcement and the communication to let them know why we're doing things.

So what changed? For the field, you think on one side not a lot changed, but on the other it's, yes, we're asking them to collect information, we're asking them to look around, we're asking them to make sure if there's any issue and they can't resolve it that it's getting reported back. So, it's reinforcing that they're not just there to solve a specific issue but to make sure the customer is satisfied in its entirety.

For our contract of sales process, we're doing better now aligning the start dates for the hardware and the software contracts so we talk to them together. The materials, some customers do go on contract and we're getting better at aligning them. And the material sales team now just don't go in talking about material sales. They know if the customer's on contract, they offer a better value if you are on contract. So they're bundling and thinking differently which helps both sides. It helps the customer in understanding what they're getting from us and it helps us on managing that whole process.

People talking internally and tech support, tech support is the people are very skilled and trained in a specific technology. But again there, it's just part of the conversation is the simple things. Is there anything else I can help you with today? Sometimes you can't solve that for them, but you can take that and go somewhere else.

And then, I think one of the bigger changes is with the service manager's thought process and mentality going from that I'm just going to get somebody there and fix the problem to understanding we're going to take care of the customer in its entirety. So, there's lots of little pieces.

And then even internally when we were a customer service, there's still departments that would call us field service and we didn't feel good about that because there's a lot more to service than just field service. Now, we're customer success. And actually some of them are caught up and they're calling us customer service now.

It's making sure you're communicating internally so the organization understands what you're doing, especially you need alignment with the sales team, the field sales team because they need to make sure they're communicating back and we're making the touch-points. I've talked to many companies where that is one of the silo examples. I've heard so many service people say it's service and sales separate. And I've heard the same thing from salespeople.

And that's your situation. You need to make those changes to get those teams aligned. We have weekly calls between the sales leaders and the service leaders by region to make sure they're, one, aligned on escalations, two, aligned on what's coming in the pipeline for sales, also what's coming in the pipeline for service renewals so that we're talking one language and understand how we look at the customer.

So, it's a lot of I'd say pieces together that really when you add them all up, it's a big change for each person. There's some level of change that has to happen.

Sarah Nicastro: So I'm curious, Mark, we've talked about the term customer success. And for the customers that you work with on an uptime or outcome basis, I know we also spoke about making sure everyone feels invested in it being their responsibility to make sure the customer is successful and satisfied. But is there someone who ultimately owns that responsibility? And if so, who is that?

Mark Hessinger: That comes back to me and I think it's also a good thing because I can't say, "Oh, I didn't know about that problem. It's their problem," right? And like I said earlier, I may not have all the resources to be able to do everything, but I should be making sure we have all the contacts and the information, understand what we need to do. And then looking on the rest of the organization, how do we get the support?

But definitely, that's why we put together the customer success organization to treat customers that way and to have a point of responsibility.

Sarah Nicastro: But you don't have customer success managers.

Mark Hessinger: We have customer success in people's titles, but I don't have an extra function as a customer success manager. It's taking the ... Very similar to the organizations as they were before, but integrating the hardware, the software and the materials, pieces, but not putting another layer of customer success on top of that because my personal feeling is that then deflects, "It's not my problem. They have to take care of it. I take care of my issue, but they take care of the bigger issue."

And I think adding that layer and those extra functions would for me not drive the right overall behavior I'm looking to drive.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, no, that makes sense. It's a topic that's come up from time to time when we talk about outcomes. And also when we talk about ... And again, this is industry and company differences, but a lot of people talk about how the role of the field technician over time is becoming less technical and a lot more relationship-focused.

And so, we've had some conversations about not will they become customer success managers over time necessarily the way that we would define that word today, but what will that role look like and how does it fit in the future in this type of context, if that makes sense. So that's why I was kind of asking.

Mark Hessinger: Yeah. And I think part of that conversation and I've been parts of those conversations at different conferences and stuff and it's like a vision, people in front of the customer should be taking care of the customer. But as long as we continue to have electromechanical hardware systems, which hydraulics, whatever, they have to be technically skilled and be able to resolve the technical issues.

If the customer has confidence that that person can solve that, then the customer is also open. It becomes a trusted partner and then open to share additional information.

So when hiring, I think it's important to identify some soft skills as far as communication and how you feel about working with customers. And as long as they have the technical background, we can then teach the technical skills. I think some of those soft skills are important in the hiring process to bring in.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. So, you've been doing a lot of hard work to align yourselves to customer needs to be easier to do business with. But I'm sure it hasn't always been smooth sailing, I would imagine. What has that looked like from the customer perspective? How have you worked through some of the changes as they are visible to the customer?

Mark Hessinger: So, customer gets a survey, a transactional NPS survey after a support case is closed. And we put a process in place that if it's a detractor, so zero to six, it reopens the case, it goes to the manager of the case owner and they need to call the customer to explain what we've done, what we're doing, get additional feedback.

That extra step in the process of reaching back out to the customer to let them know we're listening. "We're sorry for that experience," right? "We're going to look to improve that going forward." One sends a big message to the customers that they know that, okay, they've taken the time to fill in a few questions we've asked and we're actually reading it and we're doing something with it. And that has driven a lot of additional engagement from customers as far as giving us feedback because they know we're going to do something with it.

So from a customer perspective, that's very important. And then when I meet customers, I ask them, "Have we made progress in the last year," or, "Have you seen a change?" And usually, I get a yes and they'll give me examples. If I don't get it, then I will kind of probe and say, "Well, how's this experience? Has this always been the same?" And sometimes it sparks their memory and they say, "Oh, yeah, you were really bad at that. Now it's pretty good."

And then, there will be cases where you go and they'll say, "No, we're not happy and we don't like this service engineer because of this." Now, when I get that feedback, we can give that to the manager and the service engineer. And usually those things are correctable. It's usually communication or behavior or something that we can change and improve.

And while I find some managers struggle initially to give that feedback to the employee, employees actually appreciate it because they want to grow, they want to learn, they want to do better. And there's nobody that goes out there with intention to do a bad job. So, it's part of our job to coach them and move them forward.

And we had a recent case, customer gave us that feedback. We went through that cycle, coached the employee, and the customer proactively reached out two weeks later and said, "Hey, this is great change. We saw a progress and we're really happy with the way that experience went." That was not on a survey, that was just a proactive call. So, it's rewarding when you're getting that type of reaction and feedback.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, absolutely. And being able to then share that with the teams and have them feel that same sense of accomplishment. So, another layer of complexity in this journey is that 3D Systems is highly acquisitive. So you're very often bringing in new businesses with their own systems, their own processes, their own employees. So, how do you navigate that and do your best to have that not disrupt this sort of customer centricity that you're working toward?

Mark Hessinger: The most recent acquisitions, majority of them have been startups. So, on those from the customer success service perspective, they really didn't have an infrastructure there. So, we're adding that and their potential customers often would say, "Well, we don't know if you're going to be in business. We don't know how you're going to support us." So that helps a lot there.

I think the bigger challenge that we go through is that we've been around the longest in the industry. When we acquire a certain technology, our engineering team or we could have done that and, yes, we could have but these are make or buy decisions. And the way some of these startups have solved the problem is unique and we probably wouldn't have solved it that way. We probably would've been more complicated, more expensive. And so that's the additional value we're gaining from the acquisition.

So, for us internally, it's making sure we understand we're not just adding a product line or technology, we're adding a different way of looking at things, a different culture. And that's the bigger challenge on the acquisitions is the getting our employees at 3D Systems and the employees from the acquired company to really mesh well. And it's good to remind people why we're doing things, point out the positives and make sure both sides learn how we can get better.

Sarah Nicastro: That's a good point. It's maybe less logistical complexity and more eliminating potential friction. And yeah, that's a really good point.

Mark Hessinger: Yeah. If we were going to do a big acquisition of a similar size company, that gets much more complicated on the whole change management merging to service organizations. The hidden positive of a startup is they don't really have a success and services arm they can lean on. So they're very happy that we can bring that to them.

Sarah Nicastro: Right, yeah. And their customers usually are too. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, so as a leader, what has changed most for you as you've gone on this evolution of looking through the lens of executing service or a transaction to ensuring success or delivering that outcome?

Mark Hessinger: Well, I feel that I can really take ownership of the customer as needed. I don't have to rely on others. I don't have to say, "Should we do this?" I appreciate that, that I can say I'm responsible for taking care of that customer, making sure we resolve issues, making sure we're improving the way we work and moving forward.

So, it's making sure that the team is executing that. But I think just not have to worry about should I do that or should I not do that? If it's right for the customer and the company, it's the thing we should be doing and I appreciate that I can make those decisions.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. You have a very consistent lens that you can look at, at everything through that helps guide you. And to your point with the new CEO and that restructuring, for that to be possible, everyone has to want to look through that lens. And so, it's good that you're in a place where that can happen.

What do you see as what comes next on the journey? I know you've already accomplished an incredible amount, but I also know everyone's in a-

Mark Hessinger: We're not done.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, it's a cycle of continuous improvement. So, what's sort of the next phase?

Mark Hessinger: It's continuing going forward to ... I think it's time to probably refresh the vision where we're going. I created one when I started when we were services and it helped align the organization and get people to understand where we're going. And I think that needs to be refreshed.

I talk to my team and they kind of look at me funny when I say, "I'd like to make an organization that doesn't need managers." So I'm talking to managers and I'm saying, "I really don't think I need you." That's what they're hearing. But what I'm saying is the organization I want to keep evolving so that the different parts just work together seamlessly and then things flow.

Managers should be there to support their organization, make sure things are working, make sure we're training people and managing escalations. But the day-to-day transactional, there's a lot of stuff that goes on already without management intervention. I just like to get managers even further away from the day-to-day, but that takes creating the whole culture, the processes that the people understanding how do they work together.

You don't have to go up through an organization and back down the other side to talk to someone. You just know who the right person is and you get things done. So, it's building a culture where we can get more towards that direction. I think that again helps us become more efficient on taking care of our customers, makes it easier to work with us, we'll improve customer's uptime even further and their ROIs. So, it all connects together in the end.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I just thought of another question, Mark, and I know I'm going off script so it's okay if you don't want to answer this one. But to that point, when we're talking about getting everyone aligned, has part of this journey or would part of this journey in the future be ... Is there any element of how people are measured that has changed to help that alignment?

Mark Hessinger: Nothing major has been done as far as how people are measured. There's either you're in a sales role and you get commissions. Now, there's some of those where we're connecting what they're commissioned on. Or you're in a non-sales role and your objectives ... The important part on people's objectives is making sure they connect to the vision and the company goals.

But I'd say we haven't done a lot specific, there's no goal, "Make sure you make three proactive calls in a week." I think-

Sarah Nicastro: Or there isn't an element of their performance that's measured off of NPS.

Mark Hessinger: Oh, that we do. Yes. So NPS and that's a good point you made because NPS, while we do a transactional-

Sarah Nicastro: It is imperfect. So I'm not saying that that's the only measure that could be relevant but it's obviously a common one.

Mark Hessinger: It's a tool we use. We use transactional and relationship. And on the transactional, it's more towards that event. And people are like, "Well, it's not just me." Well, we know it's not just you, but you are the primary in this experience. And managers will show the ranking from top to bottom of NPS scores. And it does help motivate some people that nobody wants to be on the bottom of that list.

But it's also important to communicate to people that there's a point. If all the scores are good, being on the bottom of a good list is not a bad thing. So, you want to have a cluster of performance in the high bracket. But yes, they definitely do see customer responses to what they're doing.

Also on other metrics like meantime to complete first-time fix, those are all ... You don't want to be on the leaderboard on certain metrics. If you don't share it, it doesn't help. So people didn't want to share the NPS by person originally because it is a broader team, but it did drive the right behavior as far as, "Hey, now I need your help also to resolve this," instead of just, "I'll work on it until I can figure it out," which probably takes a lot longer than if I just asked someone for help.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, no, that makes sense. I was reflecting on that being a part of this conversation that I missed when I was putting this together because again, it goes back to the trophies versus rings conversation, right? If there aren't things that are tied to the overall objective that people are looking at, then they're just going to stay focused on their piece. So, that makes sense.

This has been great, Mark. I really appreciate you joining and chatting with me. Is there any I guess final thoughts that you have before we close out?

Mark Hessinger: Final thoughts, I think it's important as you're managing teams to have diverse teams. You don't get into group think. Because my team, a lot of them respect what I think but I don't like it when I hear, "What does Mark want?" It should be, "What does a customer want? What does the company want?"

So, you need people in the team that are going to challenge and work together. The collective knowledge I always say in the room is much greater than the individual pieces. So, make sure the team is diverse, collaborative, working together and continue to evolve. And these things are a lot of fun. They're very rewarding for the people involved and I really appreciate the opportunity to share that with you.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I appreciate you coming and sharing. I mean, it's clear that you're very passionate about what you do which I love. I really enjoy talking to people I'm the same way. And so, I like that. And there's a lot of really good points here about, like I said earlier, taking something that everyone knows is important and a lot of people are doing to a degree, but really thinking about the extent to which you can evolve or change the organization to be that customer in mentality that you are leading.

So, thank you for that. I appreciate it. And hopefully, we'll get to do it again in the future.

Mark Hessinger: Okay, thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. While you're there, be sure to subscribe to the Future of Field Service Insiders so that you get the latest content delivered to your inbox every other week.

The Future of Field Service Podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

On a recent podcast, I spoke to Dr. Josh Elmore, Principal Consultant at Court Street Consulting and Adjunct Professor at both Columbia University and the City University of New York, about how industrial and social organizational psychology affect leadership and team building efforts.

We talked about the history and evolution of organizational and industrial psychology, and how the focus had shifted from managing environments to understanding motivations and incentives among employees and team members along different tiers of interaction. When it comes to getting teams to move in one direction toward an organizational goal, this type of analysis can be helpful in terms of finding ways to achieve buy-in and avoiding burn out.

I asked Josh about the concept of team facilitation, which in his work as a consultant often involves getting leaders to regularly check in with team members and really listen to what they are saying about new policies, workflows, communication, and decision-making processes and roles. This is especially critical for teams that may be working remotely or in a hybrid environment.

Leaders also need to give team members space to talk about some of these issues that are not part of their daily work processes.

“Oftentimes that space needs to be intentionally developed,” Josh said. “[H]aving some support and having the ability to get folks together and start coordinating your effort and building that continuous practice of just checking in and making sure that … you're all heading towards the same destination [is important], and also creating space to where people can think creatively and bring up challenges as they come along so it doesn't build up.”

Josh also outlined some best practices for what he calls team hygiene. Leaders need to make sure that teams are coordinated, that there is sufficient communication, that members are delivering on their agreed upon goals, and that no one feels like the effort is not evenly distributed.

The Importance of Continuous Listening

He also described a model for change management built on continuous listening. That means team members have the ability to provide feedback while the change is ongoing. This builds a conversation and gradually helps everyone get on the same page.

“However you frame your change management initiative, you're always going to have pushback,” Josh said. “Where are you going to have resistance? Where are you going to have folks that are on board and championing the change? And as you build out this apparatus, this scaffolding for the organization, which is out of your leadership in change, you can test ideas.”

In many organizations, there is seemingly constant change and evolution as companies innovate and reorganize around those innovations. Josh recommended that leaders reframe the environment as fluid and dynamic, so that everyone can come to terms with the non-stop evolution.

“It doesn't necessarily make sense to frame things as stable if they're not,” he said. But instead of having that instability make the team nervous or anxious, it can be presented as an opportunity for growth and innovation. “Things are happening here, and it can be exciting. It could be a motivator as opposed to something you should be afraid of.“

As a lot of other experts I have spoken to emphasized, Josh said that regular communication is critical to this process. The more you involve team members and employees in the process, the more you (as a leader) are going to learn to improve how you introduce and deploy new procedures and technologies.

“I think being in that process of evolution is not easy. And if it's not easy for you, it's not easy for everyone else,“ he said. “And so if you're a leader, how do you make it easier for everyone else, or at least make them feel bought into the process?“

You can listen to the entire podcast here.

In a session from the Future of Field Service Live Tour stop in Dusseldorf, Sarah talks with Lucas Rigotto, CSO of GEA, about what it takes to make – and keep – service top of mind in a business with a rich legacy of manufacturing products.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, so we're going to talk about bringing service into the DNA of a historically product-centric business. So back to change, right?

Lucas Rigotto: That's what I love to do.

Sarah Nicastro: Before we do that, tell everyone a little bit about yourself.

Lucas Rigotto: Yeah. I am Lucas Rigotto, originally from Brazil. Always in services, my entire career. And from fixing machines I started fixing projects, processes, building foundational organizations in services, training, remote support. And then did a lot of restructuring in my career for making services good for the customers and making services good for the business, as well.

So I had the chance to evolve. During some years, I was commuting between Brazil and Germany every week, until when we decided it was time to move here. Spent most of my career with what was General Electric Healthcare, then oil and gas. And then, since the last nine months, gladly joined GEA to help us continue to transform the business there.

Sarah Nicastro: Excellent. So when we think about manufacturers who are working on seizing the potential of service, we see people at different phases or different spots on the continuum of really embracing that and going full steam, to really, really resisting that and staying very much in sort of the legacy, right?

So you were brought into GEA because the company obviously realizes there's potential around service. What's sort of the temperature, if you will, of the company, in terms of where you would say they're at on that continuum? Is it full steam ahead? Is it resistant in the middle? What are you up against in terms of what you were brought in to do?

Lucas Rigotto: It's the right time to be in services. So very high expectations but the infrastructure, the in-between, people still love to sell the boxes or the projects, right? So the expectations, the opportunity, the recognition of the value of services to the business outcomes are outstanding. I think companies are starting, for example, to report the services share in their annual report. That's a big message on services is not the necessary evil. Services is something that's driving the company.

But between saying that and realizing that potential that you mentioned, there is a whole infrastructure that needs to be adjusted in terms of mindset for services, in terms of, it's much easier to sell the box. It's much easier to go get the PO for what the CapEx that the customer already have in their plans and so on and leave the service discussion for later. Or yeah, I'll give you some hours of service or a kit of spare parts or something.

So making services part of the business is where we are really striving to deliver some significant outcomes across the business, was in the previous, as well. I love to say that for many years that service is not the janitor. Yes, we don't need to be on the driver's seat, but we are not coin of exchange or to clean up product quality mistakes. Our guys, they don't schedule time to be at the customer. They arrive, they have the door open, they have a place to park, they are welcome and so on.

The sales teams need to schedule time, need to go through the reception, get the badge. So services really builds this repeat business, repeat the current relationship with the customer. And it's not from a philosophical standpoint, it's from reality. Our technicians, our field engineers, they are godfathers, godmothers, of the customers people. The relationship is changing from that level to higher but it's nevertheless absolutely critical the impact of services there. So temperature is great, expectations very high, matching expectations with getting it done is where the real job is.

Sarah Nicastro: All right, so we're going to talk about those challenges. But I don't know if everyone is familiar with GEA, so can you talk about-

Lucas Rigotto: Oh yeah, sure.

Sarah Nicastro: ... what the company does, how service plays a role?

Lucas Rigotto: Yeah. GEA is, I would say, the largest manufacturer of food and beverage equipment for the industry. All the beer, milk, cheese, chicken nuggets, plant-based food that you have. Mayo, ketchup, medicine is made on GEA equipment across the globe. It's a German company. It's operating in basically all the countries, very much direct businesses, not a lot of partners. And we're really proud of ourselves from the quality of the expertise we bring to the customer operation.

Sarah Nicastro: So traditionally service has been sort of the, we'll say afterthought, right? Not a primary focus, making it a focus for the business. What is the goal, I guess? Is it to sell more service contracts upfront? Is it to change the customer experience through service? What are you working to accomplish for the company?

Lucas Rigotto: It's all of that with a primary reason, right? Companies exist to make money. Measuring the services as a business companies are starting to do. That's why I say it's the right time to build services. It's what bringing the realization of that. So you have to grow your installed base so you can do services, but the profitability comes from a healthy, recognized, valued service relationship with the customers. So what I think the way that we are going is exactly that, right? You have to look at services as a business.

The analysts look at the traded companies at the percentage of equivalent revenue as a factor for the multiplier. For you to get there, you have to execute services really well. And it's not saying, "Oh, we focus on the customer, we love our customer." You have to genuinely deliver great services. And then we already discussed today the challenges to get the right level of people.

So looking at sales as a business is no longer taking the field engineer and promoting to a sales manager, which I'm very proud for being a sales engineer and becoming a sales leader. But it's about looking at this and how we actually deliver value to the company and to the market to differentiate. So it's about creating perspective for the technicians. It's about the diversity of bringing opportunities for this new generation, but making the job challenging, exciting, productizing what we do.

I mean, it's so easy to talk about spare parts is our core. Break and fix is our core. Everybody's talking about remote support and figuring out how we are going to do condition-based monitoring and everything else. But how do you actually productize this, engage the customers on that for the long term, help the customer, keep the company selling a lot more with a proven performance in the market and have the customers staying with you because they see the value there.

So talking about value propositioning services today, it's not something that we need to learn, we should be doing already. And this transformation on connecting from the business goals to giving a phenomenal customer experience, it's a people business. I like to say that. So we don't do this alone behind our desks in Dusseldorf. We do this on the ground in the regions in Asia, in Latin America, in Africa by enabling our teams, by making them being able to talk about value, about customer experience truly, by identifying opportunities, by educating the managing directors on the entities that services is a leverage for their growth.

So it's such an exciting challenge to have. But then the reason I'm giving this very long answer is because it's not just about the top line. It's not just about executing services properly in front of the customer. It's making sure that this energy that is usually 20% of the workforce, that is usually 20 to 40% of the revenue of the company, but can be over 60, 80% of the total profitability. Make sure that this agent is seen as a business and you can deliver value from that. So the philosophy, it's lovely to be part of services. It's lovely to leave our gift of delivering value to the customers but the realization that we can help the company achieve their long-term goals and growth in sustainability that we mentioned is absolutely phenomenal.

Sarah Nicastro: So what would you say are some of the biggest barriers that exist in incorporating service into the mindset, into the focus of the organization?

Lucas Rigotto: First and foremost is the focus on product. It's a lot easier to sell a product than articulate the value of a service agreement. Explaining to the customer why uptime matters. The personas we're talking are changing. So the old sales organization, and I'm sorry for saying that, they are not ready to actually articulate services often. So the mindset of the value proposition of services is one thing. The other thing is the high expectations with the outcomes and the right investments to get there.

There is no chicken or egg. You have to execute flawlessly. You have to deliver great experience to your customer beyond the talk. So you have to be able to enable your talent. To hire enough talents to give them the right tools, to give them the perspective of a career for them to stay and develop. Managing experts and staff, this is a big challenge because what I see across the globe as I travel in every single entity there is someone that we say, "Oh, that guy's great and he's 69-years-old or 72." There was a place where we created Mr. Manfred Ali in the office because the guy's there at 84 years. Really great people.

But what are we doing about cloning this phenomenal expertise? So we really need to look at ... And that's the feeling of the engineers, right? I am the expert, my expertise is my asset. Creating this culture of sharing, of development, of learning, is important. So to summarize, I think the commercial aspect of it, selling value, the true engagement with customers that services is not a coin of exchange. Having the right talents that make services really relevant for the organization and then deliver on your promises,

Say do ratio is absolutely important because you can meet a customer, promise them everything and they identify that you understand the pain. But if you don't deliver on that to them, it's the last time you're going to come. That's where I see the challenges.

Sarah Nicastro: I want to ask you about something you said, which is productizing service. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Lucas Rigotto: Yeah, absolutely. Services agreements. No two service agreements are going to be the same, at least in my experience. Every customer have a different expectation. But you have to have a platform that your global customers, that your teams understand what is the product service agreement? Is it spare parts? Is it response time? Is it a consigned stock? Is it a remote support block amount of hours, this must be products.

Yesterday I was on a meeting and one of the guys mentioned really well, how I think. Productizing services is important because the size of your business is your installed base, multiplied by your product portfolio, multiplied by your market penetration in that. So it's no longer the time that services, we go and we figure out what we do in front of the customer. We are talking about going from reactive to proactive, but what is remote services? From what hour to what hour?

It's a block of hours is based on the outcome, is based on the replacing the break and fix from the past. So it's going to cost more than the trip, but you know why it's costing more because we're solving your problem faster before machine fails and so on. It's productizing plant availability. Not as, "Hey, I like you, I'm going to visit you and let's see what we want to do." It's actually have a product where you sell to the customer, a plant audit, a consulting that says it's no longer the guy that's there with a screwdriver and a spare patch to replace the part and that we become part of the customer operation, truly.

If we want to do equipment as a services outcome based in the future, we have to do this fundamentals really well, proof and gain the trust so we can go there. So clarity of the portfolio services, for me, it means specifically to your question is like we have product managers that design the next product, the next technology. I have product managers that are designing the app upgrades, the modernizations, the service agreements, the spare parts kits and everything else so that we make it easy for customers for sales to understand so that we can more accurately estimate our potential.

I think 20 years ago I did my forecast. Yeah, I think when ratio is that we are going to end like that. We need to go out of that. To manage our pipeline, I need to see byproduct, what is that we are negotiating, quoting, available and really evolve on that. So that's why the productization of our expertise is important.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. No, I like that because we're often talking about servitizing a business. But I like the element within that of productizing service and bringing clarity to what is the value and really defining that in a way that internally you understand so that then you can be successful communicating it externally. In terms of change management, what's been the biggest pocket of need that you've experienced so far in terms of change management? In other words, who within the business is most resistant?

Lucas Rigotto: The old team of services sometimes it's very resistant because we have always done it like that and we are profitable and we lost selling our spare parts. So making sure that we understand the value of everything else that we can do. There is this resistance of, "If I succeed this month, you're going to ask me to deliver 10% more next month or increase my net promoter score in 3, 5, 4 points more based on that." So actually I heard in an example, "It took me 20 years to get in this stable environment, let me enjoy it a little bit."

So creating that sense of hungriness, never being satisfied, deliver more for our customers, be more impactful for their operations, takes a little bit of courage to make it happen. So had to work a little bit on the organization set up, had to work significantly on the culture. It's important. The other part of the resistance is really around your global commercial teams, as I said because it's much, much easier to sell a product. It's much, much easier to say we are not selling because of services or I can only sell if I give away services.

So really having the courage to say no and fight for the space of services is absolutely critical. Yeah, that's around that. I want to be clear, it's no longer anymore about building the right backbone of the organization because I think services, having a seat on the table, is a bit easier. But it's really the commercial and we have always done like that.

Sarah Nicastro: You mentioned earlier that the sales teams today aren't really adept at selling service the way they need to be. So are you, I guess, augmenting that with people that are selling service or are you just working on upskilling them to do a better job of selling service?

Lucas Rigotto: It's a mix of both. But I'll go back to the previous one because I wanted to say customer is also part of the resistance. And I think this is important because it's connected to what they're saying. Customer's job is to commoditize our sales offerings and that's why productize is important and that's why the resistance of the customer, we need to be aware of. The procurement team wants you to be cheaper than previously. The operators, the quality leaders, the CFO, they want you to be better than previous years, so you increase the factory efficiency.

So managing the customer's different personas is a big challenge. But then I go to the sales guys. The answer again, it's maybe both and depends because I am a true believer that you will perform and excel in services when you have dedicated services sales expertise. People that talk the customer's language, people that understand OpEx dynamics. Because it's much easier to talk about a project in CapEx that has been approved previously already but if you don't get the right incentives for the machines, sales teams, to sell services, as well, if you don't give them the incentive to talk about services confidently knowing what they're talking about.

So why we need to be specific, why we need very dedicated sales force able to articulate all the value and the outcomes and the benefits we can deliver and make sure that we are selling what we can deliver, you really have to engage the entire organization that everybody's selling all the time, to be able to talk about it properly. I think you mentioned on your opening speech this thing that on the change, the natural effect is to go back. And we commit and then we go back to our previous aspect. So really making sure that the change stays is really important.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. You mentioned the importance of good talent. We talked already a little bit about how that's particularly challenging. What are you doing to find good talent, people that you think can execute on the vision that you're working toward?

Lucas Rigotto: In different levels, from management, we are going to the industry and going after the talented people that have success history in services to join us. I saw in GEA, beyond my division, all the other CSOs from the other divisions that, as well new and people with great expertise, not necessarily only internal talents, but people that live and believe and have the courage for that. On the management level, the challenge with the field engineer that become a sales manager, that become a service director and so on, investing to develop on this level is really important.

And then you start attracting people from other industries. So we are food and beverage companies, but we are attracting people from automotive, from pharmaceuticals, people that are actively applying to our jobs, asking about what we do. We become very visible on [inaudible 00:23:18] and stuff. Not because we are searching for jobs or because our customers are buying from social networks, but because the talents that we need are looking there for the next employees. You need to be known by your talents there.

And then on the engineering design, field services, project management training, we are promoting a lot from inside. I have specifically implemented a very detailed plan for us to manage pipeline talent. So we look at the bottom as well and take the right actions, but so that we also create perspective for the guys we want to attract, right? Including sustainability in what we say, you just discussed, the flexible work remote support versus field. We have a lot of long-term projects at customer side, six, eight months. How you make that interesting for a guy to be outside?

So then at this level, we are open to bring talents from everywhere around the globe. We are bringing people from our company, from entities in remote countries, relocating them to where we have the biggest [inaudible 00:24:37]. Overhiring a little bit in this places where we have excess of talent, good engineering universities like in Asia and Cologne and Brazil. So we hire a bit more and we train people in these countries.

So they join our local teams and we give our existing talents global opportunities for mobility. Not only from lower developed countries to higher, but we have seen people moving from Germany to US. And these guys, they bring their friends to work with us. So when you become a good employer ... And for me, I keep telling we are a people business. I love to know every field engineer. Today I cannot do this anymore. But when those guys realize they're working for a great company and services, it means leaving the mission and doing something relevant, meaningful and so on. They talk about this in the networks and they want to bring the best ones. And I think that's a really good story.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think understanding what's relevant to today's talent and then working to create stories. Not just stories, I mean, it can't only be a story, it needs to be a reality. But really working to align to what matters, having a purpose, flexibility. I think it's important to understand that we know from a lot of different research that what is important to talent today is not just the paycheck, it's not just the dollar amount.

There's other things that play a huge role. So that makes sense. So what aspect of what you're working on, what you see for the future, what are you most excited about? What's the biggest goal you're going to achieve that you'll want to throw a party when you do it?

Lucas Rigotto: In two years from now, we are not going to be selling a service that is not a formal full-blown product that has been launched. That's the first thing. And it's important because of the scalability. We want to do more with the same or do more with less, hence all this remote support capabilities. But then the clear focus on the products that we have on the market for services are really important. Going out of the run ratio perspective for services growth to knowing where I'm going to be based on the potential and my share of wallet and my services coverage is also very important.

But what I want for us that will make the growth and the productization a consequence of it, what I want for us is to be recognized as the premium service provider in the market. We are going to be selling machines because our customers love the services they have with us. And this is not just a fluffy statement, we have to live this on a daily basis.

So we will be this company that customers are buying machines because of our services because we integrate the customer voice, the customer feedback in everything that we do, the customer perspective in how we behave, in how we act in front of them. And because our teams are making that happen. I'm a field engineer and I will always be a field engineer. And I think that when we have this challenging job for our teams, we can get there and be this and realize on this vision.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I thought of another question. You mentioned earlier that you have a vision for where you're going. You also need to be impeccable in your execution. So you can't build that trust with your customers if you aren't showing up on time, doing a good job on first time fix, et cetera. How are you balancing, making sure that the execution of today's service is strong while also working on the vision for the future?

Lucas Rigotto: It's a blunt, realistic approach to everything that we do. We don't appreciate discussing our greatest achievements from the previous month or the previous week. We really have to love the reds in our KPIs and that's how I deal on a daily basis. So, oh, we improved our own time delivery and we improved our lead time, but it's not there where we want. Let's celebrate the small steps but let's keep hungry, stay hungry for more.

So for me, looking at the reds and being fully unsatisfied with where we are, not patting ourselves in the back, not doing things because we believe this is going to be great without the customer buying, not designing solutions because, yeah, I think it's great without validating. I think that's what takes us there, really. So we have to celebrate. I'm Brazilian, I like parties and you know that.

So I like to celebrate the very small tiny victors but the mindset of, guys, let's focus on what's meaningful. Let's not waste time with our chit chat and the nice stuff. Sharing best practice, it's really important. So we improve and leverage from there. It's really critical. And just on that, the other aspect is we waste a ton of time reacting super fast in the issue that was raised or in the problem that we need to address.

As one of the things that I have done in creating our customer experience area is root cause analysis is really critical. Sometimes going a little bit slower helps us go faster. So I'm no longer asking the teams, what's the action for this right now? What is the actual root cause? And I think that's what gives us a scalable improvement for the future.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense.

Lucas Rigotto: Most initiative of the month.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So you started as a field technician and you have a great journey to be proud of. What's the biggest lesson you've learned along the way?

Lucas Rigotto: It's great to not always be on the driving seat. I think that as services, to leave the gift of serving, we need to accept that the sales organization is the one that's creating store base, that is driving that we'll have more of a visible profile. But staying humble and realize that we make the machine work. That it's a people business, that we need to make our people part of the journey is my biggest lesson.

This is not a game for individuals for stars. This is not a game for you to say, "I'm the best CSO of the Universe." You are temporarily CSO based on the performance of your team, on the ability to make the difference. So it's a people game. We are a factory of people and we need to realize on that lesson.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, makes sense.

Lucas Rigotto: Thank you very much.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Lucas, thank you so much.

Lucas Rigotto: Thank you very much.

Sarah Nicastro: I appreciate it.

Lucas Rigotto: Very good to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: Of course.

By Sarah Nicastro, Future of Field Service

Gone are the days that field technicians would gladly stay in their same role for ten, fifteen, even twenty or more years. Today, retention of talent is increasingly important – and the approach must be far more intentional and layered than what retention demanded in years past. When we talk about what is imperative for retention in today’s talent landscape, one of the topics that often arises is career development strategies.

Career development strategies can help to keep employees engaged, give them opportunities for promotion or growth so that they see a future with the company beyond what they’re currently doing, and allow your business to map various talents, skills, and drive to not only different roles within field service and service at large, but throughout the company. In fact, many organizations have begun using field service as a way to bring in and nurture talent to feed into other areas of service as well as sales, product, operations and beyond.

A focused career development program can attract younger workers to an organization because it makes them feel empowered to take the lead of their own career journey. I spoke to Jennifer Morehead, CEO of human resource outsourcing and consulting firm Flex HR, about ways companies can improve career development initiatives, even at smaller service organizations that may not have a lot of traditional paths for promotion.

How do you define career development?

I think that when you are looking at a job description and you hire someone for that job, you want to be continuously mindful of all the elements that are required within that job. That way, you can train and continue to train your employees for all the different elements mentioned in that job description.

Look at the organizational chart of your company and think about who shows promise in terms of perhaps moving into management at some point. Think about what may be ahead for them and train them on those duties as well. That really gets to career development. Honestly, if an employee stays on a fairly similar track in your company, and maybe they stay in one position for a long time, there are a lot of changes in every industry in terms of technology and how we work with clients. There are things they need to be trained on even if they are not moving up, or if you need them to stay where they are.

What are some mistakes you see companies make when it comes to career development?

Mainly it is not offering development. The new generation of employees coming to our workforce is very interested in training. They want to know more, and they want to learn more.

That's a challenge for people running a business. It is already challenging to meet the needs of your clients. It's easy to get into a mode of thinking an employee is doing a good job, and you don't need to train them anymore.

I would challenge business owners to say no, your employees really want that training and will look for it one way or another, so it might as well be you providing that training to them.

What are some ways you have seen organizations successfully embed this idea into their company culture?

I think the process that allows for it to happen includes one-on-one meetings with every manager and their direct reports on a regular basis, ideally weekly. You have a meeting to understand where the employee is, their mindset, how happy they are in the company, what they do need in terms of development, where do they feel like they are not being trained enough. That cycles up to an executive manager meeting that should be once or twice a week.

Look at who is ready for a promotion. If we need this person out in the field because they are so good, how do we get them into a training role where they are training their coworkers? In a small company, anything under 200 people, there are a lot of opportunities where you can create these positions for people that are incredibly customized for them, where they can feel like they have more responsibility or have more autonomy in what they are doing.

Let’s have this person train his colleagues in customer service, maybe give them a bonus to do that. There are lots of ways to be creative in terms of career development in a small business. It may not be as vertically aligned as in a larger company, but you can be creative in terms of ways you give leadership opportunities to your people.

How do you incorporate development into performance reviews?

I would nominate a few people in your business to put the performance reviews together. But a performance review is less important than the one-on-one meeting where you are giving feedback specifically and in real time.

We are not in an economy as employers who are desperate to find employees, where we can sit there and go a whole year and give them a two out of a five score and expect them not to quit. You have to be nuanced about it. The real feedback comes in the regular meeting where most of the time should be spent focusing on positive feedback. You talk about what they are doing well, and then point out what they can improve on.

You need to acknowledge and appreciate all the things they do right. Employees really want to be seen. They want to be acknowledged for the good work they are doing.

How can companies identify candidates internally for promotion or advancement?

I think a lot of people in a small organization who are going to be promoted potentially are not going to have had management experience. Just because they are a good employee doesn't mean they are automatically going to be a good manager. The person promoting them needs to understand that. Things you are looking for are the ability to be comfortable while being uncomfortable. You have to step outside of your comfort zone. You have to think on your feet and look for a problem-solving attitude. While you are teaching your staff to be problem solvers and investigators, you watch to see who is really showing that talent. Look for employees who are bringing new issues to you with solutions attached. That is someone who can succeed well in a manager role.

What about employees who are happy in their roles? How do you encourage development, when promotion really isn't part of their plan?

I think you have to look individually at what makes them tick. What motivates them? If it motivates them to work a straight-eight and go home and not think about anything outside of work., that's a great employee in 2023. They enjoy doing what they do, do a good job, but don't have aspirations for growth. You can still get in front of them with different ideas or maybe you create on your own a customer service training program.

When we talk about walking into a customer's home in 2024, what's new? A lot of people are working from home. How do we get in there and provide service without disturbing them? Be mindful and thoughtful of what we are seeing out there and how we can coach our people with this, so they aren't left in a lurch when they are on a job site.

What is important for them? What gets on their nerves? We can be proactive and get in front of that before they quit in a year. They might want to see nice solid wage growth if they do a good job. Maybe they don't want to deal with issues outside of working hours. You can continue to sell to them, so they know there are growth opportunities available to them if they are interested down the road, while letting them know you are happy to have them where they're at right now from a work standpoint.

You can also find responsibilities outside of the main technical work they are doing where they can have some leadership – like organizing charitable work or company events.

You can also have company-wide employee engagement meetings where you ask what kinds of training they would like. What do they want to see? Just having that open communication with employees can uncover a lot of opportunities.

Sarah shares some of the biggest themes and interesting discussions that took place last week at Field Service Europe in Amsterdam.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. I'm here in rainy, but beautiful, Amsterdam, where Field Service Europe just wrapped for 2023. I thought I would give you all a bit of a summary of the themes, and topics, and discussions that came up here at the event over the last two days.

I would be remiss not to start with my favorite session, which happened to be the one that I had the pleasure of moderating with Electrolux. I was joined by Reinier Welschen, who is best title ever, Head of Peace of Mind for Electrolux Group, as well as Charlotte Lewyllie, who is the Business Transformation Lead, and Jelle Coppens, who is Business Process Expert for Field Operations. These three folks from Electrolux have been intimately involved in the company's journey of service transformation. Electrolux is a company with a deep rich history, more than 100 years. A couple of years ago overall shifted to a more customer-centric strategy, and recognized that service obviously plays a critical role in its competitive differentiation and customer experience.

But at the time, was working on a homegrown service management system that dated as far back as the mid-'80s. They knew it was time to not only modernize the technology, but invest in a platform that would allow them to really introduce more intelligence, automation, and efficiency into their service operations, and also set the stage for a lot of the things they would like to be able to do in the future. It is a global service transformation project that Electrolux has selected IFS for, that is in its earlier stages. It's been underway for a while, but this team from the Benelux has been pivotal to the beginnings of the project.

The team joined, and talked not only about the catalyst for the change, and how the technological upgrade will help them with their service differentiation, they also shared a lot of the specifics around selection criteria, change management, lessons learned. I think we talked about challenges, as well as pleasant surprises, and it was a great session. Those three folks from the Electrolux team are folks that I haven't had the opportunity to interview before. Some of you may remember that Kristoffer Brun, from the Stockholm region, has been on the podcast before and has spoken at some of our events.

It was my first time having the opportunity to speak on stage with Rei, Charlotte, and Jelle, and it was great. They were all wonderful, and I think the crowd here really enjoyed the session, because it was just a very realistic view of what it takes to truly set a strong foundation for service innovation. That was great, but there has been a number of wonderful sessions over the last two days. There was a panel discussion on Tuesday about continuous innovation in service, and one of the things that stood out to me from that conversation is a gentleman, Matthew Skipworth, from Terex said, "By 2030, I don't believe we will have a skilled workforce in our industry."

Quite a bold statement. I'm actually hoping that I can get in touch with Matthew, and he'll agree to come on the podcast and have a conversation about that. But what he was saying is that by 2030, what he anticipates is, I think the way he put it was two feet and a heartbeat can do the work that needs to be done on site. Really, essentially, the source, or the core of value in service for the customer, he believes will shift. It was interesting to hear that statement, and also hear how the other panelists felt about some of the changes that are taking place in more remote work, more digital service offerings, self-service, all sorts of things that are changing what the traditional means of service delivery had looked like.

There was a Women in Service panel yesterday, with Chiara Maiello of Thermo Fisher, Anna Bonerandi from Donaldson, and Maria Jose Aguado from Glory Global. Those three women, along with Maureen, talked about the fact that most organizations are still really struggling to get women into service, particularly in frontline service technician roles. They each shared a bit about their own journeys, talked about how their companies are looking at that challenge, and making changes in terms of how job descriptions are written, and what mentorships look like. It was an interesting conversation. I think it was Maria that said how often she's asked, when she's traveling, who's taking care of her children, which if you listen to this podcast, or read any of my content, is a sentiment that I can fully empathize with.

They also spoke about how critically important, in each of their own careers, male mentors and advocates have been, and how important it is to make sure that we aren't being anti-men, which isn't the objective here. What we're talking about is the fact that women are just one form of diversity that is still significantly lacking in the service sector, and getting creative about how we can change that. It was a really good conversation.

There was a conversation, later in the day, talking about the evolution of the field workforce. Tying into Matthew's statement, earlier in the day, about what he believes will happen by 2030, but talking about how organizations are looking at their frontline workforce. What's changing, how they're upskilling, or what different skills they're looking for, et cetera.

That panel conversation had Didier De Vos from Glory Global, Christophe Hiette from Cytiva, Elena Lubrano from Tetra Pak, and was moderated by Alvaro Pombo from Pronto Forms. Some of the things that came up in that discussion, one of the things that I've talked a bit about before, and I think we'll continue to see, is the idea of segmenting work differently, so that you can allocate different strengths and skillsets to different roles that need to be done in the field.

Different organizations share different examples of how they're doing that. Some, I think they had a junior technician, a regular technician, a senior technician, others is done by product line or area of specialty. But the idea being that you have different ways to segment the work, where you can align strengths to the more technical jobs, you can align strengths to the more relationship building or customer-centric aspects of the job, et cetera.

Another important point in that conversation was the importance of career progression, and giving people a clear picture when they come into an organization of what their opportunity is within the business, and how they can progress through different training, acquiring different skillsets, and ultimately progressing through different roles. One of the things that I liked during this panel is actually something Alvaro said, that I believe he said his father used to always say to him, which is, "Thinking doesn't cost a lot of money."

That struck me, because I think, in service, a lot of our lot of what holds us back from the progress we could be making is that we don't want to think differently. We can make a lot of excuses for why things can't change. I think a lot more would happen if we just took that advice, "Thinking doesn't cost a thing," and did more creative thinking, more brainstorming about what is possible, instead of always tying ourselves to what we think is not possible.

There was a keynote presentation this morning, Wednesday morning, from Rick Lash, who was on the Future of Field Service podcast, along with Christine Miners. They co-authored the book Once Upon a Leader. If you haven't listened to that episode, and would like to do so, it's great. It's episode 226. But Rick gave a keynote presentation on the importance of your leadership narrative, and it was such a great session. I had so many people coming up to me after, just talking about how great it was to hear that presentation at an event like this.

He was very much speaking about how when we're young, we start to form our story; who we are, why we are who we are, what matters to us, what our purpose is. Over time, our environment can erode that, and often distracts us from our story, or encourages us to focus more on what our company's story is, or what our teams, or customers, or whoever’s stories are, and not necessarily staying true to ourselves. And how, as leaders, continuing to understand your story, live your story, allows you to connect with your teams. It allows you to stay motivated, stay energized to do the work, and really just how impactful it can be. It was a great message, and I think one that resonated with everyone in the room.

There was a panel discussion, after, on the circular economy. That was with Ralf Bootz from Philips, Zoltan Gal from ABB, Costas Dintsios from Frigoglass, Marcel van Beek from Gomocha, and Markus Hucko from Leadec. That was a conversation all about how things like refurbishment, recycling, and reuse come into play when we talk about the intersection between service, and how we can help the environment. Things like how insights can be fed back into product development to extend product life cycles, make assets more serviceable, and then how that intersects with the topic of servitization.

Because obviously, as we've discussed on this podcast before, if a company is manufacturing a product for acquisition price, and then the use of spare parts, et cetera, it's a far different business model than if a company is manufacturing a product for maximum lifecycle and cost of service, so how that plays a big role.

Also, how companies are helping their customers with their sustainability initiatives, looking at things like helping them lower energy costs, things like that. I think it was Costas that said, "We have to remember that this conversation is part of culture, and it can sometimes be at odds with things that are only focused on reducing costs. We have to be willing to look at the big picture, and think about value through those different lenses." It was a really interesting conversation.

Then there was conversation this afternoon with Andrea Pelizzaro of Alfa Laval, Valeria Zimenkova from Xylem, Tjerk Smits from Boston Scientific, moderated by Jan van Veen with moreMomentum, talking all about data, and really focused on the monetization of data, and using that as a service revenue stream, as a value proposition. But where the conversation went is that while that is certainly an objective for most organizations. It's really important to master the use of data internally for the purposes of efficiency, and productivity, and knowledge transfer, and business decisions, before you look at how to put it to work in creating a new customer value proposition.

It was interesting to hear where each of those companies are at on that journey. Andrea spoke about a lot of the work that Alfa Laval is doing to coach its sales teams on selling more value-based service offerings, and really working toward that end of creating new revenue streams through these digital connected products, and the data and insights that can be gathered from them.

Very well-rounded collection of topics here this week. Great conversations. It was wonderful to see some friendly faces, and meet some new folks as well. Pleasure to be here, and I believe this is my last trip to Europe for the year. We'll look forward to coming back next year. But in the meantime, stay tuned. I hope to reach out to some of the folks that spoke here this week, and ask them to come be guests, and talk to you all on the podcast directly.

In the meantime, you can, of course, find content on very similar topics by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. While you're there, be sure to sign up for the Future of Field Service Insider, so you can get the latest content delivered to your inbox every other week. The Future of Field Service Podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

One of the themes I have revisited here at Future of Field Service over and over again is that service organizations are faced with what feels like perpetual change – digital transformation is never a one-and-done project (or it shouldn't be). Changes – both technological and operational – are constant. They can also be hard on field service teams, or at least some members.

Change is a key focus for Sara Smith, Director of Global Service Change Enablement at Waters Corporation. Waters is a leading specialty measurement company (they are big in liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry), and service accounts for about a third of the company's revenues annually.

While many companies rely on outside consultants and vendors to help them with project-based change management, Waters made a point to create a long-term, internal position to lead their change management efforts. Sara's background is as both a field service technician and a manager, and she transitioned into the change management role after working with an outside consultant on a technology project.

To help the Waters team navigate big changes, Sara said she relies on a few different management approaches. One of them is ADKAR, an acronym created by Prosci that outlines the five states a person needs to achieve for a change to be successful - Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.

The awareness component is a critical first step, because it helps team members understand why a change is occurring. “Have you ever been sent to a training class, and you have no idea why you're there?” Sara said. “I bet you didn't retain much from that training class. We need to understand why we are here and what's the goal.”

Desire requires that team members get to a place where they want the change to occur, while the knowledge phase involves training and educating the team. Ability refers to the capacity for team members to actually put their knowledge into practice.

The final piece, reinforcement, is one of the most important, and the element that often falls apart if a company doesn't have a long-term change culture in place. “We need to reinforce that positive behavior and make sure that it sticks long term,” Sara says.

Sara said the company takes other approaches depending on which team members are involved. Senior leadership, for example, usually has the Why are we doing this? part down, but often need some help communicating their vision to the rest of the team. She also said that celebrating short-term wins was important for successful change management, as well as understanding how change can affect employees emotionally.

I also asked her about change fatigue, since new projects and initiatives seem to be coming at field service organizations at a much faster pace.

At Waters, Sara said two things that have helped are, first, acknowledging that change is exhausting and if everyone seems tired of it, that's okay. She also said that the company uses quarterly surveys to gauge how well employees are adapting. The employees appreciate the opportunity to be heard.

“That alone has created such a positive influence,” she says. “Just the fact that they have an avenue, they know somebody's listening and somebody cares. It speaks volumes to employees to have their voice heard and actually have someone follow up with them as well. It's huge.”

Experiences As a Female Field Technician

In addition to her change management strategies, I also talked to Sara about her experiences as a technician and manager in a largely male-dominated field. She’s faced some common challenges – having coworkers or customers question her proficiency, for example. But a bigger challenge is really communicating where women in the field might struggle and getting coworkers and leaders to understand the negative experiences women can face in the field.

“I think there's a lot of areas that some of our colleagues don't realize where women struggle,” Sara explains. “There are the kind of more obvious things, but there are these examples where you're just like, "Really? That happened to you like, oh my gosh." Throughout my career journey, I've had people ask me for a lock of hair. I have had people photograph me because they thought it was funny that I was pregnant while being in the field.”

I recently spoke to author Lauren Neal about ways to bring more women into the service industry (and retain them). Sara said that there are some more local ways to encourage and support women in the industry. Those include raising awareness with peers about some of those challenges and engaging with the community. “I'm a big proponent of getting in front of our younger generations and normalizing women in service, women in field service roles,” she said.

As you can tell, we had a pretty wide-ranging conversation; take a listen to the whole thing on our podcast.

Sarah talks with Sara Smith, Director of Global Service Change Enablement at Waters Corporation, about her experience transitioning into a career as a woman service engineer and about what she’s learned in her current role leading global service change enablement for her company.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today we're going to be having a conversation about re-imagining change management for today's service needs. Change management has been one of the most discussed topics for the entire 15, 16 years I've been in this space, and I'm sure longer than that. But as our industry evolves, the way we need to look at change management and the topic and practices changes as well. So we're going to talk about that today. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast Sara Smith, who is Director of Global Service Change Enablement at Waters Corporation. Sara, welcome to the podcast.

Sara Smith: Thanks for having me. It's great.

Sarah Nicastro: Sara and Sarah.

Sara Smith: I know, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Doesn't get any better than that, one with an H one without.

Sara Smith: The dynamic duo.

Sarah Nicastro: A little bit of variety. Yeah. Okay. All right, so before we get into today's discussion, tell everyone a little bit about yourself, your role and what Waters does.

Sara Smith: Yeah, so thank you so much. Yeah. So like you said, my name is Sara Smith and I am the Director of Global Service Change Enablement with Waters Corporation. I've been with Waters for 12 years now, and for those of you who don't know what Waters does, we are actually the world's leading specialty measurement company, but you most often hear our name in the world of liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. So our CEO likes to give the example of by the time you have woken up and had your cup of coffee and maybe taken an aspirin, you've already kind of interacted with our products and our instruments before you've even left the door. So what we do is we deliver practical and sustainable scientific innovation and solutions in the healthcare industry, environmental management, food safety, even your water quality, testing of water and making sure things are safe for you to eat, drink, all the chemical manufacturing. We're kind of spread across multiple industries.

So specific to my role, I lead the change for the global service organization with Waters Corporation and that comprises of about a third of Waters' annual 3 billion revenue. So it's quite the undertaking. It's a large service organization to support and in that role I lead soup to nuts change enablement, start to finish. So strategy, planning to execution, and then the support of the leadership in the local areas to make sure that our changes from large technical implementations to process changes or kind of anything in between to ensure that we are seeing that return on investment as quickly as possible.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, good. All right, so we're going to get into the change management, change enablement topics. But before we do that, I want to talk just a little bit about how you ended up in field service and what your journey has been. So can you tell everyone a little bit about that?

Sara Smith: Absolutely. It's been quite the journey for sure and one that I have been very, very thankful and grateful for throughout my career. So I kind of think of it as in three different pivots. So the first experiences I went to school for forensic toxicology. At that time, the shows like CSI and stuff were very popular and I thought, wow, I want to be that cool girl in the lab that's doing all the fun, exciting stuff. So I went to school, I went to work for Quest Diagnostics as a forensic tech right out of the gate doing drug of abuse testing, except when I got into the actual work of being a forensic toxicologist, I noticed that it wasn't really as exciting as TV made it out to be, right?

So for me, my favorite part of the day was when the instrument would break and I got to try to fix it before the engineer would get there. So for me that was a lot more satisfying and gratifying way to spend my time as I was a problem solver. I wanted instead of doing the same thing every day, which is great for some people, they love going into work knowing what they're going to do. For me, I like to be challenged. I like to find new challenges to take on.

Sarah Nicastro: Most people are hoping the instrument doesn't break. You were sitting there like, when's it going to break, when's it going to break?

Sara Smith: I really was, I really was because it was so fulfilling for me to try to fix it and then before the engineer I could call them and say, "Nope, you don't have to come. I got it." Or he would just send me the part. Eventually, once I kind of got that level of comfortability with the instrument, he would just end up sending me the part. So it was kind of very mutually beneficial where our samples, we didn't have the decreased downtime waiting for the engineer to get there and he didn't have to show up. So it was great. And then once I realized I could do that job full time, I absolutely pursued it. I had heard Waters name through many different organizations that I have and peers that I talked to and joined Waters as a field service engineer working on our mass spectrometry line mostly.

So I did that for five years. Then I was promoted to being the service manager for the southeast, which covered Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, all the way up into Eastern Tennessee and North Carolina. So I did that for another five years. So I've got about a decade worth of experience in field service either as an engineer myself or as a service manager for the territory. And then finally I moved into the role I'm in now about two years ago, and that's where I've been working on service transformations and I've learned so much and been able to apply that 10 years of experience into what I'm doing now. So it's been a great journey for me personally.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that's really cool. And I think it's always really interesting to talk to people about how did you get into field service. Because to your point, your storyline makes sense. You're seeing CSI and you're thinking, oh, that would be a cool job, and then you end up going down a path, now maybe finding out it's not as cool, but you don't necessarily have kids saying like, "Oh, I want to go into field service." And I think there's a lot of reasons for that. And so I think it's always interesting to hear people's journeys of how they did get there, because I also think as an industry or group of industries that need to reshape the way we attract people to these careers, we need to be thinking about what ultimately gets people that awareness so that we can be more proactive in creating that. But I think it's a really cool story. What I'm curious about, I guess is being a woman field engineer, I'm sure you were in the minority and what was that like? What did you like about it? But also what were some of the challenging pieces?

Sara Smith: Yeah, the challenging pieces were honestly not just field service, it's STEM also. So these are even things that still to this day some of my peers still struggle with, but specifically into field service. I think there's a lot of areas that some of our colleagues don't realize where women struggle. There are the kind of more obvious things, but there are these examples where you're just like, "Really? That happened to you like, oh my gosh." Throughout my career journey, I've had people ask me for a lock of hair. I have had people photograph me because they thought it was funny that I was pregnant while being in the field.

So these kinds of things that you know while they don't happen every day, they do happen. And on a more regular daily basis, some of the struggles that we face is, I feel like respect to your proficiency in the role is never assumed it has to be earned. When you walk through the door as a woman to a new customer that you may have never met or seen before, there may be that unconscious bias of, well, she's not going to be able to do what this other guy can. And that's even something that can be seen in both men and women. It's just men that maybe have this unconscious bias, other women may have this feeling about another female engineer too. So I'm not trying to call anybody out, but it is something I've even done.

If I take my car to go get its oil changed and there's a female tech changing my oil, I'm like, oh, that's unusual. You don't see that every day. So it's still something I'm even trying to be more conscious of. Let's maybe make this more normal. So that's one of the big ones is maybe a male going into a new site, they see them walk through the door and "Oh, we're saved. Our engineer's here, he's going to fix it." Whereas maybe I walk through the door and also I'm challenged by height as well. I'm very petite, so not only am I a female, I am a short female, which makes it even less likely because our instruments are quite large, that they have that confidence in me right out of the gate. But that kind of flips to the positives. So when you get that fixed in field service and you are out there alone maybe, and you are... You versus the machine.

And you can finally get that win and you can get that fixed fix and the satisfaction you receive from turning the doubters into believers into your abilities, that was one of the highlights and the positives about me being in field service, was I love that feeling of fixing things. I've always had that natural fix it inclination. It's another reason I got into change management. I stopped fixing instruments and wanted to fix broken processes and support people. We never lose that fix it mentality, but that satisfaction that you receive from showing people what you can do and turning and then they request you the next time, that's something that's unmatched in my opinion.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, no, I can see how you mentioned even when you were at Quest, enjoying working on the equipment yourself, there's the satisfaction of the win or the fix, but then also double that by the people that doubted you could get the job done and kind of saying like, okay. But I do think it's important to go back to I think those sort of conscious or unconscious biases that people carry that's important for us to be reflecting upon are the workplace, so within organizations accepting and inclusive, those are obviously important things. But some of the other things that you mentioned with the lock of hair and someone taking pictures of you, I mean, that's really more harassment in actuality. And I think these are things that it's very important for organizations to understand that women still face and come across that we need to be aware of and dealing with because it's not okay.

And knowing that there's already going to be complexities to navigate regardless of anything like that, it just makes it that much harder. I did a podcast recently with a gentleman from Socomec, Franklin Maxson, and we talked a lot about safety, and part of the conversation we had is this idea of technicians feeling this sense of autonomy and whatever the reason is that they might not feel safe, whether that is physically, psychologically, et cetera, making them feel empowered to speak up and remove themselves from those situations.

And we talked about that that's something that can be easy for companies to say and harder for them to do because if the result of that is you are frustrating an important customer by saying, "I don't appreciate you taking a picture of me," it's a harder thing to navigate than a lot of people want to acknowledge upfront. So I think it's important to share those things and to have those conversations because those situations will come up and how a company makes its employees feel empowered to handle those situations goes a long way in how we make women or anyone feel more supported in those roles. So thank you for speaking to that.

Sara Smith: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is uncomfortable, right? It's an uncomfortable topic to talk about and it's probably uncomfortable to listen to as well and realize that this happens. But you're right, I do think it is important to share those examples because many people don't often realize that that does happen. So we got to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Sarah Nicastro: Exactly, yeah. Now other than making ourselves comfortable, being uncomfortable, having the conversations, is there anything else you would point to on what you think it will take to get more women into service technician roles and into this space?

Sara Smith: Absolutely. I have heard this question asked many, many times through podcasts, articles, things like that. And I kind of wanted to call out a gap I often see in those answers. A lot of the answers that I've seen personally talk about policy changes and maybe some things that people like myself or people listening to this podcast don't have the ability to control within their organization. I don't get the CEO big bucks, so I don't get to make the decisions on which policies we enact, and that's fine. There's plenty that we can do in our level locally around us to make that positive influence. So I don't think we need to sit around and wait for organizations to make these types of changes. We need to start and look within ourselves first.

And now, I can say that Waters does an excellent job with this, but being an expert in change, I'm kind of one of the first to realize and amplify the power of social influence. That's a big one. And so I kind of feel like there's three outlets that we can do this effectively. So like I said, influencing our company culture, which yes, we can influence our company culture even if we're not driving those policies, interacting with our peers and raising that awareness, kind of like what you talked about. And then three within our local community as well. So within the company culture piece of it, I tell people at Waters all the time, you have the power to make the culture that you want within your team.

Just because we are driving these certain initiatives like yes, absolutely, we need to make sure that we get our business goals accomplished, but take a moment to create that environment that you want to see be the change that you want to see, have some more team building activities. Nobody's going to come and say you have to do this, and you have to make a positive culture locally. That ownership lies within us, and we kind of determine that environment. So being more aware of that and understanding that we have that control outside of maybe policy that's big, that's big for me, and that influenced a lot of what I do. The second piece of it with our peers. So I had an example of this that worked really, really well. I was actually invited to speak to... It was about a hundred sales and service managers at this meeting that we had about those exact experiences.

And after the fact I had many of my male service manager colleagues come up after me and say, "Oh my gosh, I had no idea that you had gone through anything like that." They're like, "You're so well put together. You've been able to grow your career. We had no clue that you were going through these things while you were a service engineer." So what they did is they actually took that back to their teams and proactively asked their teams, again, men and women, "What is your day like? What's happening in your world that I need to be aware of?" And they followed back up with me a few weeks later, and they actually found some ways that they could help their female employees and with struggles that they didn't even know were happening.

Because to your point earlier, a lot of people don't feel comfortable speaking up in those situations because they're afraid of any number of retaliation or I don't want to lose the big customer and the big client. I don't want to be the one that's responsible for that because I spoke out about a situation. So proactive dialogue, I think from a leadership perspective goes a long way because you're going to find a lot more information that way from your teams. And then finally, within our communities, I'm a big proponent of getting in front of our younger generations and normalizing women in service, women in field service roles.

Waters has this excellent STEM kit that takes purple Kool-Aid and separates it out to red and blue using one of our column cartridges. And I am actually going to have the opportunity to do that in front of my daughter's third grade class soon. So I'm super excited about that, but I'm also really excited to, again, it's normalized that I'm a woman going up and performing this experiment in front of the younger generations, so that way it's not weird when they grow up and see a woman in this type of industry. So kind of doing what I can on a local level within my community to raise awareness to these things, to be the change that I want to see within my community and kind of put myself out there and having those equitable opportunities for women as well is super important early in age as well as during their career.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, absolutely. Very good advice. Okay, so let's get into the change part of the conversation. So the first thing I want to talk about, you mentioned that you had about five years as a technician, about five years as a service manager before taking on this change enablement role. And the other thing to mention though is that historically Waters worked with consultants on managing change. So yours is the first full-time role dedicated to this for service. Okay, so what I'd like to talk about is a little bit about that decision and maybe some of the pros and potentially cons of handling change enablement in-house versus working with consultant.

Sara Smith:

Absolutely. So I took over this role during a deployment, and we had kind of set everything up with a consultant. So as they were rolling off, they made the decision to stand up this role long-term within the service organization at Waters. So my story is somewhat unique in the sense that I grew up in field service essentially throughout my career. I have that deep industry expertise, not only from the industry but for the company itself because I've been here for over a decade. And what that does is help create sustainment for future success. So kind of the consultants set us up and that way I can reinforce the changes long past their exit.

And consultants are fantastic. They did a great job of engaging for bigger program launches, supplementing support, generating ideas that maybe we wouldn't have thought of internally, but there is something very powerful in standing up a permanent change infrastructure that shows employees, we care about your experience, we care about your success. We are making this a long-term investment in you. And that really helps build the change resiliency within an organization when you show that you have dedication to that. But even an internal change management team needs to make sure they're keeping their finger on the pulse external to their organization, or you can start going down a path that is maybe not ideal to align with industry best practices or standards or things like that.

So my advice is I feel like there's not do one or the other, but maybe there is a best practice to find a balance between the two. How can you start off the program, get the outside idea... Especially with, like I said, larger initiatives, whether it's a tech rollout or a complete reorg of the organization, having that external expertise is very, very valuable. But standing it up internally, long-term shows that commitment to success.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think the other big change is that we're at a point in service where I've been talking about this quite a bit as thinking about change from the lens of change leadership, not change management, because change management I always think of as historically it's been very project focused, but today it is more people focused because the change is ongoing, right?

Sara Smith: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes, it comes in waves. Yes, it still comes in the form of projects, but it's also like we're coming from a world of where I think that companies didn't have something like this internally because they had relatively long stable periods. And then, okay, we're going to change this thing. Let's bring someone in to help us through that. And now we're back to another long stable period. That's just not the landscape that we're in. So I think this idea of having a dedicated function is also aligned with just our reality in service of being more in a transformative innovative phase and having something always changing, right?

Sara Smith: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: And that sort of thing, but I like your point too about what it represents to the teams, but then also not losing sight of the value of some of that external expertise, external perspective. So that makes sense. Okay, so you mentioned that you have a certification in and use a lot of the ADKAR methodology. So in your experience, what aspects of that work well? Because then I want to go on and talk a little bit about what gaps you see.

Sara Smith: Sure. So for those who don't know ADKAR, I can give a brief explanation. ADKAR stands for the five elements that every individual needs to go through during times of change in order to reach that future state. Prosci, it believes that organizations don't change people change people are the ones bringing the organization along on this journey. And on this journey, you have to move through these five steps in order. That's very important. So always start with why. So the awareness piece, that's the first one in the ADKAR message, making sure people know why we are asking them to change, right? Have you ever been sent to a training class and you have no idea why you're there? I bet you didn't retain much from that training class. We need to understand why are we here and what's the goal. So that then leads to our next piece, which is the desire piece. And this one's a little bit more challenging because this is where our human nature can really come into play.

And at the end of the day, we are free will humans, and we cannot control people in that way. We have to understand that the desire piece of it I have chosen to adopt to this change is an individual's choice. We can influence, we can try to bring them along as much as we can, but at the end of the day, it is up to that individual to make sure that they have that desire. Then we get to knowledge. So this is your training, making sure people have the information they need to be successful in this change. And then I like that Prosci has separated knowledge from ability. So ability is the next piece. Just because you have the knowledge doesn't mean you have the ability to put it into practice. And these can be physical barriers, mental barriers, but it's up to the leadership teams locally to really foster that ability piece and making sure the right environment is there for their teams to succeed.

And then finally, the reinforcement is the last ADKAR element, and I feel like this is one that kind of drops sometimes, especially without that long-term change culture within an organization. Because think about it like a diet or if you're trying to stop smoking, if we aren't continuously reinforcing that behavior, we're going to fall right back into eating an entire sleeve of Oreos in one sitting or something like that. We need to reinforce that positive behavior and making sure that it sticks long term. And I have been able to scale this approach and apply it really well on a large scale here at Waters through our Change Champions network. So since ADKAR is a more individualistic approach, what we did... It kind of kicked off with our deployment and we've kept it going for a couple years now based on the positive feedback that we've seen.

It's comprised of about 230 service employees, so about 10% of our service population across 34 countries. So this is a global scalable initiative that we have, and it brings that peer-to-peer approach with focused personas. So engineers are talking to engineers, managers are talking to managers. Our expert center tech support staff are talking to other tech support staffs and creating that community around people locally because typically within organizations support, the support teams are small. So when we were dealing with thousands of employees to support with such a massive change, having those localized champions in supporting them to be that local expert has been super, super helpful. So we do do that. We have quarterly surveys and we get about a 95% approval rating, which is phenomenal in my opinion, of our champions. So they're doing a fantastic job and we've really seen a lot of success with the Prosci ADKAR model, for sure.

Sarah Nicastro: So then what gaps, if any, are there? The methodology works, but where would you say that following a methodology like ADKAR doesn't necessarily meet all of the needs?

Sara Smith: Absolutely. There shouldn't be one approach that fits everything, in my opinion. And I have found a lot of success. Like I said, when I'm kind of working down within the organization, when I am speaking to our senior leaders or our executives, that's when I feel ADKAR's not the best approach. Those executives, they don't need to know the what's in it for me, they need to rise to that higher level. So I use, I'm sure people are more familiar with Kotter's eight steps, that's definitely something I use with more senior leadership and executives. And for people who don't know what those are, I can list them very briefly.

So for one, it creates urgency. Two, forming a powerful coalition. Three, creating a vision for change. That's a big one when we're talking about executives having that vision, having that goal in mind for the organization of what are we driving to is super important. Communicating that vision, communication, I cannot emphasize enough how important communication is in times of change. Removing obstacles, creating short-term wins and I always like to say celebrating those short-term wins as well. Building on the change is step seven. And then eight is anchoring the changes in the corporate culture, which again, like we talked about earlier, when we are working with those senior leaders and executives who have more pool over the corporate culture of an organization, if you embed that change in that culture, again, it's more likely to succeed long-term.

So there's that. And also, I like to talk about how change affects people emotionally. I feel like it's one of those topics that can be a little stigmatized, and I would love to de-stigmatize that. So I use the Kubler Ross change curve when I'm talking about the emotions that a person may go through. Again, man or woman, we all have feelings about changes. The comfort zone is a very powerful thing, and when you take someone out of it, they're going to have some thoughts and feelings about it. So there's some great models online of the Kubler Ross change curve, kind of goes through how a person goes through shock, denial, frustration, maybe even depression before they kind of experiment, decide and integrate as they're coming out of that downward slope. Those are the two that I kind of use to supplement the ADKAR methodology.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, no, I love that. We had a woman on the podcast a number of months ago, and she actually spoke at our event in Minneapolis, Elizabeth Moran, and she talks a little bit about the neuroscience behind change. And it is a very, I guess simple point, but I think one that sometimes we forget and ties to the emotional reaction, which is we need to remember that resistance to change is human nature. So it isn't someone being difficult. It isn't indicative that the change will fail or it isn't a good idea. It's simply just built into someone's brain. And so I think that is important to remember and acknowledge that you have to work through and that it's normal and all of that, if that makes sense.

Another thing I think is interesting, we talked a little bit about how you are in a global role, but you're working a lot with regions to sort of execute these initiatives. And so what we talked about is that you have to rely on leading by influence versus having direct control because these aren't direct reports that you can say, Hey, I need you to do X, Y, and Z. You have to get people invested. How do you think the focus on influence versus control shapes your approach?

Sara Smith: Yeah, absolutely. I think that goes back to what you were talking about with change leadership. So our local leaders are absolutely paramount to ensuring that any change that we try to implement, large or small is successful. And actually, so there's been some research, 70% of employees want to hear personal impact messages about change directly from their immediate supervisor. They don't want to hear it from me as the change director. They don't even want to hear it from the executives because the executives can't get down to the what's in it for me, how is this going to impact me personally. So like I said, communication and setting up those leaders to be able to have those talking points, and they have the support to feel like they can go to their teams with that type of information. So what we do is we try to enable our leaders before we bring it to the rest of the organization.

Those local leaders are absolutely necessary to making sure our changes is successful. I kind of think of it as change for change. So I use some of the same change management principles associated with awareness and desire building to create advocates in those local leaders, ensure we have alignment because that's another big key thing, make sure we're all talking about the same thing and get their buy-in before we bring it to the rest of the organization. As a change leader, I should be providing framework for them to go execute. So that's really the kind of overarching themes is support your leaders as much as possible, because the influence versus control doesn't matter as much if we have those advocates built already.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, no, I think that's a good point, and I think it's a piece that sometimes can be overlooked, the importance of having frontline managers who are not only bought in but capable. So going back to the knowledge and the ability piece like, do they themselves have the ability to be those change leaders? That's a whole different conversation in terms of enablement, but often you see companies focus on change management from a very top down approach, but not necessarily from the perspective of, I like what you said first, tackling the managers, building that understanding and awareness and building those advocates and then taking it from there. So I think that's very wise. I'm curious, how do you navigate change saturation or change fatigue? Because obviously we talked about the fact that we're living in a very dynamic world, to put it kindly, and obviously from the lens of a global company and all of its employees, I think people can get to a point where they're just like, I can't handle anything else tapped. So how do you-

Sara Smith: Yeah, they've tapped out.

Sarah Nicastro: ... worked through that? Yeah.

Sara Smith: Yeah. Change is here to stay. Like you said, we're not going to slow the pace anytime soon. You can't open up your computer these days without hearing about AI in some sort of way, shape, and form. The industry is changing at a pace that we've never seen before and it's not going to slow. So going back to the concept of building that resiliency within an organization and empowering leaders to have that accountability, empowering them to have that ability and knowledge to better best support their teams. We are all human. We all experience this change fatigue. Even me and I deal with change on a daily basis, and sometimes I'm... Why can't things just stay the same even for a little bit? But that's okay, right? So normalizing those thoughts and those feelings, again is extremely important to managing the change fatigue. One other thing that I have seen be very, very helpful is those quarterly surveys that I send out, there's an option to be contacted.

It's an anonymous survey, but there's an option you can put in your email address if you wish to be contacted about any of the information or troubles that you're having. And I block out a day and I literally respond to every single one of them that comes in. Most of the time they entered their email address because they didn't realize it was an optional field versus a required field. But what they say after that tells me that we're on the right track because what they say is, "Oh my gosh, there's an actual human being reading my comments and responding, reaching out to me about my struggle or what I'm going through." That alone has created such a positive influence. Just the fact that they have an avenue, they know somebody's listening and somebody cares. So again, that also goes back to that standing up the change management or change enablement internally because you have the bandwidth to do those kinds of things. It speaks volumes to employees to have their voice heard and actually have someone follow up with them as well. It's huge.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. I think the only other thing I want to reiterate that you mentioned earlier that can really help with change fatigue is you mentioned the importance of celebrating the small wins. And I think in an environment where change is pretty constant and there's always going to be a next thing and the next thing, making sure that one, you're celebrating, period, but two, you aren't waiting until every huge seismic shift to do so, but you're celebrating the effort. You're celebrating even the failures, and you're making people feel that you appreciate the effort they're putting into adapting, not necessarily accomplishing just the big goal. I think that is so, so important and also something that people under utilize for sure.

Sara Smith: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, so last question is, we talked about normal human response, right? That there's phases people go through, resistance is normal, et cetera. Are there anything you would point out that kind of goes a step beyond that, that are more persistent mindsets or beliefs that really can kind of serve as a big roadblock for positive forward motion?

Sara Smith: Absolutely. I'm sure you've heard of the fixed versus growth mindset, and that is one I always come back to where I'm thinking about this kind of topic. So it can be the silent protest or it can be someone that is overtly speaking up in meetings that they just don't want to do. This resistance can come in many ways, shapes and forms, and to your point earlier, it is inevitable. It is human nature. I can speak from experience that I made the mistake, and early on in this role that I thought some of the changes that we were putting out were they were going to be great for everybody and everybody was just going to get on board with it. I did not expect the level of resistance that I received, and that helped me, again, learn for future initiatives. So did I need to do a better job explaining the why?

Every kind of setback or every piece of feedback that I get that is not positive is an opportunity for us to learn and adjust our approach a little bit more. So when you think about those different kinds of mindsets, the fixed mindset specifically, we have to expect it. We have to plan for it, not only at a 30,000-foot view, and I tell the leaders here at Waters all the time, "I can only do so much. I'm relying on you to bring us home the rest of the way." We have about a goal of 80%. So if we can reach 80% with a global change initiative, that's what we consider to be a success. We are relying on the local leaders to bring us across the finish line with that rest 20%. So planning for it and mitigating it, understanding we'll never be able to get rid of it.

Because that can create a lot of frustration if we're just like, oh, why is everybody resisting? Or why is this one person resisting? It's going to happen? And maybe it's just because they don't understand the training material, they don't understand the why. They don't understand how this is going to personally impact them. But embedding that growth mindset within the culture versus a fixed mindset and continuously building upon the why, going back to reinforcing those things, that's really one of the biggest things that I still feel persists is kind of that fixed mindset. We've done things this way for so long. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Why are we changing things? So like I said, building that resiliency of change culture, reinforcing the why, just the reinforcement piece in general to whichever ADKAR element people are suffering with, and having those conversations with your team to know where are they actually struggling that can really help us get from that fixed mindset to the growth mindset.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, really good stuff. I like this. All right, this has been great, Sara. Is there any other thoughts or comments that you want to leave off with?

Sara Smith: No, I want to thank you for this opportunity. These are two topics that are extremely important to me and I'm passionate about, so I'm really thankful for the opportunity to share my experience and share what I've learned over the last few years in my career journey. But no, I think this has been fantastic. And the more that we can talk about change management, because like you said, we've heard it that it's necessary, but not a lot of people talk about what that actually means. So I'm really appreciative of the forum here to kind of talk about what I do. So thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes, thank you for coming and sharing your perspective. We really appreciate it and hope to have you back sometime in the future.

Sara Smith: Great. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Yep. You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. While you're there, be sure to sign up for the Future of Field Service INSIDER, which will deliver the latest articles in podcasts to your inbox every other week. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

By Sarah Nicastro, Creator, Future of Field Service

With service organizations struggling across industries and geographies with staffing and recruitment, creating a more diverse workforce is a critical step just to make sure there are enough technicians, trainers and managers on the team to keep up with demand. Moreover, companies who understand diversity as the driver it is for greater creativity, innovation, and customer appeal recognize that the reasons to put it (and keep it) in focus goes far beyond meeting today’s staffing needs.

Yet as it relates particularly to the area of gender diversity, field service seems to struggle. Organizations remain largely managed and staffed by men, with what seems to be an agreement that recruiting and retaining women in service jobs is key but challenging. Leading organizations are getting creative in not only reflecting on their role definitions, job descriptions, and recruiting practices but also in some cases re-imagining what the role could look like to increase appeal. And they are, of course, always open to advice and insights to help their efforts.

To that end, we’ve asked some advice from UK-based engineer, Lauren Neal. Lauren has recently published a book called Valued at Work: Shining a Light on Bias to Engage, Enable and Retain Women in STEM and is also the founder at Chief Programme Creator of Valued at Work. Lauren has worked in the energy sector since 2005 offshore, onshore and onsite, most recently at bp.

After her years of experience, she feels strongly that gender equity is far from where it should be. Her book shares real stories from women working in STEM and presents a look at some of the challenges women face as well as advice for strategies for managers to help improve things.

Here Lauren shares some insight about retaining women in STEM and technical professions as well as field service.

For background, can you explain what led you to engineering, and how your experience working in that field shaped the writing of this book?

I always enjoyed math and computing at school and finding solutions to problems. I studied Electronic and Electrical Engineering, specialising in computer engineering, at university, then as I lived in Aberdeen, I ended up working in the energy industry. Now I’ve worked in energy for over 18 years and while I have had my share of experiences with bias and behaviours, it wasn’t until I started opening up to others that I noticed trends, particularly when people from under-recognised groups hit mid-career. I decided I wanted to use my voice to raise the profile of this issue as so many aren’t aware it is still happening today.

What are some of the elements in traditionally male-dominated STEM and technical fields that make recruiting and retaining women challenging? Are those things changing as we shift from one generation of managers to another?

I think recruitment can be challenging due a lack of women role-models at different levels – it’s difficult to see a career path for ‘someone like you’ when there isn’t anyone like you there. Retention is another issue entirely. Women face disrespectful comments on their competency, bias on their behaviours (even if they do the same as a man would), and often gate-keeping from other women! You can have the most confident and competent women joining organizations, but if they aren’t included in their teams, they will leave. I don’t think these things are changing very quickly, as too many aren’t aware they are happening in the first place.

In field service, there is a staffing struggle in general -- there are not a lot of young men entering the field for a variety of reasons either, so organizations are trying to cast a wider net. What are some ways organizations can adjust their recruitment/retention strategies to make the field more attractive to women?

Illustrating clear career paths and progression would help. If it were me, I would want to know where my career could take me (i.e., is there travel?), what typical roles could I get now and next, what are my options for moving forward – can I change disciplines, can I lead or manage others, etc.? I would like to hear from others about their biggest challenges and successes in their roles. Also, listing a likely salary along the career path would also help.

The majority of managers/leaders at these types of companies, today, are men. What are some of the challenges in shifting the mindset and processes at organizations to take a new approach to recruitment/retention, or even recognize there is a problem in the first place?

I think most people have experienced being excluded – say if you’re trying to order a drink at the bar and the bartender continues to ignore you. It’s not a great feeling. I have met some brilliant men in my career who were completely oblivious to the experiences of women, sometimes in their own team. Women don’t often speak up about it as they wonder if it's ‘just them’ and definitely don’t want a label saying they are ‘difficult’ or ‘noisy’. Without being told about an issue, how would you know it’s happening?

What are some key strategies for retaining women in these fields once they have been hired?

For any change, it starts with acknowledging the real issues – these are the behaviours they experience (from both men and women), whether women are utilized for only admin or their specialist technical skills, and hindrances in their career development to leadership roles. And the best place to start? Have real conversations with these women to find out what they are experiencing, and acknowledge that it will be different from your experience.

Diversity efforts can fall prey to not being well designed or executed, or face pushback. How best can a company frame these efforts to get buy-in and gain traction?

I like to start with why DEI efforts are required – for example, sharing the studies that show diverse teams perform better and are more profitable for the business. Showing the cost of recruitment to replace people who have left the company and how poor behaviours can contribute to this. I also like to get everyone involved. Lots of companies have safety observation quotas to meet (e.g., one observation per month) but I would love to see inclusion observations being recorded. This is something very simple to get everyone involved and start testing how well they understand inclusion.

Sarah shares a synopsis of the topics discussed at the Future of Field Service Live Tour 2023 stop in Stockholm on October 10^th.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Last week we held the sixth and final Future of Field Service Live Tour event for 2023 in Stockholm. It was a great day, great event, and wonderful way to wrap up the live tour series for this year, and thought it would be worth sharing a bit of what took place with you all. If you haven't listened to any of our event recap podcasts before or haven't had the opportunity to attend a live tour event, the format for the day is we have a series of speakers, typically four or five, six speakers depending on the duration of that day's event, who do interview-based sessions. So similar to what you normally hear on this podcast just in-person. So they're pretty casual in nature. We sit in front of the audience, but they aren't slide based. We're welcoming these people in to share their experiences, insights, expertise with the audience and learn from one another.

We also have workshops that are sprinkled in, usually one in the morning, one in the afternoon, where attendees break out into smaller groups and have some more in-depth conversation related to the topics that have been presented. So this is the second year doing these events. In 2022, we hosted five, this year, this was our sixth. And overall the feedback has been very positive and it's always heartwarming for me if I ask people, how is today for you? I had a gentleman last week that said it was inspiring. And those are the answers I love because we live in the information age, we can get information everywhere. So while the speakers are definitely sharing helpful insights and information, what I love about these days is when these service leaders take a break from their everyday responsibilities and come together as a community, they have the opportunity to leave feeling inspired and reinvigorated to go back and continue innovating in their businesses. So that's an honor for me.

So last week in Stockholm we had our first session was with Caroline Häggström Marklund, who is the Managing Director and Vice President for Customer Services in the Nordics at Vattenfall. So this session was an inside look at Vattenfall customer services prize winning people first strategy. Okay, so Vattenfall customer service has won a couple of different awards and recognitions such as winning the Swedish Union's HBTQI award for Most Inclusive Workplace. That's just one example. So they have won these awards because they have put a lot of effort into really creating this people first culture. This is one of those things that, as Caroline and I discussed, can be a very thrown about term. Everyone knows that they should say there are people first, but it's a question of if they're really doing the work to live that out, and then what impact that can have. So I loved that Caroline made a number of really, really important points, and the entire session was great and hopefully will be released as a podcast.

But I know one of the things that was important for her to convey is that people tend to think that this idea of people first is this soft, fluffy concept. And what she wanted to make sure people understand is that there are real business benefits that come from putting action behind creating a people first culture. So she spoke in specifics about some of the impact that Vattenfall customer service has seen since it started on this journey and how that has related to metrics of results achieved, customer satisfaction, et cetera. She also spoke about some of the challenges. So she was there from the perspective of winning these awards and having made all of this progress, but she was sure to share with folks that it hasn't just been a smooth journey. There are some things that are challenging that you have to overcome if you want to put the effort behind truly becoming people first. So she shared some of those.

She also spoke about some of the most important elements. So she shared some stories about building trust and how that can take time, requires patience, but is very, very important in showing your teams that you are invested in the process. She also talked about the fact that leaders can't do this without being able to be vulnerable and emotional. Being people first requires you to really get to know people as humans, and you can't do that if you're not willing to open up and be yourself. And she also talked about the importance of being humble and shared a story around her willingness and readiness to admit when she doesn't have the answers. And also sharing with her teams that her intentions are good, but she isn't perfect and welcoming them to hold her accountable. So many great points were made, and I think a very important discussion.

Any of you that are here on the podcast often know that I'm a big believer in this approach and what it will continue to mean in terms of retaining and recruiting top talent into the future. The second session we had was a service transformation deep dive with Electrolux. So, I was joined by Kristoffer Brun, who is Services and Repair Transformation Manager, Anna Mezzanotte, who is Service Operations Product Domain Expert, and Peter Sandqvist, who is the Transformation Manager, all from Electrolux. What was really cool about this session is Kristoffer, Anna and Peter are all from different functions of the business and came together to really talk about what has gone into making their service transformation a success. So they're in the midst of a global rollout of IFS and talked about some lessons learned in actually piloting a solution before they regrouped and went through a new selection process and what they learned about the importance of having all stakeholders involved.

They also then talked about the pilot process, change management, lessons learned from, Peter was speaking from the business perspective, some of the things that came up that were maybe a little bit more unexpected or unique that they have kept track of and taken as lessons learned. And Anna then from an IT perspective, so they went into some detail around what does it really take to execute this type of global transformation? What are some of the things that were pleasant surprises? What are some of the things that were unseen, unforeseen challenges? What have they been learning along the way that they then take and put into the plan for the next region, et cetera.

So it was a great session. I think these are the types of sessions people really value because we often speak of these global projects once they're completely executed and we talk about the impact, but people aren't always willing to share the in-between and the deep dive into what it takes along the way to get to that ultimate success. After that, we had our morning workshops and lunch, and then the next session was with Hannele Peltonen, who is the Head of Field Service Transformation at KONE. So Hannele joined really to talk about how KONE is viewing and forging the future of service. So we spoke about a number of different areas of change or of transformation, and how those can be both a challenge and an opportunity. So Hannele spoke about her view on each of those areas and what some of the challenges are, but also what some of the opportunity is that those areas represent for the business going forward.

So again, very big global brand. So a lot of things to take into consideration when you think about this idea of creating global consistency and customer experience and global standards, but also keeping in mind all of the regional differences in approach, culture, et cetera. We talked about obviously technology and the role that plays. We talked about how the role of service technicians has changed and is changing. So a number of different areas that are top of mind for Hannele as she leads KONE into the future of service. The next session was with Henrik Wahl, who is the Business Area Manager for Services at Coromatic. And this session was how Coromatic has taken service from aftermarket afterthought to business growth engine. So Henrik started by saying how much he dislikes the term aftermarket and why that often gives the connotation that it is more of an afterthought.

We talked about Coromatic beginning in 2017, really saw an opportunity for differentiation and growth around service, and Henrik has been leading that journey since that time. So they decided to create service as a dedicated business. And so he spoke about why that decision was made, the impact that it's had, how they have encouraged technicians to not necessarily outrightly sell, but to make suggestions with customers to take more of that consultative trusted advisor role and the impact that that's had. Also, how this journey has evolved, the type of services that they offer their customers. So moving from the traditional service to more of an area of opportunity to make suggestions to a full outsourced service model. So it was interesting to think about how this focus brought about for them areas to introduce different service offerings, and certainly they have succeeded in really growing service for Coromatic. And so we talked about in the future making sure that the different areas of the business are aligned to provide a cohesive customer experience and some of the things that will be coming next.

And last but not least, we had a session with Ann Sørensen, who is the Global Competence Development Manager at Alfa Laval, and we talked about what it takes to build competence and service from the front lines to the leadership levels. So Ann spoke quite a bit about some of the changes we see in the talent landscape and what's important to new talent coming in, in terms of not only the onboarding experience and training, but also career development paths. What opportunities exist for them within the business and how that requires Alfa Laval to take a different approach than it has traditionally. We talked about how she and her global role aligns with local HR and business leadership to create and execute this competent strategy.

We talked about the importance of a company brand and evangelizing the service opportunity, bringing people into service as a potential career. We talked about the importance of competence, not only at the frontline level, which is I think what people often think of, making sure that the frontline workforce is trained and enabled to do the job we need them to do, but also remembering that we need to think about competence from the leadership perspective. So tying back to the first session of the day with Caroline, and for us to be more people first, for us to take a modern leadership approach, we need to keep in mind that leadership also demands training, development, upskilling and competence building along the way. And of course, she spoke about how Alfa Laval is tackling these different areas, what she thinks the future holds in terms of building competence and some of the trends. And it was a great way to wrap up the day.

So five great sessions and some workshops interspersed to talk about these things and to have people weigh in on where they're at in their companies with these topics and also ask questions and have some good dialogue. So it was, like I said, a great way to end the tour series. We don't yet have plans in place for what 2024 will hold, but stay tuned. We'll obviously share those with you all as soon as we know, and hope that if you haven't had the opportunity to join us at one of these events thus far, you will in the near future. They are special days, and I enjoy each and every one. So big thank you to everyone in Stockholm who joined us to speak and share their insights and also those who came to attend and enjoy the day.

As always, you can find more content by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. My hope is in the coming weeks, we will be able to share some of the Stockholm sessions as podcasts so that you can hear the conversations that I've mentioned today in their full detail. The Future of Field Service podcasts is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

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