Sarah welcomes back Lauren Winans, CEO & Principal Consultant of Next Level Benefits, to discuss the factors that are contributing to service organizations’ mounting concern over finding and nurturing soft skills and sheds light on what steps can be taken to ensure the soft skills gap doesn’t widen.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. We talk a lot on this podcast and across industry resources in service about the importance of soft skills, and the increasing challenge of finding new employees with soft skills, upskilling and reskilling existing employees to grow their soft skills. Today we're going to be talking about, is the soft skills gap growing? I'm excited to welcome back to the podcast Lauren Winans, who is the CEO and principal consultant at Next Level Benefits. Lauren, welcome back to the podcast.

Lauren Winans: Thanks for having me. I'm very excited, a great topic too. I'm looking forward to chatting about this.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, me too. For anyone that doesn't recognize Lauren, she was on the podcast for the first time, episode 132. I will link that in the show notes for everyone. That episode, we were talking about building a compelling employee value proposition. Lauren is I would say, in the nature of people I interview on this podcast, close enough to call a neighbor. She's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which is where my husband is from. So just two hours or so down Interstate 79. Lauren, before we get into our topic for today, just tell everyone a little bit about yourself, your background and Next Level Benefits.

Lauren Winans: Sure. I kind of grew up in the HR industry. I was in HR leadership roles for about 20 years. Worked at a variety of different companies like General Nutrition Center, American Eagle Outfitters, Consult Energy. When I left the corporate world to start my consulting business about four years ago, I really had the intentions of focusing on employee benefits projects. But we quickly have scaled, and now are focused on projects related to all areas of HR. Next Level Benefits is really a resource to you for any sort of HR expertise. 

We staff a variety of different HR experts that have at least 20 years of corporate HR experience. We can really be tactical as well as strategic advisory, or really just jump in and help you accelerate projects. That's what we've been doing lately. I'm really happy to say that I'm coming up on a four year anniversary here, and it's been wonderful. I always love having a chance to talk with you, Sarah. I'm super excited about our topic today, because it's a good one.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I'm excited as well, and happy you're back. To your point, even though you started with the focus of employee benefits in mind, you really have not only practiced in the corporate world, but in your consulting firm work with companies across really all sorts of HR and talent issues. 

Lauren Winans: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: So there's a lot of different things we could talk about. When Lauren and I chat, we end up, we could brainstorm 10 podcast topics. The reason I wanted to focus on soft skills today is because, in the conversations I have at the different Future of Field Service events that we've had across the globe, it's kind of a growing concern among service leaders. On one hand, the need for soft skills seems to be increasing still, right? It's I think on an incline starting a number of years ago, but continuing still to increase. 

Being able to find those skills among employees, whether that's existing employees, and looking for ways to nurture that in people, train people, upskill people, or whether that's looking for soft skills in employees that are coming into the workforce. It just seems to be that the demand is growing, the ability to find or create those skills is increasingly challenging. So I think it's a good area to focus on, because it's a pain point that we're hearing about a lot. First, what I want to talk about is, in the HR or talent world, how do you define soft skills?

Lauren Winans: It's a good question. I think everyone kind of comes at it from a different place. I kind of look at soft skills as almost like the intangible pieces of someone's skillset. How good are they at communicating? Do they have any sort of emotional intelligence that they can deploy in a certain situation? How good are they at problem solving? Are they adaptable? Do they work well with their team? Can they resolve conflict? These are all kind of examples of soft skills. It's really, it's not just about tactically can they do the job. Technically, do they have the skill, the experience, the degree, the certification. 

It's really around, can they provide more of a well-rounded experience to customers and other employees, coworkers that they're working with? How good are they at that? That is what I look at as soft skills. It's those intangible talents that not everyone necessarily has, because they're harder to teach. Some people just innately and naturally can incorporate them into how they work, and others really need a little bit more of a prescribed roadmap of how to incorporate that into their daily professions.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm. I think that intangible nature is part of what makes it so challenging. When you're thinking about, do they have this certification, do they have this much experience? Those are things that are very easy to assess. Whereas soft skills, the fact that it is less black and white makes it a lot tougher. In our industry specifically, part of what's kind of creating this growing need or gap, if you will, is historically a lot of the jobs... And I'm generalizing for the sake of conversation. There's obviously industry-to-industry differences, but in general, a lot of the jobs historically were very technical in nature. The work that was being done was very much, a customer calls with a need. The technician is deployed to go and do that technical work, and resolve the issue. 

Today with the digital nature of a lot of the assets and equipment that people are working on, in many industries, the technical aptitude is actually, the need is decreasing. It still has to be there in the sense that they are able to do what needs to be done, but it's a lot less programming or really these super deep skills. However, service is also evolving to be more predictive, proactive. A lot of times subscription-based, where the importance of relationship, i.e., soft skills, comes into play and is increasing. So you have the challenge of these existing workers that were really good or are really good at that technical piece, but not necessarily good at, or maybe even interested in being good at the soft skills piece. 

Then the other part of that we're hearing a lot of is that companies who are recruiting in younger workers, they're lacking some of these soft skills. They don't want to have real conversations. They would rather text or whatever. So it's kind of a challenge that is being created from many different angles. All right, so I think one thing is companies need to think about, while these traits are less tangible than some of the qualifications or certifications that they're looking for related to the industry, they probably need to work on putting language to it to some degree, or defining what it is that is important for their roles, I would think. Right?

Lauren Winans: For sure. I think what's challenging about today's job postings it is very, "Hey, this is what we're looking for." It's a very measurable attribute or characteristic, or piece of experience or certification that they're looking for. Then what is expected is, once you bring that person into the role, then the expectation is, "Oh, okay. Well here's all the things you said you can do. Yep, that's part of the job. Now we want you to also interact with the customer in this way." Or, "Now we want you to manage this team of people." What's happening is-

Sarah Nicastro: It's almost like an afterthought.

Lauren Winans: Yeah. The articulation around the expectations from a soft skills perspective is really not incorporated in the job posting. Therefore, then there are leaders and/or other folks within an organization that then get disappointed with someone's performance because they don't necessarily have something that was not articulated during the recruiting process to begin with. I wholeheartedly believe that job postings are really that first step of ensuring that you're getting the talent that you need, you want, you deserve. If you don't fully articulate what it is that the job entails, and what you need to be successful in it, then you're naturally going to end up with someone in that role that's not going to fit the bill.

I'm very much a proponent of being very clear and upfront about incorporating soft skills as a part of the job posting. I've even seen some that show hard skills, soft skills, experience, and then also what does it take to be successful in this position. I think most people out there are realistic about their shortcomings, and what they're willing to do and what they're not willing to do. I think if you lay it out there, you really are going to weed out the folks who probably are not the right fit. You might find some folks that are kind of on the fence, but that's really what the recruiting process is for, is to fully vet them out and then determine who rises to the top. 

That being the starting point I think would make things so much easier as you bring on new talent into the organization. That doesn't explain away some of the upskilling that might need to happen with some existing talent, which I'm sure we're going to talk about today. But I think when you think about new talent coming into an organization, you've got to be clear about what your needs are. That means, as an organization, you have to know what you need out of this frontline technician, or even your leaders. You need to know what you need out of them in order to articulate it, in order to find it.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm. I should have thought to look this up before we started chatting, because I'm not going to remember who to attribute it to. A while back, I think I actually wrote an article on a post I saw on LinkedIn. It was a video, and the person... It was an author, I think, I just don't remember who it was. It might have been Adam Grant, was saying, "We need to stop calling them soft skills and start calling them human skills." I think it's interesting, because the point you're making is that we have this need for these skills. We have this challenge of the need increasing, and the ability to find them becoming more complex. 

Yet we're probably not prioritizing articulating that in the job postings. So we're continuing to allow it to be an afterthought, because it wasn't a need before. It's similar to when we talk to companies who are putting in place a new technology. The biggest challenge they always have is change management, always. I've been doing this for 15 years. That has always been the answer. It is still the answer, yet we're not getting ahead of it. Do you know what I mean? It's the people part that is always complex, so we need to stop letting it be an afterthought, and start putting more focus on it from the beginning. 

The other thing I wanted to ask about is in the recruiting process. As companies are bringing new talent in, we talked about making sure that we are articulating appropriately the expectations in a job posting. I could ask you 20 more questions on that, but I'm going to not let myself do that, for the sake of getting through some of the points that we wanted to get through. In the recruiting interviewing process, what are some of the questions, tools, tactics that companies can use to determine if a candidate either has the soft skills they're looking for, or would be successfully able to be trained and equipped with those skills?

Lauren Winans: There's a variety of different tools out there, and I'll just kind of lump them all together by calling them assessment tools. There's ways that you can assess someone's just natural personality, as well as what they deem to be important, and an important part of their job, by asking them a variety of questions in a survey format. If you do that during the hiring process before you've even extended an offer, it does make it easy to kind of identify. This person is really technically sound, and they will be able to do this job with their eyes closed. However, based upon our assessment, they might not be a great leader. So if we bring them in, we need to know that upfront. And we need to know that the career development path for this individual is going to include leadership training, if they do indeed want to move forward in the organization.

These assessment tools, I mean there's a variety of different ones. There's StrengthsFinder, there's DiSC, O A D. There's so many different ones that you can deploy. Really, they all ultimately end up doing the exact same thing. They have a different delivery method, and of course, there's different ways that you can interpret the results. As an organization, I would recommend if you're not using one of those assessment tools, it's absolutely worth it. Do you need to use it for every single open role? You don't have to. You could, and it absolutely is helpful in determining right fit, and what blind spots that you might run into with that employee, should they be part of your organization. But you could even just focus it on a particular role or position, that you want to ensure you have a balance between that technical and those human skills that are really necessary to complete the job. 

Those types of assessments I find are probably the best tools out there, but there's also different things you can do in the recruiting process. You could do some sort of role play or simulation, where you can determine how would this person act in this particular situation. You can even go through different types of modeling and training that would help to kind of show... There's something called storytelling modeling, that can really help inform exactly the thought process that a person goes through during a certain situation. If this person is a tech who is installing a certain piece of equipment in someone's residential home, you present these different problems that might occur. And really assess problem solving, communication with the customer, all these different things that you can kind of incorporate into that model to see how they do. 

I think that there's just, we want the hiring process to go so quickly, because we're all competing for talent. We don't necessarily take the time sometimes to find out if that person is the right fit for us. So we want to put that offer out there before it's too late, before someone else has snatched them up, before they've accepted another offer. While I can understand the competitive nature of that, I do think that is a really big risk to organizations, who then end up on the flip side of this. Which is, now I have these people as employees, but they're not necessarily performing the way I want them to. Now what do I do? 

Now how do I get this person who's technically sound, but has no interest in having a dialogue with anyone, whether it be a coworker, a leader or customer? It's interesting, because the tools are helpful to a point, but you as an organization need to develop a process and an understanding around them, that then allows you to take what you've learned from the tool, and then decide what you're going to do about it, and who you're looking for. Because you're never going to find the perfect candidate, but you can always find someone who's almost there. And who just needs that little extra bit of training or coaching to get them to the place that is helpful for the team at large.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. On that point, the next question I wanted to ask you is, are there I guess best practices, or suggested programs, methods that are known to be effective in training and developing soft skills?

Lauren Winans: To be honest with you, no. I think that's part of the conundrum that we're in. There's a variety of assessment tools out there, like I mentioned. I even mentioned a few names. I feel really comfortable that, given the right circumstances, you really can use those assessment tools in a way that does help you kind of read between the lines to leverage it for soft skills. And identifying what soft skills may be there, may be present, may not be present. But I have yet to come across a tool dedicated specifically to soft skill assessment, and have it be something that is really an effective means of making decision making for recruitment, and even for identifying areas of training that's necessary for an existing employee. 

Because of that, it doesn't mean they're not out there, it just means I haven't come across them. I haven't had the experience of using them, of leveraging them, or having a client that has done so. That's part of the problem. What I always recommend, because of where we're at in this whole conversation, is leverage the tools that you have and make sure that you have some talented individuals. Whether that's in your HR team, or whether it's someone in your recruiting process, maybe it's someone, a consultant contractor, maybe it's a vendor. That you can put in place in that process that can help take the tools you're using and be able to read between the lines to create something that is important and integral to identifying soft skills, presence or not. 

That is probably the bandaid that we are all going to have to operate within until there is a really great model out there, a structure or tool, what have you that is doing this better than everything else that's out there. Also, you can think about soft skills as being, it's hard to measure. It's more of an art than it is a science. We all know, I mean at least in my opinion, humans make the best art. I do think that it's going to be a while before there is a soft skill generator out there, that you could just type in your profile and figure out which soft skills you're great at. It does take a little bit of teasing and pulling, and assessing and analyzing to really come to the right conclusion. Particularly when you're deciding whether or not to hire someone, or whether or not to put them through training.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Now what about the training itself? Are there recommendations on soft skills trainings that work, in terms of whether it's a new hire or continual improvement or upskilling existing workers?

Lauren Winans: Yeah. I'm always a proponent of identifying your internal talent. Sometimes people are just in the wrong job. There's opportunities to provide them with a development course, some career coaching, emotional intelligence training, or some sort of management around mindfulness, stress management. Sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement, a little coaching. A little bit more of an exchange with them to identify what really is the roadblock to their success, or to them being able to rise above their peers. I believe that through partnership with human resources teams that you have at your disposal, there can be a great internal push for identifying talent. Maybe the first line of this is reaching out to all leaders within an organization to identify that technical talent.

Who's best technically? Now, can we take this a step further, and identify who might need a little bit of coaching and/or training to get to the next level? What does that look like? Is it, these four individuals need some conflict resolution training, and some training on how to lead a small team. This individual needs more open communication skills, and so let's send them to training related to communication. I know that takes a lot of time and effort. It really, really does. But if you're dedicated to really creating a culture that is inclusive and supportive and focused on career development, you can make that work. It does. It can be done. 

That's usually my default is, can you promote from within? Can you meet with these employees that you've identified as high potentials or strong stars, and identify maybe some areas of opportunity, that you can then really isolate what the training would be that would be helpful and impactful to them? That's what I believe is probably, well I shouldn't even say probably, because I know it is the best way to elevate the talent you already have in the organization. It's also the less costly way to do it. Because with turnover, and the more people you're having to bring in, and then find out they're not the right fit, and have to separate them and rehire more. It ends up being actually more costly and more challenging than to just upskill your people. 

When it comes to training, though, some things that I really rely on when we're working with clients is some of the things I mentioned around role playing. Emotional intelligence training is something that's really starting to take off in the training space. It's just a trend that is something that people are looking more for, not only to be great leaders, but also to know how to interact with either clients or customers, regardless of what industry you're in. That is something that, if you're not already offering something like that, that can be something that's very beneficial. Because that really does incorporate how to assess a situation, identify your own emotions, identify someone else's emotions, and quite frankly, it leads to conflict resolution.

It also leads to better understanding your role in a process, which allows you to know what authority you have and autonomy you have, and what you can bring to the table. There's so many different things you can explore, but I am definitely of the mindset of trying to customize it to the different employees that you've identified as talented individuals. Then I know I'm probably going off a little bit on this, because this is one of my favorite topics. I also feel that, if you have a larger workforce that is all doing the same thing, creating some sort of mentorship program is also a great way to start to bring some folks along through the process, without having to invest a ton of training dollars in them immediately. 

I also think developing some sort of, I'm going to call it like an internship program, but that's not really what I mean. I mean more of like a development type program. You can also create stuff like that, that allows employees to maybe kind of round-robin and understand, here's what my job really is, and this is how it interacts with this person. Okay, now I'm going to go over for a couple of weeks, and act like I'm doing that job. How does that interact with me? What would be better for me to be doing with that person to get a better efficiency in working on this project, or this client or this account or what have you? There's so many different ways you can take it. It really just takes some time and effort to develop a game plan, and figure out how you're going to execute it, and what's the best way to position your employees for success.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. No, I like the point you made about individualizing coaching or training of high potential employees, that you want to upskill based on their specific strengths and areas of opportunity. I know that companies in the service space, a lot of them are starting to offer soft skills training proactively and regularly. But I'm thinking maybe it would be interesting to sort of poll them and see what are they using? Are they doing it themselves, and if so, what sort of methods or whatever? The round-robin point you made is interesting too. At our event in Paris this year, Culligan was one of the speakers. The conversation was around the partnership between business and IT. But we ended up talking about how, in service, it's so important for everyone to understand the perspective of the customer.

Which obviously that understanding is part of soft skills, having empathy, et cetera. I think they set a customer centricity month, where employees from all different functions and areas of the business spend time with, shadow, work alongside customer-facing roles. It might even be interesting, I love that idea. It's a way to, I think, give those frontline employees some recognition of their importance, but also give people perspective of what comes up, and the scope of their jobs, et cetera. You could even do that within the service function, though, as a way to expose people to different things and that sort of thing.

Yeah, I mean there's certainly no easy answer or one-size-fits-all approach. But I do think that the takeaways so far, thinking about not allowing the need for this to be an afterthought when you're posting jobs, when you're in the interview process. Using some assessments, but then not only training at whatever degree you incorporate training for all employees, but the career pathing essentially. So finding ways to really maximize the value of the employees who are inclined to do more and advance and grow. Yeah, it's interesting.

Lauren Winans: It is. I wish there was an easier answer to all of this. I'd be so curious to hear what those who might be using some soft skill training are doing. I would venture to guess most of them are probably doing some sort of hybrid version. Maybe leveraging some assessment tools they're already using, and maybe some training partners that they already have, and building a bridge would be my hunch. I do know that some of the assessment tool providers are starting to dig deeper into the soft skill space to incorporate more questions related to that into their surveys. 

Then also to train those who are facilitating these surveys to dig deeper and to analyze that information in a more thorough way. It's on the doorstep. It's so close, but unfortunately this is all about critical thinking in terms of piecing all of these parts together to develop something in the immediate that's going to be useful for your company.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It's interesting. One of the reasons I mentioned the decline in the need for this really advanced technical capability, and the increase in the need of soft skills, a lot of that has to do with technology. And the fact that as different equipment and areas that service organizations are working in have become more sophisticated, the need for those deep technical skill sets in some industries has reduced. I also think that evolution is why the need for soft skills is so, so strong, because we have to somehow balance out the use of technology and AI with humans. 

I remember a few years ago being at a conference with a woman from IBM who shared a lesson learned, in terms of they went too far with automating in customer service, and really learned the hard way that they needed to pull back. It worked, but customers weren't happy with it. I don't know. What are your thoughts on how technology and automation are maybe growing or exacerbating the soft skills gap?

Lauren Winans: I mean, it's definitely playing here. It's definitely a factor. It's definitely something that, if we don't kind of get a handle on, it's going to maybe get out of control a little bit. I feel pretty passionately that particularly when it comes to the service industry, it's so important to treat people with the respect that you feel that you should receive. There's certain companies that I've had wonderful experiences with, and I will continue to frequent them because I feel good when I'm interacting with someone who works there. I think that is naturally going to be the competitive edge that's going to start happening here. Because the competitive edge is not going to be who has the best AI. It's going to be all the same. 

It's going to all be relatively the same tools we're going to be able to solve for some of those issues that we're really struggling with now that we're spending a lot of time on. So you're going to naturally have to figure out, how do I compete, and how do we set ourselves apart? I think what has been a learned trait for decades, but particularly probably became more apparent especially over the last handful of years, has really been a customer is not going to have the same level of loyalty that they may have had in the past, because they just have too many options. They're looking for something that fits with their lifestyle, with their schedule, with their price point. What can you do to set yourself apart? I really do believe soft skills is going to be important, like really, really important. 

If you're not able to find ways to get ahead of what technology... I mean technology might leap up way too quick, and we might be having to play catch-up regardless, but I think now is the time to think about what type of soft skill training do we have? What type of gaps do we have? Can we do something that's even a little baby step towards getting us towards a bigger goal of training everyone within this particular position with this type of emotional intelligence training? I just feel really, part of me is scared. Part of me is nervous, with the evolution of technology and AI, that even some of the most loved brands and companies that I frequent are going to fall behind in treating customers with the utmost care, because it's going to be too hard to juggle all of it. 

But I feel really compelled to believe that there are leaders out there, there are companies out there that are intending on getting ahead of all of this. And intending on thinking about even younger generations as they start to enter the workforce, and the type of training and necessary development that's going to be required. Because we're going to be bringing in generations into the workforce that have known nothing but the technology that we have today, and the AI that we're going to have tomorrow. It's natural that we're going to have to evolve. We've done it before. We'll do it again. It's not like it's going to be a hurdle that's going to be insurmountable, but I do think that now's the time to start thinking about it, and putting some game plans in place.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. No, that's a good point. I mean, we've gone through an era where technology was the competitive advantage. But as it reaches functional parity and things sort of equalize, the human piece will likely be the competitive advantage again. So not losing sight of that. No, it's a good point. A few months ago, maybe not even that long, I wrote an article about an experience that I had traveling with United. I waited a few weeks before I wrote the article, because when the situation happened, it would've come off a totally different way. I try to be fair. I try to be fair. I've been flying United for a few years. I'm the highest level of United status, so we know I fly a lot. I started by talking about the fact that the work that they've put into the intelligence in their app is tremendous.

I remember what it was a few years ago, what it's like today. Genuinely in most scenarios, waiting in line at an airport to speak to a United agent at this point is a waste of your time, like 90 plus percent. If you have the app and you use it, they've probably already texted you the solution to the problem you're waiting to speak to someone about. It's really, really good, really good. Baggage, all of it, it's great. But in this situation, things escalated to a point where I really did need actual human customer service, and it was horrendous. The fact that, if the AI and the app is that good, and I've gotten to the point where I actually need someone, I've gone through quite a bit. I mean just the lack of empathy. I mean, it was just atrocious. It's a really, I think, storybook example of exactly what we're talking about.

They've put so much effort into this piece, but then maybe at the detriment of paying attention to, well when someone does get through to an agent, how are we treating that person? Yeah. I think it's definitely something to be cautious of, because the reality is you have to be good at all of it. You can't pick or choose. I mean you really have to do it all, and that's just the way it is. When I reached out to you to do this podcast, I shared with you a study that I thought was interesting. It was about how more and more companies are using AI in their hiring process. That made me think, "Well, interesting." If we're talking about soft skills, i.e., human skills, how would that work? I was just curious. I'm interested, are you seeing a uptick in the use of AI in recruiting and hiring? What risk is there in that, I guess related to soft skills specifically?

Lauren Winans: I'm seeing a lot of intrigue as it relates to using AI in the recruiting process. Not necessarily anyone fully deploying it, or leveraging just AI to source candidates or get interviews taken care of. None of that. It's not to say it's not happening. I'm certain it is happening. My position on that is really around, I can see AI being helpful to take out the mundane tasks that are part of the recruiting process. Which would then free up the recruiter and/or hiring manager and/or interview team to really focus their time and effort on vetting the employee that's coming in. That is what I envision to be the dream scenario, but I know that's not necessarily going to pan out for every organization. 

They're going to use AI to maybe cut some corners, to get offers out faster, and potentially to even reduce their recruiting staff in order to do it. I don't think that there's a lot of companies that have jumped in both feet at this point. But you have to also think about some of the applicant tracking systems that we're using today are even kind of weeding out some really fantastic candidates, just simply through keyword search. A version of it's already existing within our recruiting processes today that could be really overlooking some talented individuals that you would want to be in that process. I'm hesitant with using AI in the recruiting process, but I do feel that if used and deployed in the right way, it will actually provide you, you meaning whoever's a part of the process, more time to fully leverage. 

"Okay, let's get this person taking this tool. Here's what their results were. I have four follow-up questions now. I want to go back and schedule some more time with them. Oh, look. They might need this additional training. Let's incorporate that into their first 60 days within the organization. Let's update that in the onboarding process for this particular person." There's so many ways, when you free up that time, that you could be using it in a better way. I just hope that the right tasks in the recruiting process are tackled by AI, and not necessarily the human components that should still exist.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Which I think very much parallels what we would say about service as well. I mean, it's an incredibly valuable tool that companies are using. There's many, many areas that they could grow in their use of, all with the goal of automating the mundane. Not even the mundane, but the manual non-value add tasks that really don't warrant a human's attention or time. All in an effort to give those frontline employees more time to spend with customers to do the things that people care about. I guess it's the same sort of idea of balancing where can it help, while still allowing us to achieve our outcome? Where does it crossover into diminishing the result of what we're trying to do?

Lauren Winans: As for anything, especially technology, I would venture to guess that we will go too far on the tech side, and learn the hard way and pull back. It's probably just something we should expect. But if we're in a position to be able to affect change in that way, I hope people take the opportunity to do that.

Sarah Nicastro: It's interesting that you say that, because this is why... Again, this would be a separate conversation. This is why leadership is so important, and soft skills and empathy, because it all comes back to the eye of the person that is driving the strategy. If it's, can we cut our recruiting staff by 50%, you're going to get a different outcome than, could we use a tool to vet our job descriptions, and make sure that we're casting the widest net or we're doing X, Y, or Z? It makes me think. IFS has a planning and scheduling optimization tool that is AI based, and it's really cool to see how it works. It takes into account all of these different factors, and just runs all the time to get people to the best possible place given all of those criteria. 

But at our event in the UK in May, there was a gentleman there from Mitie Fire & Security, who they had just recently put the tool in place. I had never heard this come up, but he said, "Oh, one of the biggest benefits we've seen from PSO is we've used it to allow our technicians to set their own start and end time every day. Some want to drop their kids off at school, and they might want to start at 9:00 or 9:30, but they want to be done at this time. Others want to come in earlier, be done..." He was like, "The impact it's had on their mental health."

I just thought, what a positive use of that technology, to put power back in the hands of the employees. To use it in a way that still allows the company to achieve its outcome of efficiency and productivity, but gives them the ability to say, "Yeah, I want to start my day at 9:00 and end at 5:00." Or, "I want to start at 7:00, end at 3:00," whatever. I just thought that was such a good example of technology used well, because the person in charge has that human lens to it. It's not just about, how can we get two extra trips out of every person per day? Also, how can we use this in a way that helps our employees and makes their lives better? I just thought that was such a good example.

Lauren Winans: Mm-hmm. That's the perspective too of a leader or a strategist who is focused not necessarily on driving the top line, but is focused on minimizing expenses. Because the turnover that you will have if you don't think about employees as human beings is going to cost you so much more than if you just look at each tool, each piece of technology, each process, each policy, and think with the lens of, "Will this help or hurt the employee?" Because the employees are what's going to drive your business. They're what's going to be there to provide whatever support is necessary to your clients or your customers. 

Until further notice, there's no robots walking around. So it would be in your best interest to leverage technology in a way that is going to get you the most out of your employees, while providing them with something that makes them want to stay, that makes them want to be there every day working for you. It's really something when someone's doing it right, it's really an aha moment. Hopefully, more people will take advantage of using the tool just like that. 

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right. I know we are just about out of time. Anything else, any final thoughts for companies that are concerned about the soft skills gap growing?

Lauren Winans: My encouragement here would really just be, start the conversation, if you already haven't. Make sure that this isn't something that catches you by surprise. It needs to be something that's talked about, so that it becomes an organizational goal, so that there's more cross-functional partners that are working together to realize, "Hey, we've got to make some changes. We need to be prepared to deepen our skillset when it comes to soft skills, in addition to maintaining the expertise on the technical side." 

If you take anything away, I would say, start the conversation if it's not already been started, and deepen it if it's already been started. There's so much to do in this space, and it's going to take time, effort, and energy from a variety of different sources. Not just an HR team, but HR should be able to play a very valid and competitive role in helping you determine the best way to tackle this.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm. Good advice. All right. Well, Lauren, thank you so much for coming back. I appreciate it. It's always a pleasure to talk with you.

Lauren Winans: Thank you. I appreciate you inviting me. Always willing to talk about something people related. I love it.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. We'll do it again sometime.

Lauren Winans: Awesome. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: 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 Insiders, so that you can stay up-to-date on all of the latest articles and podcasts. 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.