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

By Tom Paquin

This is part of an ongoing series of articles about the current State of Service going into 2022, along with the contributing elements that have and will continue to impact the industry in the years ahead. Read this to get caught up:

More than anyone else, small businesses have seen a tectonic shift since the start of COVID. Businesses of all stripes have been driven to technology to keep their doors open during lockdowns, completely refocusing the way that commerce and service function. Just the other day, Slate ran an article on the wellspring of “invisible customers” in food service, as the trickle-down of ecommerce technologies seep into the crevices of even mom-and-pop shops. Even my very favorite greasy spoon, a cash-only hole in the wall called Steve’s Kitchen in a grungy, collegiate neighborhood of Boston has launched a website. No one is safe.

This digital acceleration has of course impacted service businesses as well, though along a slightly different vector. For what it’s worth, I’ve been talking about the importance of small business investment in service software since before it was cool, but it’s certainly not 2018 any more, and the expectations of what small businesses need has shifted. So here are some considerations for adopting an all-new service platform, whether you’re replacing a wall calendar or a homegrown frankensystem.

Scaling Down the Big Boys
While the enterprise service software companies certainly can scale up (some better than others), their ability to scale down is more complex and nuanced, believe it or not. And it might not be as simple as stripping away features—under many circumstances, the whole architecture might be the wrong fit, or features that you want might be optimized for different use cases, and therefore will not meet your needs.

Forward-thinking vendors have calibrated for this, by offering more tailored solutions, sometimes swapping out products wholesale in order to meet the specific needs of your business. The goal of every best-of-breed service firm should be to have a solution to every problem that you might encounter, and to be able to conform to the shape, size, and specifics of your use case. So let’s take a look at what you might need to find success:

The Tools for Success
We’ll break this down by capability. A full-featured small business service platform will be prepared to tackle the following:

Scheduling, planning, and routing
Appointment management
Mobile access
Billing and payment modules
Reporting and analytics
Marketing and business development

There are some additional features that might be industry-specific, and whether there are add-on modules or specific solutions for those businesses will depend on the industries themselves. All of this raises a broader question, though, about where your new service software sits relative to other software platforms.

Using Service as Your System of Record
The truth of the matter is that for small businesses, especially those transitioning from bespoke, low-tech processes, a good service management platform might be like and express elevator into technical literacy. And for those businesses, it can certainly function as such. If you want your service platform to manage resource planning functions like procurement, parts management, human capital management, customer relationship management, and so on, you can find a system that includes that as well. With the right tools, small businesses can approach service with a degree of ease-of-use and efficiency that offers value to customers, drives more business, and offers the tools and power to grow.

Sarah is joined by Jason Pelz, VP Sustainability Americas at Tetra Pak, and Sasha Ilyukhin, VP Services Solutions at Tetra Pak for a discussion around the company’s leadership position in its own sustainability efforts as well as the opportunity it sees for growth in offering services related to sustainability.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we are going to be talking with Tetra Pak and discussing their view on sustainability, both internally and in the services potential that it provides the company. Super interesting conversation and thrilled to be joined today by Jason Pelz, who is the Vice President of Sustainability at Tetra Pak in the Americas and Sasha Ilyukhin, who is the Vice President of Services Solutions for the Americas at Tetra Pak. That's a mouthful, gentlemen. But welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Jason Pelz: Thanks for having us.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Thank you, Sarah. Glad to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, absolutely. Good. So before we get into the meat of the conversation, let's just go through some intros. So Jason, can you start and just tell our listeners a little bit about your background, your role, whatever you want to share?

Jason Pelz: Sure. So as you all now know, I'm Jason Pelz. I'm the VP of Sustainability for Tetra Pak Americas. My background, actually, I grew up in a family that had a recycling collection, sorting, and bailing corporation, so I've been around part of the space for a long time, and I've worked for a few companies. And since I've been at Tetra Pak, myself and my team have really been out fighting the good fight for Tetra Pak, pushing our sustainability agenda, most recently across the Americas.

Sarah Nicastro: Very cool. It's really interesting you have a background in all of this. I didn't know that part. Good.

Jason Pelz: Yeah, you can't leave it.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. All right, Sasha. Sasha, you've actually been on the podcast before.

Sasha Ilyukhin: I have.

Sarah Nicastro: I didn't look and see what episode it was, but it's been a while.

Sasha Ilyukhin: I don't remember the number either. That's okay.

Sarah Nicastro: Go ahead and tell folks about yourself.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Absolutely. So my name is Sasha Ilyukhin. I'm VP of Services Solutions for Tetra Pak Americas. My background is I am from Russia, so I was born in Russia, and then I came to the US to study and then ended up starting my work adventures here in the US. So I'm in the food industry for more than 20 years, most of that time is with Tetra Pak in a variety of different roles in the US and in Europe as well. I am also responsible for the services solutions. So my entire career has been in services and customer services. And I am currently leading the team that is growing the business of services solutions for our customers. And sustainability is a pretty big theme these days. So we're doing some interesting work with sustainability and services.

Sarah Nicastro: Awesome. Okay. And so this is going to be sort of in some ways a two-part conversation. Because we're going to talk with Jason a bit about some of Tetra Pak's sustainability initiatives and objectives, and then talk with Sasha about how that translates into potential for the services business. I feel like I've said this on a string of podcasts lately, but I do have kitchen renovations underway. So if you guys hear any crazy noises in the background, I apologize and just bear with me. Okay. So, Jason, I'm going to start with you. Maybe give folks a little bit of context on, I guess, the Tetra Pak business, but specifically how the company has gotten to the point of being seen as really a leader when it comes to sustainability and sort of the passion the company has around really focusing on that leadership position and being as involved as it is in its own sustainability initiatives and also encouraging its partners and its customers and the world to focus more on this area as well.

Jason Pelz: That's a very broad way to start, but I'll give it a shot. I think the most important thing to say is this, it's not new for us. Sustainability has really been part of Tetra Pak's DNA since Dr. Rausing started the company. He said, "A package should save more than it costs." And I think when you immediately do that, you've already got in mind something tied to sustainability. As I said, you've gone in a bunch of different directions, but really, since our beginning, if you think about the package we created, an aseptic package which allows for products to be safely held within a package, not needing refrigeration, long shelf life, you're talking about things like not needing electricity, excuse me, not needing refrigeration, food waste can be minimized, things like that. Again, to go back, for Tetra Pak, it's been a journey. This hasn't been something that is new in five or 10 years. It's really been since the beginning.

Jason Pelz: The company, I would say, because of that initial DNA, I would say, we've always looked at things that we need to be out there driving and pushing the envelope to make things better. So whether it is in our processing solutions, how can we have more efficient equipment? In our packaging, how we make a more sustainable package, how we better protect food. How, at our own factories, at our own sites, what can we do to reduce the footprint we have on the local environment? I could talk for an hour on this one thing. We look at things from a holistic standpoint. Every part of what we do contributes, in the end, to how we want to make sure that as a leader, we have the least footprint on the environment as possible, yet at the same time, be able to provide people with an exceptional package that can handle these products.

Jason Pelz: If I go into certain details, for example, we've made commitments. In 2010, we set a goal to cap our CO2 emissions at 2010 levels at the time we reached 2020. And not only did we cap them, we reduced emissions by 19% and we grew our packaging by 16%. So there's something to said about what we achieved. We've made other commitments. We engage and do things based on the sustainable development goals set by the UN. Again, Sarah, I could go on for a long time about all this stuff. But really, what maybe is the best thing to say is because it's so much part of our culture and because it is so much ingrained in what we're trying to do, not that it's easy to accomplish, but the company believes in it, and therefore, we're given this power to move forward. And that's why we're doing so many of these things.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So, Jason, one of the words you said, holistic, I really liked. Because that was one thing that struck me when we talked in preparation for this discussion is... And it's both because of how Tetra Pak's business is structured, right? You have the packaging itself. You have the packaging equipment. You have the services function. There are these different areas of this life cycle that you touch. But I think it's also in culture, to not overlook opportunities of impact. So the word holistic, I think, is a really good adjective for the way it seems Tetra Pak approaches its sustainability objectives. Because you're looking across the business, across those different areas of impact, not having a narrow view on, "Okay, let's just pick more sustainable materials for our packaging." That would be maybe a more obvious aspect to focus on. But there's all these other components that you all are working on as well to really drive the most positive change that you can. So I think holistic is a super good word for that. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your sustainability mission statement is broken down into sort of three pillars. Can you talk a little bit about why it's structured that way and what those three areas are?

Jason Pelz: Yeah. Basically, our brand promise is to protect what's good. And then if you take that a step further and you look at the three, what you're talking about, you've got food, people, and planet. So what we want to do is when it comes to the food, we want to make sure that we protect and make food available everywhere to anyone. So to us, that is part of our mission, and from a sustainability standpoint, that is key. We need to feed a growing population and we believe that we have a great way in our whole process, processing, technical services, the filling equipment, and the packaging, to do that.

Jason Pelz: When it comes to the people, for us, it's our people who obviously at Tetra Pak that we want to protect, but it's also the communities that we work in. We want to make sure that we're good stewards to the communities that we work in. And then it's to the greater world. Again, I talked about food safety and food availability, we want to make sure we do that. We take diversity and inclusion very seriously. We want to have a very well-structured and open environment at our company. Again, which is all key to making sure holistically we're driving sustainability.

Jason Pelz: And then finally, when it comes to planet, this is the buzzword of all, which is the environment. Everybody is very in tune with the environment. And for us, we want to have the best, least impactful packaging material. We want to use the least amount of energy, the least amount of water. We want to work with our customers to allow them do the exact same thing. We want to reduce our carbon footprint across the value chain. And that gets us involved in a lot of different things. We're very involved, for example, in the recycling value chain because we need to be there, that's part of what contributes to it. But we also take very seriously how we source our materials. Because you can have a very recyclable package, but if it all comes from fossil-based materials, you're not looking at things... You're not taking the planet into consideration. And so this is why for us, we do it. And by breaking it into those three areas, it allows for good focus as we drive our mission forward.

Sarah Nicastro: That makes sense. Sasha, I was wondering if you can talk a little bit about how people typically view the sustainability life cycle. And so as I just mentioned, one of the things that struck me when we spoke about this topic is sort of the attention to detail in terms of Tetra Pak looking at all of the areas where it can improve sustainability and making sure that things don't get missed. And the description you gave of sort of, "Here's some of the top of mind areas that people commonly default to thinking about," which are important, "But here are some of maybe the less-considered areas to address," which relates into the services conversation we'll get to. But I think it also would be a good point now to touch on so people can sort of visualize what we talk about when we say holistic.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Yeah. I think that that's a very, very good word that Jason had used as well, and I like it. All of the value chains are becoming circular. People are looking for products as consumers that are circular products. So you buy something, you consume parts of it, and whatever is left kind of enters the value chain in one shape or form, and then it just makes that full circle. So if you look at that circular value chain, sourcing becomes extremely important and recycling becomes extremely important. Jason mentioned those two things. And I would argue that if you just go out in the street and stop the first 20 people and you ask them, "What is the most important part of the value chain?" that's what they would most likely say. The would say that it's important to them where the product is coming from, that it's actually sourced properly, and how is that product then recycled, what happens to it at the end of life so it doesn't just go into the landfill and just pollute the planet.

Sasha Ilyukhin: What is interesting about this is that there is one piece in the middle there in that circular value chain that is called manufacturing. So you source the materials, you start putting them together, that typically happens in a manufacturing plant. Then there may be multiple manufacturing nodes, if you will, on that value chain because then it goes further. We manufacture, for example, equipment. We manufacture packaging material. Our customers manufacture consumer products using what we had manufactured previously. So if you take that whole manufacturing piece, our data suggests that the whole impact on sort of the carbon footprint of the entire value chain, 48% of that footprint is actually caused by manufacturing. So you think about, again, sourcing, extremely important, recycling is extremely important, but half of this entire impact comes from manufacturing.

Sasha Ilyukhin: And for many people, for good reasons, manufacturing is kind of a black box. You, as a consumer, you have no idea how different products are made. Yeah, there is this how it's made series on TV. That's great. I love to see it as an engineer. But for most people, it's kind of a black box. That black box is extremely important. I think it's gaining a lot of relevance. And we can talk about it when we talk about services. We can talk about how services can actually impact what's happening within that box, too, to reduce the footprint.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, perfect. Yeah, go ahead, Jason.

Jason Pelz: Sarah, can I just add something to what Sasha said which is super important, and that's where we've made some of our commitments. We've committed to be part of the Renewable Energy 100, which is by 2030, we want to have 100% of our infrastructure supplied by renewable energy. So we've made investments. We're not just talking, we're walking the talk. We've put solar arrays. We're buying credits. We're buying green energy where we can, because Sasha's got a great point, if we don't start working on that manufacturing base to make sure that we reduce the impact it makes, and even take it a step further, and even with our suppliers, how do we work with them? Because again, we have to look at the whole scope. It's true that black box becomes a big piece of the puzzle. And if that 48% can get reduced, it makes a big deal.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. And you actually... That was a perfect segue into the next question I wanted to ask you. Which is there is more and more conversation around sustainability, which is a great thing, it's something that should be being discussed for sure, but acted upon. And so the point you made around we're not just talking, we're doing, is super important. Because the reality is, as these things become top of mind for people and reach sort of a buzzword status, then you have a lot of people that jump on and say, "Oh yes, we're also focusing on sustainability." And so what the actual efforts are and what impact they're having is super, super important. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about how do you create accountability around making real progress on the goals that you're setting as an organization?

Jason Pelz: What we do, we have reporting, there's government, so you have reporting mechanisms. When it comes to our sourcing, for example, we have certifications for our renewable sourcing, be it FSE certification. We have certification for our plant-based polyethylene. We're part of the Aluminum Stewardship Initiative. Which even though aluminum is not necessarily a renewable resource, there's still a right way to source it. So we do engage with a number of those things. We've signed on to the UN Global Company. And so these are ways that we've kind of done it. Our targets are verified by science-based targets. So we make sure that we're very transparent and we have these ways to show the people that we're not just saying it, we're doing it. And these are well-respected certifications. And it's a commitment. It's a commitment with time and people and costs. This isn't free to do this stuff. These are all the things that we do to take into consideration and how we've driven it and continue to drive it.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. No, that's good, and I just think that's such an important part of this topic is how do you make sure that the areas you're focusing on are having a real impact and that you're doing enough. Every bit helps. But just going back to the conversation about if you think only about sourcing and recycling, there's this chunk of half in the middle that never gets addressed. So just thinking about how to make sure you're looking at all of the areas you could have an impact and keeping yourself accountable for making progress is really important. All right, Jason, last question for you before we talk a bit about services is what lessons have you learned or what advice do you have related to driving this topic forward and making real, significant progress as it relates to sustainability?

Jason Pelz: A couple of things. You have to have... Your company's got to be committed. And when I say committed, it's got to be top down, bottom up. One layer in the company can't drive it, and then you can't expect everybody else to just be there. No one can be a spectator. That's a good way to put it. Everybody's got to be engaged. Doesn't matter, from the CEO down to the person working in the plant every day, everybody's got to understand it and everybody has to drive it. Because really, if your company believes in it, I think that's key. You've got to be willing to spend some money. It's not free. It's going to cost money. The returns will probably not be immediate in some cases. But long term, there will definitely be a benefit.

Jason Pelz: And I think the final thing that I've learned through this and I think we as a company have learned is you can't do it alone. There's no one group that's big enough, or one company, I believe, that is big enough that can make this happen on their own. You've got to have partners. And it can be interesting partners. It can be your competition. It can be whomever. But you've got to be willing to work with others. For two reasons. One, it's important for knowledge to be shared both directions, whether you to them or them back. Secondly, people think of stuff that you might not have or your company might not have. So you can't assume you know it all. And by having these partners, and whatever it is, and we've done, I think, a great job more recently in doing so, if someone is better, bring them along, have them help. Don't look at it as a challenge, look at it as something to take advantage of and work together to create something better. That's what I would say.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Those are really, really good points. Good. Okay. So let's shift gears a little bit and talk about services. Sasha, I want to talk about your perspective around how sustainability is going to become a bigger driver for services businesses overall, but specifically Tetra Pak's service business. I guess before you comment on that, for folks that didn't listen to your first podcast, maybe just speak a little bit about sort of the types of services that you provide and how that shift toward sustainability as a driver is taking place.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Yes. Wow, what an introduction. Let me start first with a little bit of a story, and then I will talk about the portfolio and kind of where we go with this. So the story goes like this. I recently booked a business trip, so yay, we're starting to travel again after over a year of these lockdowns. I want to go and see my customers face to face. So I've started to book some business trips. And an interesting bit of information I see in our travel booking software is that I see carbon footprint. So always, when I look at flights, I'm choosing flights, and okay, this flight is this many kilos of CO2 and this flight is this many kilos of CO2. And if look at the price of the flights, okay, I could choose a flight that's, let's say, $200 less, for example. But now I see that, wait a second, it's 500 kilos more when I choose that flight. So all of a sudden, I am, as a business consumer in that case, I'm kind of thinking about, I'm making conscious decisions, how should I focus and what should I focus on? And we have a commitment to reduce carbon footprint across the value chain and within Tetra Pak as well. So all of a sudden, I'm paying attention to these things.

Sasha Ilyukhin: This actually very much applies to just us as regular consumers. So a lot of customers, or many of our customer, I should say, are starting to put carbon footprint on their package. Oatly is a great example. Oatly, all of their packages, you take any package from Oatly, there is a figure on it, and I know that they're working hard on reducing that figure across the board. So that's a good example. And it's not only Oatly, but there are many other customers that are starting to put their carbon footprint on the package.

Sasha Ilyukhin: So again, it becomes very relevant for consumers. It becomes very relevant for customers. And of course, it is very relevant to us as well. And I think at the end of the day, from a business point of view, it also becomes a competitive advantage. If I was a consumer starting to choose which package do I buy or which ticket do I book, with which airline, etc., etc., all of a sudden, that drives my decision, my purchase decision. And that, of course, has a big impact on the business if you kind of accumulate that across the consumer base.

Sasha Ilyukhin: And now so let me just kind of digress a little bit and talk about the portfolio and kind of where we're coming from as a company. And these two lines will meet together. So we as a company, in services, we started very traditional. If you watched the previous podcast, Sarah and I, we talked about this at length. But we started with a traditional portfolio, kind of parts, maintenance, after sales, if you will, etc. And then over time, we started to introduce outcome-based solutions, well, service contracts, maintenance contracts, and then outcome-based solutions, solutions that are focused on cost reductions, on improving efficiencies, and some hard commitments, for example, on operational costs, etc., share of savings, and these types of contracts.

Sasha Ilyukhin: And what we see lately is there's also a clear need from our customers in improving sustainability as well. Because Jason said it. You cannot do it alone. And it's the whole value chain that we talked about earlier that needs to work on it. So all of our customers are setting their science-based targets on their reductions and their commitments to the environment. We do the same. So how do we work together? We work together by basically aligning our services portfolio into what it can do to help our customer reduce their carbon footprint to enable them to be more competitive versus other producers out there. And this is our commitment to our customers on that as well, on sustainability.

Sasha Ilyukhin: So this is kind of how it all kind of comes around, and this is where services play a big role. But from a services organization perspective, then we need to think about, "Okay, so what are the competencies that we need for this? How can we do this?" Because this is not just claiming and proclaiming, we need to actually prove. We need to put the numbers. We need to calculate. We need to make sure that the numbers are audited, they're confirmed, and that we are really reducing the impact across the value chain.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So I want to go back to the value chain part. But, what was interesting to me about the story you shared about your flight and kind of looking at the criteria and then talking about how some of your customers have started to publicly state their statistics on their packaging, it just made me think, we have this whole point about accountability. And so that public declaration of, "Here's where we are. And you can watch and see if we're making progress," is them forcing accountability on themselves to continue prioritizing this as an objective. And I think that to your point, that is a competitive advantage. It will become increasingly so.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: But what's interesting to me and what sort of helps paint the picture of the opportunity you see is so some customers are doing that now, it's going to be more and more and more, and so they will be creating their own accountability and forcing their own increased actions to have this impact. And so that's where you're seeing this as a growing driver of services. So, I guess, going back to the value chain point and the sort of manufacturing part that sits in the middle that makes up for roughly half of the opportunity here, talk a little bit about some of the ways that that can be addressed and some of the areas there to tackle from a services standpoint to really provide value to your customers.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Yeah. We are learning. I'm not going to claim that we know everything here on how to approach this. So we're also on a learning journey. But what we've learned so far is what I can share is that when we do the cost reduction projects with our customers, when we help our customers reduce their operational costs, we do it through total productive maintenance. So we use the methodology of TPM, total productive maintenance. And that typically starts with doing things like mass balance of the plan and what is called activity-based costing. This may be too specific of a term, but we call it ABC, so activity-based costing. Where you basically slice and dice everything that's happening in the manufacturing facility on the vector of time and on the vector of the phase of production to see what activities are actually happening, how much cost they generate, and where are the opportunities to actually reduce that cost. So this is how we sort of map it out and start to approach it.

Sasha Ilyukhin: With sustainability, it's a very, very similar process. So we've learned how to do a mass balance, but using the energy, using the water consumption, using the VODs, CODs, using the waste. So we are doing a different type of mass balance, but it is, anyhow, a mass balance of energy, if you will, energy that is a carbon equivalent of mass balance. And then we approach it in a similar way with total productive maintenance. So we basically set up focus improvement teams. We set up pillars with our customers with the typical sort of lean manufacturing TPM where you look at autonomous maintenance, you look at preventive maintenance, you look at education and training, early equipment management, etc. So you have these pillars and you have the standard 16 losses in manufacturing. We'll look at that. But we look at it also from the standpoint of how they impact the carbon footprint of the facility.

Sasha Ilyukhin: And to give you some examples, so recently we've managed to reduce in one of our customers over 1,000 tons of CO2 per year. So this is a confirmed equivalent that we have reduced. If you convert that back to the efficiency of the plant, so overall equipment protectiveness, that increases 19.4%. So 19.4% efficiency increase plant-wide is equivalent in that case to just over 1,000 tons of CO2. If you convert that to yet another equivalent of like, "Okay, so what does that even mean?" That means that you need about 1,500 acres of forest to sequester that CO2 out of the atmosphere, so just to put it kind of common terms.

Sasha Ilyukhin: How is that done? About 40% of that actually came from standardization across the plant. And the specialists out there, the black belts and the green belts, they will immediately understand what we're doing. What we're starting with is we're center lining everything. So we are bringing equipment to basic conditions. We're making sure that everything is serviced properly, that it's properly maintained, managed, etc., and so everything runs properly in that facility. That itself brought about 40% of that improvement over the year. And then, for example, another big chunk was cleaning. So when we looked at cleaning, not only the cleaning cycles themselves, but it has to do a lot with how the production is planned, for example, all the production cycles. So we analyze all of that. So we have this what is called minimal economic quantity. We look at balancing supply and demand. It's a lot of very tedious work. So it's not just you come with a very quick method, etc. No, it takes weeks and weeks and weeks. But we balance supply and demand of that manufacturing facility. That drives the corporate cleaning routines, for example, and corporate downtime for cleaning. That, in itself, gives around 30% of that overall annual carbon footprint reduction, for example. But there are some other things, of course.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So I got really wrapped up in the example and forgot where my next question was going to come from. All right. So there's all of these ways, all of these specific detailed ways that you can go in and really examine, in the same way you would if you were driving efficiency. So if the whole goal was to increase efficiency to reduce cost, in this instance, you're talking about really examining processes and increasing efficiency to lower carbon footprint. So same concept that you are accustomed to using, just different metrics by which you're operating. And you can go in and look for all of these areas of opportunity. Now, we had talked previously about the fact that this is maybe a different way to approach this than some may initially think of when they think about, "Okay, how do we have a more sustainable manufacturing facility?" And maybe the first thought is, "Let's get more energy-efficient equipment." But that can be cost-prohibitive. And so talk a little bit about why that's not a bad goal to have, but it might not be immediately feasible for everyone that thinks that that could be a good option. And so this process of examining the current operating conditions and structure and looking to make these improvements can be an option to make immediate impact and maybe put yourself in a position where new equipment becomes a more reasonable option to invest in.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Yeah. Well, what can I say? We also manufacture equipment. And we'd love to sell more equipment, because our new equipment is awesome. From the sustainability standpoint, our packaging lines, for example, use 40% less energy than our previous generation packaging line. So if you talk to any equipment manufacturing, any OEM, of course they would tell you that, "Yeah, absolutely, just go and change out the equipment and this will help reduce the carbon footprint." And that's true. The tricky part for that is, of course, budgets and CAPEX in general, there's not a lot of appetite for CAPEX out there. In fact, I see, even from the services point of view more and more drive towards OPEX. Even with the big brands, what's happening is they're saying, "We don't want to focus on the manufacturing assets anymore." So a lot of it goes into contract manufacturing or co-packing. And the brands then focus on their brand, on developing the products and what's inside the package and the ingredients and the recipes and all this great stuff and marketing and so on.

Sasha Ilyukhin: But manufacturing still becomes relevant. So all of a sudden, you have these co-packers and contract manufacturers that are getting bigger. They are, of course, typically a mix of old equipment, new equipment. So what do you do? If you're a contract manufacturer or if you're a traditional manufacturer with capital equipment, what do you do? You can't go out and just start changing all the equipment in your facility. That's completely unrealistic. So my advice to that is, is there such an enormous potential in total productive maintenance, in that case. So please look into sort of fine tuning, calibrating your equipment and looking at where the costs are, driving the costs out. In a typical manufacturing facility, in food manufacturing, I'm speaking food manufacturing now, the average total utilization of the equipment, if you take total capacity utilization, is somewhere between 30 and 40%. So equipment, you've got the CAPEX out there, it's only producing products 30 or 40% of the time. Is that an opportunity? Absolutely. Absolutely it is an opportunity.

Sasha Ilyukhin: And when it's producing, it's typically producing with some losses, some quality losses. A lot of food manufacturers, the way that they risk manage, for example, is that there's a lot of quality sampling. I've seen up to 2% quality sampling, which is, in my opinion, a pretty crazy figure statistically speaking. So there are a lot of different ways to drive efficiency and therefore reduce carbon footprint without changing the capital equipment.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It makes sense. And certainly, it's not to say that new capital equipment isn't great when it becomes a reasonable option to invest in. But in the meantime, there are all of these other things that can be done to have a more immediate impact. One of the comments that we talked about is the fact that sustainability is just good business. So, talk a little bit about what that quote means to you.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Yeah, I think it's becoming more and more the license to operate, in my opinion, the license to stay in business, not only good business, it used to be good business. It used to be you are in business, and if you also care about the planet and if you do some things for sustainability, you're doing good business. And that's true. But I don't think it's any longer relevant. I think that it becomes mandatory, it becomes license to operate for businesses to define how they impact sustainability, what are they doing to impact sustainability. And people can argue for days and days about, for example, how humans are impacting climate change and whatnot. There's huge arguments about this. But there is no argument to we as stewards to this planet, it's just good stewardship. And to me, it makes absolute sense that businesses are starting to pay more and more attention and put more and more effort into sustainability goals. It's not the bottom of the balance scorecard anymore. It goes to the top of the balance scorecard. And I have examples in our business where in talks with our customers, some customers are starting to place these goals as equivalent to their business goals. So they not only want to achieve their net sales and profitability, they also want to achieve their goals on carbon reduction and being carbon neutral and things of that nature. So, absolutely, it is a license to operate.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I was having a conversation not long ago with Dr. Andreas Schroeder from the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School. And we were talking about the intersection between servitization and sustainability. And it was a similar reflection from him that the business they work with on their servitization journeys, sustainability historically has been sort of a secondary focus. So there was always a primary focus and that would be sort of, "And where and when we can, we'd also like to positively impact this." And his point is it's very quickly picking up steam and being the primary driver, not a secondary objective. So I think that's very much in line with what you're seeing in terms of those priorities becoming more level versus it being further down the scorecard. Okay, so I want to ask you both one final question for today, which is, I guess, if you had to kind of give one premonition or prediction on what we think is something notable we'll see over the next six or 12 months, what are your thoughts on where this is all heading?

Jason Pelz: Do you want me to go first?

Sasha Ilyukhin: Go first, yes.

Jason Pelz: Listen, I would say to you the importance of this topic, the premonition is it's just going to become that much more important. I think Sasha hit it on the head when he said it's a license to operate. I also think it's almost becoming not even so... It's going to become a license to survival is what I really think. I would even take it one step beyond to that, where companies, and we as society, are going to have to make some decisions. Because clearly, you see things going on. And really, I only see the topic of sustainability, how it's going to affect how people run business or are even able to start businesses, it's going to just become more and more important. Again, one is a license but two is a survival thing. Because really, we're in a resource-strapped world, I would say. And if things aren't taken into consideration, whether it is reducing what you take from the planet or your ability to take advantage of those renewable things to run your business, you may find yourself in a situation where you can't run your business. So it's not a question that someone might shut you down, it's a question that you just might not have access to some input that you need. So I would say, and people may think, "Thanks, Captain Obvious," but truly, it's going to be more and more important. This subject is not going away.

Sarah Nicastro: That's what I call my husband a lot of times, Captain Obvious.

Jason Pelz: It's an easy one to quote from the TV.

Sarah Nicastro: All right, Sasha, what do you think?

Sasha Ilyukhin: Well, what I think is that this is really people-driven. And I wanted to say consumer-driven, but that's not the right way to say it. It's really people-driven. So of course we're all consumers. We all go to the grocery store. We all buy different products and food and beverages, etc. But what's happening here and the need for this increased attention to sustainability and real action happening in sustainability is people-driven. And we as consumers will make choices, we will make these decisions. So, I agree with Jason, it's not only a license to operate, it's a license to survive.

Sasha Ilyukhin: But the good news is that we as people, we're everywhere, at all levels of all of these organizations, at our customers, in Tetra Pak, and at IFS and in all of these companies. We are people that care, and people that start to care more and more and more. And I for one, I want to leave a better planet for my daughter. So I do care. I do make choices when I can make these choices. And I think that's a great thing. So every small change counts. And if you're running a business out there, tap into your people's potential. I strongly believe in the power of teams, power of people. This is where the change is happening. Don't wait for someone to come in, some smart consultant or vendor or whatever to tell you what to do. You need to figure out what to do and then look for the right partnerships in that area. So that's my thought on this.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. It's the power of people. And like you just said at the end, it's also the power of partnerships. Jason, you made a really good point earlier where, yes, in instances, this is a competitive differentiator, but it's also a moral imperative. So it can't be something where we're feeling like, "Oh, this is our secret sauce to sustainability so we won't share this." We all really should be invested in the bigger picture and the common goal of, to your point, Sasha, leaving the world in the best possible state for the next generation. And so the point you made earlier, Jason, about this is something where the benefits of community and collective knowledge and learning from what others are doing and tapping into whomever and wherever and whatever you can get some perspective from to drive the needle forward is super important.

Sarah Nicastro: So yeah, and this podcast is a good start. This is great. I really, really appreciate you both being here. I think that we will need to revisit this conversation because I do think that it, as we've said, Captain Obviouses, it will only become more and more important. And I think that as that continued focus plays out, there's going to be more and more lessons learned and best practices and what's next for us to be talking about. So thank you both for spending some time with me today.

Jason Pelz: Pleasure.

Sasha Ilyukhin: Thank you, Sarah. Thank you. It's such a relevant and such an important topic. So thank you. I really appreciate being here.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely.

Jason Pelz: Yes, I appreciate you inviting us.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. All right, you can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @thefutureoffs. 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

When I interview someone and ask, “what would you say the secret to your success is?” The most common answer is the people. When I ask someone, “what is the biggest challenge you’ve faced?” The most common answer is the people. Our success and failure in service, while spurred by strategy and enabled by technology, lies with our people.

As such, many leaders are focusing more on soft skills than ever before. But what if soft skills is the wrong focus? A friend sent me this video last week and I loved Simon Sinek’s point: “There’s no such thing as ‘soft skills.’ There is nothing soft about them. Let's call them what they really are — human skills.” This struck a chord with me, because it made me think about the disservice we may be doing in thinking about and communicating about these skills as “soft” skills. I love Simon’s urge to call them human skills instead.

The focus on these human skills is more important than ever, and if referring to them as human versus soft will help in making strides, then it’s worth the effort to change the term. There are some factors at play that are emphasizing the importance on ensuring that your workforce is equipped with more than the technical knowledge to do their jobs. First, in service the frontline role is rapidly evolving. As more and more organizations embrace outcomes-based service, as-a-Service models, and Servitization, the role of the frontline worker is far more than a fix – they are demanded to become trusted advisors to those customers. They need to feel comfortable making suggestions, offering expanded services, and adeptly uncovering additional customer needs to evolve service offerings.

Moreover, the workforce is changing. Younger and more diverse workers are entering, technology is automating some tasks to allow more time for value-added work, there’s an emphasis on knowledge capture and transfer, and Covid has drastically increased remote work. From the frontline to middle management to top leadership, there’s ample need for an increase in human skills that help employees at all levels communicate effectively and work toward common goals.

Innovation also increases the need for the focus on human skills. Alignment toward strategic initiatives demands the breakdown of siloes, a more agile way of work, and the input of all areas of the company to be effective. Companies who are prioritizing human skills and a culture of open, honest communication at all layers of the organization have greater chances of success in accomplishing transformation and innovation at the pace necessary today.

3 Human Skills Every Worker Needs to Master

As I said, many companies are playing more emphasis on soft – or human – skills than ever before. But others lag, and it’s important to realize that these skills are absolutely as important to success at work as the technical skills needed for a job. As Sinek points out at the end of the video I linked, a two-day offsite or guest speaker once a year doesn’t “check the box” on your focus on human skills. These skills should be given ample energy and investment, which will be ensured best by measuring them in some way.

There are many human skills that are both important and valuable in successfully navigating both the innerworkings of a company and external customer relationships, but if asked to prioritize a top three here are the skills I’d chose and why:

This is a given, I suppose – but with good reason. Communication comes more naturally to some, but even for those who communicate effortlessly don’t always to so effectively. Communication is so important both inside and outside the organization and while specific training may vary based on role-specific requirements or areas of need, a focus on clarity, timeliness, honesty, and respectfulness are a must. You must also ensure that you are providing an environment in which your employees feel comfortable communicating and a culture in which they feel heard.
With all that’s going on in our world, empathy is a critical skill. From being able to put yourself in a customer’s shoe to acknowledging a co-worker who is struggling with something, empathy is an invaluable skill to focus on and is, in many ways, its own superpower. Empathy is also a cornerstone of conflict resolution, which is an important skill to master when dealing with customers.
This might not make someone else’s top three list, but it makes mine because I think it is rapidly increasing in importance. Gone are the days of companies looking to hire cookie-cutter robots to do a job. Rather, we want employees who have that certain “something” – and so do customers. Further, with innovation a high priority across a variety of industries, creativity is an in-demand skill to help bring new ideas, fresh approaches, and different ways of thinking.

I’m curious – what’s your top three? I’d love to hear! Email me to share.

By Tom Paquin

I’ve spoken about my grandfather here before, and his passive enjoyment for (and frustration with) technology, among other things. I have not, however, previously discussed how my grandfather sends documents via e-mail.

When someone requests a document of my grandfather—be it a Word document, PDF, picture, or series of pictures, he goes through the following set of steps:

He prints the document
He scans the printout into his scanner program
He attaches the scanned images to an e-mail message
He sends the message

I’m not sure how he came to divine this completely ridiculous sequence, but the man is nearly in triple-digits, so I do not consider it feasible, at this point, to explain to him how attachments work (though over the years I have tried many times).

While that’s fine among aging relatives, when you’re trying to get human workers in service to do their jobs, failing to follow a standard workflow can do more than be a huge waste of paper and ink; it can be a liability that can cripple business processes across the entirety of a business.

Establishing a workflow is one thing, and training employees consistently on using and adhering to that workflow is another, but fundamentally, your software investments should be engineered in ways that keep employees within the critical path of your established workflow, and there’s a pretty straightforward way to do so:

Your Sequence Needs to be Seamless

There are a lot of service platforms that paper over their inefficiencies through an army of third-party software solutions, or, alternatively, buying companies, cherry-picking capabilities, and slapping them into the box alongside their core product. Then what ends up happening is that systems do not pass data back and forth effectively, can’t tie ticket information to scheduling, and become beholden to inconsistent upgrade patterns and the potential of dropped support for software areas integral to business success.

That’s why it’s so important that from asset monitoring (if applicable) through service delivery, and everywhere in between, your systems need to run in a common language. A consistent handoff means that deviation from an accepted workflow becomes more difficult, because much of moving step-by-step will be automated. The onus of button-pushing moves away from the employee and onto the software itself to prompt and more through a set of standardized processes.

This is obviously not a cure-all for avoiding workflow deviations. We’ve discussed before the importance of building service software that contours to your business operations, so workflow management is natural. But seamless software solves more problems than just keeping employees on the critical path, and if it can help avoid workflow deviations, that’s yet another bonus.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. I'm joined today by Darren Roos, CEO of IFS, to talk about all things service and reflect a bit on the most recent iteration of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management. Darren, welcome back to the podcast.

Darren Roos: Thank you, Sarah. Thanks for having me again.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. Thanks for being here. It's been another exciting year in many different ways and this marks the sixth consecutive year in a leadership position for IFS on the Gartner MQ for Field Service Management furthest for vision. How are you feeling about the MQ this year?

Darren Roos: Look, Sarah, we're incredibly committed to our customers and we've worked tirelessly with them building capability that's important for them to be able to run their businesses better. When we see that recognized in the MQs, it's obviously very satisfying. We have a team that's constantly thinking about what additional value we can make available to our customers. They're out there talking to customers, their challenges, day in and day out, and that means that we have a very open communication channel, the customers talk to us and that's reflected in our vision position. So, very proud, but it's a reflection, frankly, of the work we do with our customers and then that MQ is a by-product.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, absolutely, and reflecting on the last year, I know everyone's very tired of talking about COVID, myself included, but it is just an undeniable part of our reality. I will say that not being able to change that fact, it's made me very proud to be a part of IFS both in how you led the company to handle the impact of the pandemic internally, so the culture we have, and then also how we've banded together to help our customers in various industries, various regions handle the complexity that was thrown at them. When you think of the internal and external experiences of the past year, what comes to mind for you?

Darren Roos: Look, I think the key... First of all, thank you. It certainly didn't feel easy going through it.

Sarah Nicastro: It wasn't. That's a fair assessment and it still isn't, so yeah, for sure.

Darren Roos: I mean, that's a good point. I think, first of all, it's not over. Not only is COVID not over, but the repercussions and consequences of the decisions that have been made by governments and companies over the last 18 months will live with us for likely decades to come. At IFS, it was really about communication both with our employees, with the leadership team and then also with our customers. But if I just start with the internally, I was running these monthly fireside chats with the whole company, as you know, it was really about increasing visibility and giving people the opportunity to talk about what was on their minds, what were they concerned about. From an IFS perspective, the direction that we took, as you know, was to make sure that we protected jobs. I didn't want to be in a situation where we were having to make people redundant during COVID when they would be at their most vulnerable.

Darren Roos: Job security was my number one priority. And then, in reality, the business continued to grow and our customers saw value in what we were doing. In that dialogue with customers, immediately became apparent that there were ways in which they needed us to change what we were doing to be able to navigate these wild fluctuations in demand and work circumstances, so different demand and different work circumstance. Can we take a couple of examples of that with, for example, the technology like our IFS Remote Assistance, with Munters, they needed this remote assistance capability urgently to continue to run their business. We did the initial deployment in just six days and now we're expanding that remote assistance globally where we'll finish the full roll out globally in the next couple of weeks, and that includes build technicians, third line support who are using the solution on their existing mobile devices.

Darren Roos: We also had experts guiding customers and people internally on the opening of new production lines, for example, in their manufacturing facility in the Czech Republic. So, crazy levels of innovation within the business, but really rapid. That was capability that we had, but frankly, we just hadn't been as much demand, but because we had this dialogue, we were able to identify areas that we could help customers. So, that's one example. Panasonic was another one where Panasonic heating and cooling systems had been piloting remote assistance in the UK and in Germany. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Super interested in the technology throughout Panasonic and, in the pilot, it's super interesting how you learn new things that in addition to driving service consistency by having this remote capability, it also enabled them to capture and transfer knowledge while retaining technical insights that they just didn't have before that they're now used to educate and upskill their workforce.

Darren Roos: Just everything that we're doing has changed but it comes down to communications then close to our customers, close to the employees and finding ways in which we could help employees and then help customers.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. When I think about the communication side, it's a lot of honesty. I think about those fireside chats and that's one of the things I liked about them is you weren't pulling any punches, there wasn't this facade of everything's great guys. I mean, it was an acknowledgement that, "Hey, this is a really hard experience for us all to go through, and let me try and tell you as much as I know about the current moment, knowing it's all probably going to change again before tomorrow." I think, in the same way, our customers had to get very honest with us. Munters, for example, they had this on their roadmap, but just to your point, hadn't been an urgent priority. It was something they were prioritizing a bit ahead. The idea of them calling IFS up and saying, "Hey, we need this, but we need it right now," and being able to say, "Okay, what do we need to do to adapt internally to be able to boom? If this is going to help them, let's get it done." The speed of that is full.

Sarah Nicastro: But also, I don't want to say things have normalized. I just think, what does that even mean? I mean, that's a whole different conversation, but what's cool about Munters and another example is Alfa Laval. They also turned to remote assistance for business continuity, but they are evolving that use as the business needs change. Where it was we cannot travel, we need a way to do remote service as our lifeline, once travel became an option again, it's not we don't need this anymore. It's great. This is awesome. We have it. How do we evolve its use to become a part of our service delivery and our overall strategy?

Darren Roos: It's a great sustainability angle there also which every company on the planet today is thinking about ways in which they can reduce their carbon footprint by which they can run their businesses more sustainably. Travel is a huge carbon polluter and I don't know a single executive that doesn't have this on their agenda today and finding ways, as you say, in which they could sustainably change that dynamic of travel is huge. Massive. For people who aren't in service, you think about travel as transcontinental travel. But when you have thousands of tens of thousands of technicians that are driving around in polluting vehicles and historically the narrative would have been, can we convert these to electric, and now all of a sudden, because of COVID, you actually know you can do this remotely, that's a massive benefit and we definitely see loads of examples of that.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It's a super good point. I mean, I've had a lot of conversations just over the last few weeks, one with Bureau Veritas, one with Tetra Pak, one with the Advanced Services Group at Aston, all around the shift people seeing in sustainability being a key factor to the driving factor in a lot of these decisions, technology investments, et cetera. I think that there's conversations I've had around the goal isn't all service be remote service, but when you're sending technicians out in a truck to drive however many hours or miles or kilometers, and for them to just say, "Yep, I went to figure out what's wrong, didn't have what I needed to fix it so I'll go back next week." You know what I mean? The idea of how much of that that is inefficient and unnecessary that can be eliminated is just astounding. Okay. It's been a crazy year and a lot of it has been challenging, but there's been a lot of good things going on too.

Sarah Nicastro: When it comes to the momentum that IFS has internally and related to service, we have not slowed down. We've just kept full speed ahead and then some. Can you talk about, you know, some of the highlights of the last year that I'm sure have had a big contribution to our leadership position?

Darren Roos: Yeah. Look, again, thanks to our customers, we've experienced a fantastic growth, significant growth in service management in particular, 2020 was another triple digit growth year. We demonstrated agility as we responded to these crazy needs that we just talked about in the way the market changed in providing solutions that were more relevant to customers and help them keep the business on track. We didn't just hunk it down and this year we are continuing the growth and transformation plan. We're completing our own digital transformation by implementing IFS cloud within our own business. We obviously have Clevest having joined the family in the utilities service management and asset management space, Axios in the IT service management space and Customerville customer satisfaction surveys, and those are just three of the acquisitions that we've done over the last 18 months. They're all connected by our goals to support companies as they evolve their own business towards servitization.

Darren Roos: We fully relaunched the IFS branding and our new product, IFS Cloud, obviously has come to market. In fact, we're coming up to the second release already now in October. Customers can see that this is why they're choosing IFS and providing the most incredible feedback to analysts like Gartner, et cetera, and others as we see in the MQ.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It's funny, I was thinking one of the calls I was on this morning, someone says, "How's it going?" I'm like, "It's insane." The pace is crazy, but for me, it's energizing. I think that all of these things are very visible in the industry as to what is going on behind the scenes and it's fun and it's exciting, and it's all to your point geared toward what is the best value we can deliver to the customers, what do they need, how do we continue evolving to meet those needs and I just think that that's really cool.

Darren Roos: I think if I can comment on that. Every business leader deals with this challenge of change management. We are compelled to continue to evolve the business. There's a great Jack Welch quote around the pace of change in a business. Effectively, he says that when the pace of change outside the organization is greater than the pace of change inside the organization, the end is near. I think we can all relate to that. Even COVID aside, the landscape around if we think about the topics that we're talking about here, technology and servitization, they are rapidly changing. If you are static and you're not evolving, then you will not be competitive and you will likely not exist. But, the counterpoint to that is that people are naturally resistant to change. Employees don't want to be doing something different all the time.

Darren Roos: It is difficult to continuously train people and make them aware of new technologies and new capabilities. It's difficult to continuously evolve and change your business model. These are tickets to the game today and I think it's the organizations that have embraced technology to support the business, that have an appetite to change and evolve that are the ones that are most likely to succeed. It's the old Darwinian Theory of Evolution. It is the ones that evolve that survive, and that's what we're seeing. During times like this, that pace of change is much quicker and therefore much more difficult to manage.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I haven't shared this with you, Darren, but I've tossed around the idea in my head multiple times and at some point I'll get to it. It's just something that would take up some significant concentration, but the journey that you've been on for the last three years at IFS, three and a half, and the journey that a lot of our customers are on in service really parallels one another in a lot of ways. This idea of disruption and innovation and change, and how do you modernize a company culture, and how do you put people at ease and bring people along on the journey and equip them with the training and knowledge they need and all of those different things, I mean, there's a lot of what we are going through as an organization that gives us a real sense of empathy for what our customers are going through as they face a lot of that same thing.

Sarah Nicastro: The shift to servitization or outcomes-based service or advanced services, I mean, it is a foundational shift in how a company does business and it's far bigger than just technology or just focusing more on service. I mean, there's layers and layers of everything that has to evolve. I think it's an interesting parallel that I'd like to explore a bit more at some point. Okay. One of the other things that was introduced in the last year is IFS's messaging around Moment of Service. I absolutely love this messaging. Tell me a little bit what that means to you as it relates to us and how we serve our customers.

Darren Roos: When the idea was initially pitched to me and as you probably know, Sarah, we didn't hire an agency to do this. We got a focus group of employees together, people that we felt were at the right mindset to be able to shape where we would go in the future and they did a load of work, and then we came up with that Moment of Service messaging. When I heard it the first time, it immediately resonated with me because what we recognize is that every single one of us understands the concept of the Moment of Service. We've all, whether it's buying a car and having that delivery, or whether it's having the, I don't know what you guys call it in the U. S., a boiler or geyser, the thing that makes hot water break down and then call a service company and the technician arrives, and you've got hot water again to stick the kids in the bath. We've all had that moment of service. The next step is appreciating and realizing that every single business has moments of service. When you're able to shape a business by helping them to create outstanding moments of service, which is what we do, it's the reason we exist, is to help businesses in the industries that we operate to orchestrate the parts of their business, their assets, their people, their customers, to orchestrate those to create outstanding moments of service.

Darren Roos: That's a fantastic thing to be able to do. When we think about the ways in which we've built out technology and the acquisitions that we've made with customable, being able to listen to our customer's customer at that moment of service and validate that we've given an amazing moment of service is really important. A lot of people think this is about us offering outstanding moments of service. Of course, that is important, and we measure our moments of service. Much more importantly, this is about how we help our customers create outstanding moments of service for their customers. They can be no doubt that if you stay close to your customers and you can create those amazing moments of service, then you have a sustainable business model. That's simple.

Sarah Nicastro: When I first heard this message, I immediately saw in my mind moment of service, but the word could rotate. So, moment of impact, moment of opportunity, moment of differentiation, moment of influence. There's all these things that that moment represents for businesses both that are trying to really optimize and protect and master that moment, but also those who are looking at how to evolve and innovate what that moment means for their business. I just think that I love the term because I think it can represent so many different things and is just super, super important, and really reinforces the really immense power that the frontline worker has in helping you carry out your service objectives, which I think is a whole another topic that's super important.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. I realize I'm a service nerd and probably get a little bit overly excited about all of the potential and innovation and opportunity, but, trust me, I didn't think I would be here either. When I started and didn't know what field service was, I certainly didn't envision myself 14 years later being still fired up about this stuff. But, I think it is something that I get really excited about because I think that we've only just begun. Both IFS, I truly believe, and also the innovation and the evolution and transformation that's taking place, you know what I mean, we're there, but we've really only scratched the surface of all of the potential. Looking at the future and all of that opportunity, what do you think you would list as our biggest strengths and differentiators for helping our customers really seize that service opportunity?

Darren Roos: There's a few things I would talk about here but let me just start by saying that I agree a hundred percent. I think that we are at the beginning of a very long continuum of service improvement and artificial intelligence and machine learning, and next generation analytics, IOT, all provide for provide incredible opportunities for us to significantly improve what service means across virtually every industry, and anyone that asserts that it's just about the human touch, just doesn't understand it at all. There is so much that we can do and ways in which the insights and technologies that are available to us today that simply weren't available in the past, it really changes the game. So, the key things though, the ways that I think IFS specifically impacts the service capability is, the first thing is that orchestrating this capability across an organization, I said earlier, customers, assets, your employees is incredibly hard.

Darren Roos: What's happened in the IT industry over the last decade, particularly, is a massive fragmentation of that IT landscape. If you go back further than 10 years ago, we had quite large monolithic systems that were integrated single data model, single UX, and that in some ways, while it was clunky and it was slow move, it was integrated at least. At least you have the idea of a single view of those three elements, customers, assets, people was potentially possible. With the advent of cloud and the fragmentation of the IT landscape, nobody's solving that, there's no standards, which means that the complexity of integration falls to customers and that is incredibly difficult to do. The first thing is that IFS cloud is one single solution and it supports this idea that we can provide a single view of our customers, single view of service, and enable customers to orchestrate these reports. However, we recognize that not every customer is going to start from scratch.

Darren Roos: Not every customer wants everything from IFS, and therefore we approach it from a very integration centric, API centric approach supporting the idea of a composable enterprise, but whereas, idealistically, you want to be able to do that with 50 disparate applications, one for HR, one for procurement, one for travel and expense management, one for service, one for finance, you can carry on forever. That's not really practical unless you're in an enormous company and you have thousands and thousands of people in it. What we give customers the ability to do, and this is the most common use case for us is that they will run a chunk of their business on IFS that might be asset management and field service management, it might be ERP and field service management and ITSM, it might be ITSMs and service management, but at least we give them the ability to have this platform on which they can then add on other things. So, that single solution is incredibly important.

Darren Roos: Next thing, and I touched on the role of innovative new technologies, digital twins, low code development environments, embedded analytics, artificial intelligence, all of these are capabilities that we bring to the customer natively in the platform. This is newer technologies that many customers that perhaps are a little bit less sophisticated are saying, "You know, how do I leverage artificial intelligence or machine learning or IOT or digital twins in my business when I don't have a thousand people in it. And I don't have a budget of billions to go and do a massive POC." We bring that capability in a very pragmatic way to our customers today. So, single platform innovation embedded, not attached, embedded. And then the third thing is choice where we offer customers the ability to deploy either on premise or in the cloud. We offer them choice around who deploys.

Darren Roos: It could be us; it could be one of many partners, and we've worked very hard across those elements to provide customers choice, not being overly prescriptive, not saying you're going to have it in the cloud, you can't configure this application beyond the very tight parameters that we've given you and you're going to take an upgrade every year or plus a year, et cetera, et cetera. That's not the way we think about it. We offer them choice because we recognize the complexity of that heterogeneous IT landscape and we're not saying we're going to be overly prescriptive. I think those are the three big things, choice, innovation embedded and single platform to reduce that complexity of integration.

Sarah Nicastro: It's interesting. Our customers are all very heavily focused on improving their customer experience, and so when I think about the fragmentation you described, the first thing I think about is all of the failure points that that surfaces for areas where they are likely to drop the ball on their customer experience. This idea of more cohesiveness and simplification, elimination of unnecessary failure points, all of those things are so, so important and I just want to urge listeners, I don't know the number off the top of my head, but I did a podcast interview with Pekka from Cimcorp who is leveraging IFS Cloud and the insights he had on their more modern IT strategy were just spot on, I think, in where people need to head to. I certainly would recommend anyone go listen to that. Darren, I have two more questions and I know we're almost out of time, so we'll try and keep them really brief. Six years and running as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management, what is going to be the key for us maintaining that status?

Darren Roos: Look, I think I'm actually going to go back to something that you said now and answer a question that I'd rather answer here than that one because maintaining that status actually for me, is not an objective. Making sure that our customer is happy is an objective that I'd want to maintain, but you touched on this voice of customer and the customer satisfaction, and how do they make sure that their customers are happy. Actually, I think it's a pretty simple equation. For me, and I'll use IFS as an example as a company. We run IFS. We also run a host of other applications because IFS doesn't do everything. We run a very heterogeneous application suite. Everything's in the cloud, everything's integrated. The way we think about it is that we offer moments of service to our customers and we've identified, I think it's seven or eight different areas where we provide and we endeavor to provide an outstanding moment of service to our customer.

Darren Roos: That could be, if we just think about our business, during the sales cycle, it could be when we respond to a request for some work, when we're in the implementation phase, when we go live, et cetera. There are these moments of service and what are the critical things that we've done is that we've leveraged Customerville, which we now acquired, but prior to acquiring Customerville to listen to our customer's feedback at those moments of service, and now we know whether we're doing well. I think it's a much simpler equation. I think, just going back to your question of this complexity is that every business leader goes, what are the moments of service that I provide and am I listening to my customers at that moment of service to know whether I'm doing a good job or not?

Darren Roos: If I'm not, let's get real-time feedback so I can fix it. And then, we have the capability to orchestrate the bits of the business that I need to fix it. Not as complicated as many people would make it out to be. I think we provide that capability, but I think technology aside that for me is got to be the aspiration. That only anyone's going to argue that whether you're building carports or whether you're a pest control company killing bugs, or whether you're a mining company, you all have a customer and every one of them is trying to delight their customer. If they offer their customer outstanding moments of service, then they will get more customers.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Last question, Darren is, in this wild, challenging, but also exciting last year, what's the biggest lesson that you as a leader have learned?

Darren Roos: We touched earlier on the communication and I think, historically, I've relied a lot on my ability to get out and see people face to face and meet them and get to know them, and all of a sudden that luxury wasn't there. I think that it became incredibly important for me to be able to make it clear where are we today, where are we headed and how is each person expected to help us get there. There's a few different dimensions to this. There's clarity for everyone and where we are, there's clarity for everyone on how we get there. Everybody has different roles though. It starts to become quite difficult on how do you make sure that you're communicating effectively across the various functions of the business, how somebody makes a contribution. But, we did a lot of this. We did a lot of talking. I think we've got to the point where I was pretty sure people were tired of hearing from me, but it was very important to me that we over communicated and that everybody understood the role that they would play in taking IFS to where we were going.

Darren Roos: In the feedback that I've had, it's proven to be more important because people were suffering with mental health issues, people were struggling with the fact that they couldn't get out there, almost caged, and the fact that they had a sense of importance, that they understood the role that they would play, that there was a bigger cause underpinned by this job security topic that I spoke about right at the beginning really made a difference. Frankly, I was just trying to figure out how to do it. There was no genius involved. I think I got lucky. I had a great leadership team that, together, we coached each other through it.

Darren Roos: One thing I would add, and I'm not just saying this for effect, but I learned more from our customer CEOs than anybody else. I continue to talk to our customers. Many of them shared fantastic ideas of how they were responding to the crisis. In fact, our initial actions when we responded and what we did right out of the gate was based on a customer that I spoke to and some guidance that they offered me on what they were doing. So, really appreciative to everyone who shared their ideas with me. That was the big thing, super communicate, over communicate, make it clear where we're going, have people understand where they are now and how they can individually contribute.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I love that illustration of the power of community, and how you're connecting with them and taking just as much from those interactions as you're trying to give. I think that's really cool. Darren, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Thanks for being on. You can find more on all things service at www.futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @thefutureoffs. The Future of Field Service podcast is, of course, 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

Let me start by admitting a few things. I’ve been struggling lately – not every day, but a good amount of the time. I feel overwhelmed by inputs and decisions and stresses and underwhelmed at my options for turning any of it “off.” I feel a bit numb, almost like I’m watching myself do all of these things from a distance. Don’t get me wrong, I am not unhappy – I love my family, I love my work, and I have so much to be grateful for. But after two-under-two followed by a child diagnosed at age three with Type 1 diabetes followed by a global pandemic, I am more than a bit burnt out.

And here’s the thing, I think we all are. Yet it’s becoming harder to talk about mental health in the context of our current landscape because, well, what the hell do we say? The check-ins we all had early on in the pandemic were sprinkled with statements that perhaps we then believed, like “We can get through this!” or “The silver lining is…” or “When this is over…” No one wants to hear it anymore, myself included. Because eighteen months into this, platitudes are nothing but frustrating. But we’re still struggling, in fact many of us are struggling more. Chronic stress for a year and a half will do that.

Silence Isn’t the Answer

This is a major challenge when it comes to talking about mental health – we often don’t know what to say, so we don’t say anything. But silence is not the answer, and it is time for a mental health check. How are your work-from-home employees feeling? How are your frontline workers holding up? How are your peers faring? How are YOU? You don’t have to have a perfect response to ask a genuine question – in fact, you don’t have to have a response at all. Just listening helps. Alternatively, you don’t have to be asking any questions – you can simply share. Being honest about your own feelings encourages others to do the same.

I was talking with a connection last week and when we got onto Teams and exchanged “how are you’s?” we both sort of just shrugged. Once we got talking, we each opened up about how we’re feeling. How we are struggling at times, but then feel guilty verbalizing any of that struggle because we know many are struggling more. How we feel like we have to maintain an image of strength, for our families and our colleagues, even when we really need a break from being “tough.” It was an honest, vulnerable conversation – and it felt so good. It was the catalyst for writing this because I think that as the pandemic has gone on, we’ve become less communicative about this critically important topic.

So, I urge you, speak up and speak out. Talk to your people, check in on them with sincerity. Don’t worry about knowing how to respond, just focus on being present. If you aren’t comfortable asking the big questions and aren’t getting any more than a surface-level response with “how are you?” try to incorporate some small talk into your interactions to allow folks to feel more comfortable getting personal so that they can open up if they need to. And if it’s you that need to talk, don’t underestimate how much it might help both you and those around you to be the one to share. Please also know that I will always gladly make myself available for connection, camaraderie, and solidarity – reach out anytime.

September is National Suicide Prevention Month in the U.S. Please find resources and help here: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

By Tom Paquin

The service workforce has been a fraught topic since years before the pandemic. Even back in 2018, service employee turnover was nearly 50%, meaning new training, aging employees, and job vacancies that sometimes remained unfilled for years.

And COVID-19 has certainly not improved situations, with an estimated 1 million more jobs than job seekers today. We’ve felt the impact of this in every sector, and service is by no means immune to these challenges. Taking manufacturing alone as a benchmark, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that job vacancies have more than doubled. We knew that this ramp-up was coming, but I don’t know that we were prepared for the secondary effects that COVID would have on the labor market.

Hiring for technical trades was already a challenge, but today, the challenge is doubly exacerbated by retraining, changing employee wants and expectations, and shifting business priorities. Businesses are increasingly closing the windows on their ability to hire their way out of labor shortages, as apprenticeships and other incentives can’t keep up with the pace of churn.

Because of this, businesses are rightly rethinking service from top to bottom, to support their current employees, attract more talent, and do more with less, sometimes next to nothing.

Doing Something with Nothing

Remote Assistance is now well-tread ground around here, so there’s not much of a surprise that RA utilities can do quite a bit to paper over an overextended staff, and permit less seasoned workers in the field tap resources in the backoffice in real-time.

An alternative to that is the inverse—put less tensured employees in front of a computer where they have their full reference library, and have them work through step-by-step repairs with on-site customers to resolve issues. Individuals are much more amenable to managing their own destiny, so in many respects, as little as a skeleton crew with minimal training can get a service brand through lean times. Yes that might seem like an extreme scenario, but for manufacturers, it might end up being a more viable option as organizations move away from repairs altogether.

The Death of Repair

We know that, on top of workplace challenges, businesses have an incentive to maximize the remittance of materials to their original point of origin. Here’s how I described it in the linked article:

So—if manufacturers are incentivized to invest in the circular economy, that means a couple of things:

Manufacturers are going to want parts to be reasonably intact upon extraction from a product
Manufacturers are going to want parts and products back as much as possible
The act of repair will, in many circumstances, be eclipsed by the act of remanufacturing goods into wholly new items

The first point here hinges upon a simple premise: Manufacturers are going to focus on increasing not only quality control, in order to mitigate repairs, but part modularity, in order to make the act of repair itself a different type of process. If, for example, you need to replace a shock absorber in your washing machine, rather than 3,200 proprietary screws, if the part’s locking mechanism is self-contained, it can easily be removed and replaced.

Making parts easier to replace also means less actual service appointments. Why? Because easier parts means easier on-site service. When things break, manufacturers can ship parts to customers, and provide the packaging to allow the broken part to be shipped back to the manufacturer, thus keeping it in the circular manufacturing loop. Add in tools like remote assistance and even moderately complex jobs can be completed without a truck roll or a local tech.

This reflects yet another avenue for organizations to consider when grappling with a reduced workforce, one that has the added benefit of lowering overhead costs for manufacturing, and allowing businesses to recoup resources from themselves, thus changing the nature of new, and building a more sustainable world. A real win-win.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome, to The Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host Sarah Nicastro. Today, we are going to be taking a look into Bureau Veritas's take charge approach to the future of work. I feel like every second or third headline you read in the news today is talking about what the future of work is going to look like and it's a conversation that is top of mind for many of our listeners. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast today, Maggie Laureano, who's the Vice President of Human Resources Americas at Bureau Veritas. Maggie, welcome to The Future of Field Service podcast.

Maggie Laureano: Thank you so much, Sarah, and I am really delighted to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, thanks for being here. Okay, so before we dig into the topic at hand, tell our listeners a bit about yourself, your background, and your role at Bureau Veritas.

Maggie Laureano: Great, I'm happy to do that. So Sarah, I'm going to go back a little bit in time and so while I'm a resident of Florida now and have been for a number of years, I'm originally from New York, New York City. And went to college at Fordham University where I fully expected that I was going to, beyond my undergraduate in psychology, I fully expected that I was going to continue into a masters and potentially a PhD and be a psychologist or at the very least a therapist. And after I got my undergrad in psych, I decided to take a year off and get some experience under my belt, and then go back to school. Well, P.S., I won't tell you how many years later, but I did not go back to school and my first job out of college was as an HR Assistant at a bank. As you know, New York City is ripe with all kinds of financial service organizations so that's kind of where my career started.

Maggie Laureano: Unlike most people coming out of college where typically you spend just a few years in your first job, I actually spent about eight years at that Hearst organization and the reason I did so was because I was given an incredible amount of opportunities to learn, and grow within in HR, and do different things. And so within that eight year span, I started as an HR Assistant, I moved into benefits administration, I worked in payroll, I did recruiting, I did employee relations, I did training facilitation, and so really I got a really, really good foundation. And I think part of that, Sarah, was I was very inquisitive and so I would ask a lot of questions, I wanted to know about what that area did, what the other area did, and so I think my manager at the time was really impressed with that intellectual curiosity and I was given lots of opportunities.

Maggie Laureano: But after that, I evolved into or I moved into other roles in HR at other financial institutions also in New York and then I transferred to Florida. Throughout my career, in financial services in particular, I was really a generalist most of the time, but I did have stints where I was in a recruiting function or in an employee relations function and I managed those two functions as well in different companies. And then in 2006, I transitioned to logistics. I worked with DHL for a couple of years and then after that I moved into aviation with Embraer and I was with that company for 11 years. And then in 2018, I came to Bureau Veritas and the one thing about human resources that I have found is that it's a very transferrable skill and you can learn the industry, you can learn your internal customers, and the business that you support because really the skills that go into HR you can apply in any industry.

Maggie Laureano: And the other thing that I love about being at Bureau Veritas is the ability to really help transform the HR function, which I'm happy to go into a little bit, a little bit later.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Cool.

Maggie Laureano: But that's a little bit about me and my career.

Sarah Nicastro: I love it. Okay, and real quick before we go on, for listeners that maybe aren't familiar with Bureau Veritas can you talk a little bit about the organization? You guys have a very cool video that I've come across and I'm going to see if I can find the link to it to put in the show notes because it talks about how many interactions with Bureau Veritas happen in a day, but people maybe don't recognize the brand by name. So can you give folks a sense of what the company does? [ view video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9Sq4YvXnO8]

Maggie Laureano: Absolutely, and you make a great point and I'm happy to just talk about that video a little bit more because I love it. So Bureau Veritas is about a 200 year old company that started Europe. It is actually headquartered out of Paris and it started in the marine industry. And over the years, it has expanded to much more and we are a leader in testing, inspection, and certification services. And so when you talk about that video, Sarah, that's one of the things that I loved when I was going through the interview process with Bureau Veritas, watching that video and it was so eye opening because it takes a gentleman through the entire day from the time he wakes up, to taking his daughter to school, driving to work, picking up his coffee, going into his office, and then on, and on until he returns home in the evening and you have these pop ups throughout the video that show all the different touchpoints.

Maggie Laureano: And so Bureau Veritas inspects food, it inspects toys, so think in a McDonald's Happy Meal for your kid, as a matter of fact, I use extra virgin olive oil and when I was interviewing for BV I saw that it was inspected by Bureau Veritas. But we also do a lot in the infrastructure space, so for example here in North America we have contracts with municipalities, with different cities where we certify that their building codes are up to par, where we certify and inspect bridges, we do elevator inspections. We're into the energy sector now and of course, oil and gas is a big part of our business. Yeah, it's really... We are the company that, especially in North America we're not very well known, but a company that really touches all of our lives without even us realizing it.

Maggie Laureano: And we're built on safety and that is one of our absolutes, safety and ethics, which are critically important because we provide services to our customers that they must rely on our expertise that we provide, and safety and ethics are clearly very, very important in what we do.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Now, to give people a context for the size of the organization, how many employees do you have either globally or specific to North America?

Maggie Laureano: Yeah, so I'll give you both, Sarah. So about 75,000 globally and in North America we have about 6,300 and that is primarily in Canada and the U.S., but we also have operations in Mexico and in the Caribbean.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, so you might not know the Bureau Veritas name, but you have undoubtedly interacted with something the company has inspected or something along the way, so I'll see if I can find that video and put it in the show notes.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, so in researching for this episode, Maggie, what stood out to me is that you get stuff done. I think that's likely the New Yorker in you, but the other thing that I want... So what I wanted to kind of talk about is, you get things done, right? But sometimes taking real action isn't about what's fast or what's easy to tackle, but digging deep and understanding how to make the biggest impact. So we're going to talk a little bit about when you joined BV and you realized sort of the talent shortage and some of the things that are facing not only your company, but the industry at large. We're going to talk about that, we're going to talk about some of the steps that you all have taken to address that challenge, but before we get into sort of the tactical conversation I'd like to just talk for a moment about this balance of depth, and speed, and why taking shortcuts often doesn't pay off.

Maggie Laureano: Yeah, sure and it was a really interesting experience for me, Sarah, because having come into this role with a million years of experience, I don't even want to think about how long it's been, but I've been in HR for a long time and I have seen what works and what doesn't work. And so I came in with my own preconceived notions of how I would have wanted to set up the HR organization and the types of things that we could do to impact the employee experience and that sort of thing. But one of the most important things, I think, for any HR professional is to really get to understand your company, and your internal customers, and their business, and how do they make money, and what's important to them, and that sort of thing, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Maggie Laureano: And so in doing that what I realized was that I couldn't just jump in and make the changes that I thought would be impactful and important. I really had to step back and listen to my customers because they were in different places. One of things about BV that is kind of neat, it's a very entrepreneurial organization and so it's not the kind of place where one size fits all and where you can dictate okay, this is what we're going to do and every business is going to do it. And so for me, that digging deep and spending time meeting with my internal customers, getting to understand their business, getting to understand their needs, helped to inform how I was going to make changes because whereas at other organization where I've worked I had the ability to make kind of a blanket change for all, at Bureau Veritas it just did not work that way. And had I done that, I would have failed miserably.

Maggie Laureano: And so I think my lesson there was you need to listen, you need to understand, and even though you may come to the table with expertise and experience that you can offer, but it needs to fit I guess is the best way I can say it. It needs to fit. So I've been at Bureau Veritas now for almost three years and the things that we do, what I like to do is provide a framework for my internal customers that kind of an umbrella approach, right? So these are the minimum things that we will do, but certainly each business leader has the ability to customize it further to fit their needs.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, that makes sense and I think that's really good advice not specifically to anything to do with HR, but just for leaders in general that are seeking to make change within a business, right? And what I liked about how you described it, and this is where you can tell that you took that time and you did that digging with the right intention, because you said you used what you learned to inform your strategy and your plan not to pacify people for whom you were going to change something, right? And so I think when you start to talk about leading through change and the need to understand internal stakeholders, I think one of the mistakes that gets made is really related to intent, so some people kind of take certain actions, listening, getting feedback, talking to check a box rather than to actually consume that perspective and let it, like you said, influence what the plan is going to be. Does that make sense?

Maggie Laureano: Yeah, it makes absolute sense and if I had taken that approach of listening just to check the box, like I said, it would not have been successful. And as I said, the business, we're a very entrepreneurial organization and it just would never have passed muster, if you will.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So there's a couple themes that I want to talk about before we get into the specifics of the talent shortage and what you have done about that. The first is kind of what I just mentioned, which is this authenticity, right? And so in some of the articles that you've been a part of that I read prior to our interview, you talk about the importance of communication, which everyone talks about, but there is this level of emphasis on honesty and authenticity that you have. And I'm hoping you can just speak for a moment about how that helps you build trust, how that helps you make connections with your workforce that have a big impact when it comes to engagement and retention, which is part of the equation of this talent shortage, right?

Maggie Laureano: Absolutely. And Sarah, to me, communication in the workplace and with our employees is no different than communication in a person relationship, right? It needs to be honest, it needs to be genuine, it needs to be transparent, it needs to be two way, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Maggie Laureano: And so I bring that same kind of philosophy to the work place and my brand, if you will, my personal brand is important to me and I don't ever want that to be tarnished by someone thinking that I've lied, or I've led them astray in any way, or that I'm hiding information. Now, to be clear, there are things organizationally that you just cannot disclose to employees, confidential information or what have you, but short of that I think open and honest communication is critical. And as an example, and I'll come to Bureau Veritas in just a minute, but in my prior organization I used to host town halls probably on a quarterly basis and it was my CEO and myself that would kind of partner to do the town halls. And over time, I mean I was there for 10 years, and over time the respect and the trust that I had from employees and the things that they would come to me with absolutely astounding and it was because they knew that I was going to tell it like it is, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Maggie Laureano: They knew that I wasn't sugar coating the message, I was going to be very direct and honest with them. And I've brought that same approach to Bureau Veritas and the pandemic, 2020 was a perfect example and not just myself, but also our CEO, Natalia, and some of our other leaders we hosted town halls with pretty difficult messages to the employees and we were always very honest about the message. There was hope in the message despite some negativity that might have been included, but there was hope and then there was always follow up, right?

Maggie Laureano: And making sure that if we were taking an action we would then follow up and talk about how it was going and if we were going to change directions. And the other piece is getting feedback from the employees is really important, how are they feeling, what are they thinking, what's important to them, so again, Sarah, I go back to it's no different than a personal relationship. If it's going to work, it's got to be authentic, honest, transparent, and really it's got to come from a good place.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I think that's an important point and the other point before we talk a bit about how to bring in new talent is... The other point that I wanted to talk to you a little bit about is the importance of empowerment, right? And so you mentioned the culture at BV is very entrepreneurial and so in that type of environment the role of empowerment is important and probably in some ways expected. But I think that empowerment is something that is underutilized in a lot of businesses as it relates to looking at ways to foster greater employee engagement and satisfaction, right? We bring these people in because they're talented and then we don't want to trust or empower them to do what we've brought them in to do, right? So can you talk a little bit about the importance of empowerment?

Maggie Laureano: Yeah, absolutely and it reminds me of many, many years ago I remember being a training class and it was all about empowering employees and so forth. And I remember the facilitator said, "You don't want to have empowerment with a leash." Right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Maggie Laureano: And so pretend empowerment essentially, yeah, yeah, yeah you can do that, but then if you make a mistake, boom, you're pulled back and you're penalized in some way. So one of the philosophies of our CEO is fail fast and you don't have to have all the information you need in order to make a decision. And so in her mind, 75-80% of the information needed to take a decision is fine and then if that doesn't work okay, that's great, we can course correct, and come back, and make it better. And I think that's a really important message for all of our employees because if you've got the skills, you've got the experience, and the know-how, as a new employee obviously you've got to learn the ropes, you've got to learn the company, the way we do things, and things like that, but we hired you for a reason, right?

Maggie Laureano: And so it's important to be able to give employees the opportunity to show what they have, what they've done, what they can do and it's okay to make mistakes. And I think that's what I really love about BV, that making a mistake is not catastrophic, making a mistake is a way to learn, it's a way to improve, and it's like a child, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Maggie Laureano: You can't put your arms around a child and not allow them to explore their surroundings because they just won't know what to do when you release them, right? So it's similar to employees, right? You've got to let them go, you've got to let them do, and I think an empowered workforce is a much more productive workforce and a more satisfied workforce overall and we certainly encourage that here.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. No, I think it's very, very important for companies to start digging into the, I'm going to call it the retention side of this equation, but it's not just retention, it's also engagement and satisfaction. And it's if this talent shortage is real, and it is, then part of it is where does the new talent come from, but a big part of it also needs to be how do you treat the talent you have and are you maximizing their potential, which is where I think the idea of empowerment really comes into play.

Maggie Laureano: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And Sarah, we do a lot of... We're very focused on our talent, on their development, on giving them opportunities to grow, to develop within the company. I mean, it's one thing, yes of course we can hire externally, and we do of course, but yes, with the talent shortage it's become even more critical for companies and for us to look internally and see. I mean, in North America we've got about 6,300 employees. Let's develop them, let's understand what their desires are in terms of their career, and what we can do and work together to help them get there. We may have a diamond in the rough buried somewhere in our organization that we need to uncover and we need to help grow, and nurture, and support them in their development. And so that's one of the things that we've been doing for several years is a very deep dive into our talent looking at who we've got, assessing them, working on individual development plans. So growing our own, if you will, has kind of been one of our missions in the last couple of years.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Good. All right, so let's shift gears a little bit and talk about... Okay, so you joined Bureau Veritas, you started taking a look and digging into okay, what's the state of things, what needs addressed, what are the challenges, what are the opportunities, and your recognition of the talent shortage was one of the big things that came out of that work. So let's talk about some of the actions you've taken to help address that challenge.

Maggie Laureano: Yeah, so early on when we saw the market start getting really, really competitive, and even before that, we've got pockets in our organization where historically it's been very difficult to find talent. And so we started exploring could we create internships, could we create apprenticeships because some of our positions require certain certifications and you need to be overseen by an experienced professional in that particular area, and so we started to explore how can we again, grow our own, right? So hire more entry level junior people and help them grow, and get certified, and get the experience that they need. So we worked on that, we partnered with a number of different schools to do that.

Maggie Laureano: We also started tapping into very niche kind of publications and organizations for some of these positions and we became active with them. Well, let me before I go into it, I was going to talk about a management training program that we started, but even before that, so we started to take steps to see how we could build up our talent pool. But it became very clear that we needed really much more attention in that area and so to that end I hired an experienced talent acquisition leader and he joined us in January of this year. And Sarah, the transformation has been absolutely incredible and it's come in a number of different ways. So his philosophy is he's got a very unique way and methodology in which he and his team recruit. There's a lot of data and analytics attached to it and so at any given moment you could see where the different candidates are in the process.

Maggie Laureano: Are they all residing with the recruiters being sourced? Or have the moved on to the hiring manager? Or are they in final interview stage or in offer stage? And on a daily basis you could see that graph moving. We have introduced artificial intelligence in order to do a lot of the sourcing for us and also, to provide us with market intelligence for different geographies and for different positions. And that has really been a game changer with our leaders because now, the recruiters have become more consultative with them. And so if we are hiring for someone at, I'm just going to make this up, at $18.00 an hour and the market is telling us with the data that we have that market rate is $22.00 an hour, and therefore we're not really able attract talent, we need to pivot. We need to do something different.

Maggie Laureano: And that is exactly what has happened with us internally, our recruiters have become much more consultative because of the analytics that they have and we have been able to make some decisions internally about increasing starting salaries, increasing the salaries of our incumbents to become more competitive in the market. That's been another way in which we've addressed this talent shortage is by bringing in some additional talent on the talent acquisition team that has really shifted the paradigm with regards to how even our leaders are looking the talent acquisition process. Now, we are much more partners and everybody has skin in the game, the hiring managers, the recruiters, everyone, and so we're in it together.

Maggie Laureano: As I said, we've created a management training program. We're partnering with the military to recruit from their databases. We're focusing on a lot more on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we've got some KPIs associated with that, and we're also creating our own kind of a ready talent pool for different types of positions in different geographies, so kind of hiring folks into this pool that we will tap into when the need arises. So a lot that we've done and I've rambled on for way too long on it, but I think it's really helped us to turn the corner and I don't know that we're necessarily ahead of the curve, but we're certainly not completely behind it. And a lot of the things that we've put into place are not necessarily going to bear fruit today or tomorrow, but they're setting us up for success in the future.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Well, and I think this challenge is one where you have to take a long game approach and I think that's part of the lesson folks are learning is in instances where you maybe used to be able to have success hiring based off of we want X years of experience doing this work, if those folks aren't available then to your point, how do you get creative when it comes to growing your own experienced workforce? Right? So how can you look for certain skills, aptitudes, characteristics, et cetera that you can bring in and provide with the training and experience that will get them to the level that maybe you were able to hire at before, right? And I think a lot of organizations are just struggling with coming to grips with the amount of work that they have to do to grow talent that they maybe used to be able to get in easier ways.

Sarah Nicastro: So I think the grow your own philosophy is a very important one to embrace and take action on, and the sooner that you do that, the better your long term results are going to be. And I think that you'll probably see that you are ahead of the curve when it comes to making those investments and how they pay off. But I also think the points you made about investing in talent acquisition resources and skills is important, as well as the technology piece, right? Because if you can leverage that technology to get actionable data both on where are we succeeding and why, and where are we struggling and why, that allows you the business intelligence to either replicate success or avoid those challenges and have better overall results. So I think those are all really good points.

Sarah Nicastro: The other thing I wanted to talk with you about is the program that BV has created, the Bureau Veritas Stem Scholars Program. So let's talk a little bit about what that program is, what its intention is, and what role that plays in all of this.

Maggie Laureano: Yeah. Well, thanks for bringing that up. We're really excited about that program. So we started that with an organization in New York City where a group of students were selected to go through a program to learn more about BV, what we do. So a lot of our leaders were involved in getting in front of those students and sharing all about our business, but then they were also given a project to work on. And it was incredible the level of engagement, of excitement, and really the outcome of the projects, right? So we're excited about that. We are going to be expanding it into our other markets probably in Houston because that's where we have a large presence as well, and so we're working toward that. But Sarah, I mean, stem overall, as you know, not enough kids are going into those fields, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Maggie Laureano: In college. And our company, Bureau Veritas is essentially at its core an engineering company and so it's important. Yes, it's selfish for us specifically, but I think overall for our country, if I might be so bold as to say that, we really need more students going into these fields and helping. We talked about recruiting and looking at the long term, same thing with this. We need to be a part of, BV needs to be a part of encouraging students going into stem careers and helping them in any way that we can. We've given these kids scholarships and we will do that with the next group when we expand this to Houston. It's important that we lead the way in encouraging students to look at these careers and supporting them. And so I think our leaders having been so involved in the program and really demonstrating to them okay, so academically this is what you learn, but practically this is how it can be used in the workplace. And I think that connection to how it translates into real life is really important.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Now, just to clarify, if I understood this program correctly, you award these students a scholarship, but they do not have to use it to come to BV. Right? I mean, is there a tie for them to come and do anything in exchange?

Maggie Laureano: No, there are no strings attached.

Sarah Nicastro: No, so that was my understanding and I think that it is a long term strategy, right? But it's an unselfish way to increase the awareness of some of the different career paths that might not be readily presented, right? And so we talked at the beginning of the conversation about how BV is a brand, the services and the outcomes of the organization are everywhere, but the name might not be known, right? And so how does that translate to recruiting if it's a company that potential candidates are saying, what's Bureau Veritas? And that's a similar challenge for a lot of organizations, right?

Sarah Nicastro: And so I think this idea of how do we do different creative things to invest not only in our own bench of talent, but in increasing the overall awareness of career opportunities in this space, I think is a really important and really smart thing to do. And perhaps, more impactful because there isn't a direct payoff necessarily or a selfish interest, it's you're helping young people with their career, and you're increasing awareness, and those are really good things. I just think that's a really, really cool initiative and something else that folks could take something from.

Maggie Laureano: Yep. Absolutely. And the other thing, you talk about brand recognition, you're absolutely right. BV in Europe is very well known, but in North America much less so. And so we've tried... Not tried, we are actively working on our brand recognition throughout North America through social media and not just through our own internal marketing department, but even our talent acquisition team putting a lot of content out there in social media, videos, and just commenting, and being thought leaders in terms of what they put out there. And so trying in every way that we can to heighten the awareness of Bureau Veritas and as you said, through programs such as stem and we're also very committed to corporate social responsibility, and so putting our name out there as well through programs linked to that.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah, very cool. So I know we talked about the fact that this is a long game, but what would you say about what you've found from these efforts thus far and sort of what you see on the horizon?

Maggie Laureano: So far what we are... We're seeing a turnaround, as I said, with regards to our talent acquisition and partly because of the data that we have and the artificial intelligence that we've invested in, so that is really paying off. In addition, we're making it easier, Sarah, for candidates to engage with us. So we've automated a lot of our processes for candidates and then new hires, so it's not cumbersome and it's not very time consuming to apply, to once their hired to go through the process, and so we're trying to make it easier and more user friendly on the candidate side. And then internally, talk about growing our own and imagine the retention hopefully that we will have, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Maggie Laureano: Because we're investing in our people, because we're giving them opportunities, because we're listening to them to understand what it is that makes them tick and where they want to go in the organization, and so we're seeing all of that beginning to bear fruit for us.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so I want to do kind of a rapid fire of words of wisdom. So some of these I think will be maybe summarizing or recapping points we've touched on, but we'll just go through. So your advice on different areas of future of work, so number one is, how do we modernize recruiting? So what comes to mind as advice for steps to take to modernize that process?

Maggie Laureano: You know what? I think, and this is pretty selfish because of what we've done at BV, but having the right people in those roles. My head of talent acquisition is absolutely amazing. He is a thought leader, he is assertive. Data analytics has been critical for us, being consultative with our clients has been critical, and providing that market intelligence. So I think that all of those aspects of transforming your recruiting function, I think all of that is very, very important. And in a few short months that he has been here we have seen a change in the tide not just in improvement in our results, but also improvement in the collaboration with our hiring managers, and so it's absolutely critical.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. Are there new roles that are imperative for folks to be considering for today's landscape?

Maggie Laureano: I mean, I think going back to talent and what we just discussed, I think data scientists would be really, and I would love to have an intern data scientist on my team for a period of time, because business is driven by data and they make decisions based on data. And so the more that we are able to provide that, the more credible we will be, and the better we can make our case. So I think analytics in general is really important.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I agree. Okay, what's your best piece of advice around retention of today's workforce and particularly the younger generation?

Maggie Laureano: I think having a sense of purpose. I think the younger generation is really driven by not just the work, but doing good overall. And so I think all of our, for example, our corporate social responsibility efforts, and programs, and what we stand for as a company, I mean, BV as a company stands for, as I said, safety, and ethics, and providing that to our customers and so I think that sense of purpose. But in addition to that, right now, and actually as the pandemic continues to unfold, flexibility. Flexibility in the way in which they work and where they work I think is really, really important. We are finding more and more that when we're making offers remote work is really important to people, not having to drive in to an office, or not even having to relocate for an opportunity. Obviously, that is not possible for every position, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Maggie Laureano: But where it is possible, companies really ought to consider offering that to their candidates, to their new hires, and even to incumbent employees because that is a real differentiator between somebody choosing your company over another. And at Bureau Veritas we have become quite open and flexible in that regard.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. What would be your number one piece of advice for improving employee engagement and satisfaction?

Maggie Laureano: Sarah, there are many. There are very many, but I will tell you the one lever that I would pull with regards to that is assuming that we've got other things that contribute to employee engagement and satisfaction or the overall employee experience, but I would say the leaders. Leaders are the ones that... When an employee talks about the company that they work for, they're really talking about their leader. They're talking about the environment and the culture, if you will, that that leader is creating for their team and that could be very, very positive or very, very negative. And so I think having strong leadership, strong leaders that have been trained, that have strong EQ, that understand how they impact their employees, there's so much that goes into it, but I would say that is the number one thing, in my opinion, that helps to drive a positive employee experience.

Sarah Nicastro: I agree. Okay, what is your top prediction around the future of work over the next five years?

Maggie Laureano: Oh my goodness, I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball. But I do think... I do think certainly going back to the issue of flexibility, I mean if that trend is to continue, being flexible in where and how we do work. And then that creates the challenge of measuring work, and performance, and all of that, but we're facing that today. But I don't know, Sarah, that would be my best guest.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Yeah. It will be interesting to see what happens and five years is a good chunk of time when you're talking about these types of things.

Maggie Laureano: It sure is.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. All right, Maggie, last question for today, what is your proudest accomplishment thus far in your time at BV?

Maggie Laureano: Well, I think that we've done so many things to help improve the employee experience, which is, in my opinion, kind of the life's mission of HR no matter where you are in HR. But I think my proudest achievement has been to assemble a team of HR professionals that really are helping to drive the value that HR can bring and working very, very closely, very collaboratively with our internal customers to really again, understand their needs and be flexible in the way that we deliver our services. But I couldn't do it without the strong team that I have behind me and I think that for me that is probably the greatest accomplishment. I've got a great team of people, we're all moving in the same direction, rowing the boat in the same direction, and we've got the same objective that we're all striving for.

Sarah Nicastro: Yep. That makes a big difference. Well, thank you so much, Maggie. I was impressed in my research in all that you've accomplished in less than three years’ time and I appreciate you coming on and sharing some of your lessons learned and actions taken with our listeners.

Maggie Laureano: It's my pleasure, Sarah. Thank you so much for having me.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Twitter @thefutureoffs. 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

Last week I boarded a flight to Chicago for my first in-person conference in more than 18 months. When I walked into the Smarter Services Symposium at the Loew’s Hotel, it was quite honestly surreal at first. Greeting others with masks and the uncertainty of whether or not to shake hands or bump elbows felt awkward and almost had me wishing for the home-office comfort zone of my leggings and Teams meetings. Almost. It didn’t take long for me to reacclimate and realize just how good it felt to be reunited with friendly faces and to meet some new.

The energy and excitement around being back together in person was palpable – there were proper precautions in place, and for those who did decide to attend the event in person, any initial awkwardness was quickly replaced with an appreciation for the reunion of the community. In-person attendance, which was lighter than pre-Covid events, was bolstered with video cameos and attendees viewing the livestream.

The three-day event was more than just warm-fuzzies and cocktails, though there was plenty of both. Sessions featured insights from members of The Service Council’s board and then some, and many were led by the energetic team of the Nour Group. Topics included the theme “Service is Humanity” as well as discussions on all of the major trends you’d assume be incorporated: customer centricity, employee engagement, diversity, innovation, digital transformation, the talent gap, the future of work, as-a-Service models, and more.

While these are all topics we cover regularly here at Future of Field Service, I didn’t spend the three days bored. As I find is typically the case at these events, even if what’s being discussed at a high level are key trends you’re familiar with, there’s always a new perspective, point, or nugget of insight to walk away with. That said, here are what stood out to me as my key observations from the event.

#1: Innovation Demands Accountability

I hosted a 90-minute workshop at the event alongside Joni Chapas, VP of Field Operations at Brinks Home. You may remember Joni from her podcast on how Brinks Home is fueling innovation, and this session was a more in-depth discussion around this topic. We shared some of each of our stories, and then opened it up for an interactive talk around what’s driving innovation within service, what key areas of strategy are essential for successful innovation, how is innovation most effectively tackled, and what are some lessons learned.

One of the most important takeaways from this session is that innovation demands accountability. At Brinks Home, Joni’s team was created to work alongside operations to collaboratively drive innovation. The company recognizes that the operational leaders need to focus on operational excellence, but that innovation is still imperative – so the team was created to extract insight from those leaders on what innovation is needed, but to work solely on driving that innovation and strategic alignment surrounding it.

Whether accountability at your organization is achieved through a dedicated team like what Brinks Home has done or in another way, the point is that we can’t expect to innovate at the pace we need to by simply expecting the leaders already responsible for so much to just add it on top and “get to it when they can.” It’s unfair to place the burden for your company’s future entirely on the shoulders of those who are already overtaxed trying to maintain its present.

#2: Pressing Pause is Better Than Racing Recklessly

Eduardo Bonefont, VP of Life Sciences Technical Services at BD, spoke on day one about the Future of Service and how the company’s people, processes, and tools play a role. He had some excellent points around the importance of manager accountability, creating a speak-up culture, and how to prioritize various projects and objectives.

Part of Eduardo’s discussion that I found especially impactful was him relaying how BD took a “pause year” of introducing new tools to gather feedback, clarify areas of priority, and create a cohesive strategy. While the idea of a pause year may sound challenging for some, the reality is that undoing the negative impact of racing ahead when you truly aren’t ready or aligned is far harder. I loved this idea of pressing pause long enough to examine, reassess, and align.

#3: Your Customers Don’t Want Service

To kick off day two, Mike Adams, SVP of Services Delivery at NCR Corporation, spoke about Servitization. One of the first sentences of his presentation is my favorite quote of the entire event: “Our customers don’t want service; they just want their equipment to work – all the time.” To me, understanding the significance of this statement – and the action it requires from service businesses – is the core of Servitization success.

Your customers don’t want your service – they want results, outcomes, peace of mind. They want guarantees, they want less stress. This doesn’t mean, of course, that they don’t need your service – but it changes the game in terms of what the value proposition is, how service needs to be delivered, and what will achieve customer loyalty. Mike went on to deliver far more gold in his session that illustrated the depth of his experience, but this was by far my favorite point.

#4: Disruption is Inevitable, By Force or By Choice

In a panel discussion on innovation, James Mylett, SVP of Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric, said of his company, “You have to dare to disrupt. Innovation is our middle name – we think fact and act faster.” This attitude alone takes energy and effort, not to mention the cultural, procedural, and technological steps necessary to make fast action a reality. But James is 100% right – you do have to dare to disrupt. Because if you don’t, the disruption will come anyway – by force. And it is far harder to come back from that type of disruption than it is to proactively master the art of disrupting by choice.

#5: The Story is More Important Than the Strategy

Karin Hamel, VP of Services for U.S. Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric, did a session on day three with David Nour and Lin Wilson of the Nour Group to discuss – and show – how she’s worked to visualize strategy to create employee buy-in. Karin spoke to how much unnecessary complexity and corporate speak are put into communications with the frontline workforce that work against the mission of clarity and authenticity.

By simplifying and illustrating key points, Schneider Electric has been able to create a message that resonates far better with its workforce. The focus is on the story, not the detailed strategy, which helps employees connect more and understand better the key aspects that are important and matter most to them. Obviously, there’s strategy here, too, but Karin’s point – and it’s a great one – is that the story is more important and often overlooked. Leading with story gets people to listen and care, which makes the strategy part far smoother.

Russell Masters, Director of IT and Analytics at DHU, a provider to the UK National Health Service, who formerly spent significant time at Rolls-Royce involved in digital innovation efforts, talks with Sarah about the call for leaders to become more digitally adept. They discuss what this does and doesn’t mean, some of the key changes necessary, and what the future holds for leaders in the digital age.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today we're going to be talking about the increasing demand for business leaders to be digitally adept. We know we are living in a digital world and what that demands of leadership has changed, is changing and will continue to change. Very excited to have with me today to discuss this topic, Russell Masters, who's the director of IT and analytics at DHU, a provider to the UK National Health Service. Russell, thanks for joining me today.

Russell Masters: Hi Sarah, thanks for havin0g me. It's lovely to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: Lovely to have you. That was a mouthful. Russell has been so kind to join me today on what is a bank holiday for him, so that's very nice of you to give me some of your time, appreciate it. Before we begin our conversation Russell, tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, your background, your current role and kind of how we got to be here today to talk about what we're going to talk about.

Russell Masters: Yeah, sure. It's fantastic to be here. Know it's a bank holiday, but it's loads of fun talking about this kind of stuff and I love to take the time out to do it. So my career really I've been kind of in industry for 20 years, and pretty much all have that has been in services, either physical or digital somehow, hence my interest in this and my passion for this subject area. And the vast majority of my career was in fact in aviation, and so I've been fortunate to work in a couple airline organizations and the majority of that time also working at Rolls-Royce where I was responsible for a whole range of business transformation and digital services. And that's brought me after quite a long time in aviation to a big career change, so now I'm in healthcare. And I work DHU, which is a community interest company. We support the UK National Health Service in providing urgent and emergency care services, a big part of which is the digital content required to make those services work. And whilst on the face of it, it would seem that moving from planes to people is a big shift, actually there's a whole load of stuff that's very similar. And notwithstanding, the huge amount of digital content and digital technology required to make all of those services work.

Sarah Nicastro: Interesting. So yeah, I've been covering this space for a little bit less than 20 years, but a similar amount of time. And it's interesting to witness and experience how digital has evolved and what that means as it relates to the topic that we're talking about today. So you, through your experiences in industry and services and in different spaces, aviation, healthcare, the reality is no matter what industry we're talking about, the digital imperative is real and it's an area where all organizations have been forced to not only adapt and embrace but to really transform and innovate. And what that takes at the leadership level is really, really interesting. I think that we've asked our workforce to really do a 180 in how business is done and what value propositions we're providing from 20 years ago. And it's not an easy feat, and the way that companies lead is critically important in the success or failure of this initiatives. So I'm curious Russell, in your 20 years of experience, so I know a big chunk of that was at Rolls-Royce and Rolls-Royce is obviously seen as a leader in that industry with a lot of these things. How have you witnessed digital leadership evolve?

Russell Masters: I think, obviously I've seen this all the way through my career and I've been really fortunate in that I've been both a part of delivery of physical services and digital services. And if you like, I've had kind of the dream set of experiences because I've been able to do some of the doing, do some of the building of new things, and also lead some of the more modern cutting edge digital technology projects and services that you could ever want. And I think I consider myself kind of really lucky in that I was born with a personal computer, probably the first generation to have a PC appear in their life. And yet for me, it's still really, really challenging and really difficult as you take forward the blending of IT technology with the real world and go through what has effectively been a transition from IT and big IT and the way that that technology appeared in our life to the more ubiquitous version of that which is digital. And every aspect of our life now is touched by some form of digital technology. And I would suggest that probably the generation of business leaders that we have now are right at the forefront of being the first to take those big digital tools and technologies and deploy them into their companies, into their businesses and their teams at any real scale.

Russell Masters: And so much of that is exciting, but so much of it is very scary. And what I think it's prompting is a wholesale change in the way that we lead and the way that we support our teams, the way that we approach projects and challenges. If I think back to maybe 10 or 15 years ago when we were firmly in the IT age, IT was by definition very technology heavy, it was kind of quite expensive, it was quite time consuming and quite a lot of effort to deploy these technology into companies, despite the huge value that they delivered. And now we fly forward 15, 20 years and those technologies are becoming cheaper, they're becoming easier to deploy, and they're becoming so great to democratize, there's so much more democratization those technologies into our daily lives. And it makes the challenge of taking those and making something useful out of them, both in one way much, much easier because the cost of doing so and the speed at which you can do so is much less, but also much, much riskier because you can get yourself into a whole load of hot water by deploying digital tools and technologies into your organization on scale and on mass.

Russell Masters: And I think I'm probably part of one of the first generations of leaders who've really had to get their head round how do you take these digital tools and technologies and how do you deploy them successfully into your organization? And it's a really complicated story and it's to do with people and it's to do with technology and it's to do with culture and it's to do with philosophy. And I think what I've seen, the predominant trend over the last 20 years as you say has just been this complete democratization of those technologies and the availability of those technologies and leaders wrestling with how do they make something really successful out of something that they probably haven't had a lot of chance to understand but know is incredibly important and being used by everyone everywhere to make their businesses better and more effective.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It's funny, I was smiling because the article that we published today, actually, is called, the headline is Actually, Technology's the Easy Part. And one of the things that I mentioned in that article is what you just said, which is the democratization of these tools in some ways makes things easier, the barrier to entry is lower, the affordability is greater, the accessibility and availability, all of those things. But on the flip side, when I was writing about these things, we'll say 15 years ago, just embracing technology was a competitive advantage. And that is no longer the case, and so from that perspective it is more complex because relating it to the topic we're discussing today, the understanding has to be far deeper. You could get away with, at one point, the understanding being, "Okay, we need to go digital." And that was a feat but it was a journey that was pretty easy to conceptualize and outline and embark on. And what comes next in the further iterations and generations of that strategy is more complex and it requires a lot more expertise and understanding and all of those things. So I think that's a very good point. And like you said, both exciting in some ways and scary for leaders to know that they have some work to do.

Sarah Nicastro: I recently quoted an Accenture report that said all companies are now technology companies. So what are your thoughts on that statement and how does that underpin the importance of leaders becoming more digitally competent?

Russell Masters: Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think there aren't any companies now from the smallest kind of mom and pop shop retailer to the largest multinational that doesn't use technology in some ways as part of either their employee experience or their customer experience and the product and service that they provide. And so yeah, pretty much every company is a technology company today. And building upon the point you were making in response to the beginning of the conversation, I think historically in times gone past it was about how do you fit the people to the technology. The technology would show up and it would do something and you needed to fit the people to the technology to make that work. Increasingly, it's now about how do you take the technology and fit it to the people because pretty much every successful company, every organization that exists today that has any kind of future, has any kind of purpose, has people at the center of it. Whether it's the employees who deliver the end experience to the customer or whether it's the customer themselves or it's a whole network of stakeholders and providers and vendors and other people. It's always people at the core.

Russell Masters: And so I think the big challenge for leaders today is, how do you take something that is inherently very sophisticated, very technology based, and how do you make that really super simple and really super compatible with people so that you can get the best of both? And I think pretty much anyone who's been in my position leading digital products or in and around technology will say that it's the people part that's the really hard part and it's the part that can make a project really successful or an endeavor really successful or not. And I think as we're talking about what the leaders need to do to be successful in this area and how does digital leadership show up in a big organization, it is increasingly helping to enable people but with a background of technology and technological change. And I think that is one of the most difficult subjects for any leader to start getting their head around, and frankly not one that you're prepared for when you've come through maybe a University system 20 years ago or have entered the world of work at that time. So that's the challenge for all of us, is how do we get good at making the technology fit the people?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). What would you say are the biggest barriers to this happening? So if leaders need to become more digitally adept, what are the challenges in that happening?

Russell Masters: Well, there's all sorts of things we could talk about, but there's probably a couple that spring to mind. I think first and foremost, like any big change in business or in society, there's a level of understanding and knowledge required to get started. And I think the subject of digital and IT technology and digital technology starts, first and foremost, with some pretty super sophisticated content. And that can be really daunting when you're starting to contemplate how do you take digital tools and technologies forward. And there's always a sense and a concern that really maybe you have to actually be a developer yourself to be able to be effective in these areas, maybe actually have to understand architecture or maybe you have to understand the latest technologies in order to be successful. And I think that is a very real but not necessarily, it's a boundary, it's a barrier that can get in the way of a lot of leaders when they're starting to take these projects forward.

Russell Masters: And I was actually having a discussion with a colleague of mine who was moving into a government role in and around technology and she was really concerned, "What do I need to know about the cloud? What do I need to know about the latest coding language?" And I think her situation is mirrored across many, many organizations. And the truth is, actually you do need to know something about the technology and you do need to find a way of interacting with the many, many professional people that you'll meet, professional developers, enterprise architects and digital experts. But it's less about understanding what they're doing from a technical perspective, and it's more about having a common language set and some empathy and understanding so that you can both work collaboratively as a team to take forward whatever you're working on.

Russell Masters: And so I think the first challenge for serious lead if you want to be more digitally enabled, is to understand the subject matter a bit more but not to be too worried about knowing it to the Nth degree. And that can be as simple as networking, building up contacts and relationships with people in and around these areas. It can be taking the time to get to know your support team, developer team, IT team, understanding their problems, understanding how the technology works, and as well self-educating. So I think that's the first barrier, if you like, the first action to take if you're going to get serious about becoming a leader in a digital age is to inform yourself.

Russell Masters: But I think then the really value added bit in all of this is there are hundreds, thousands, millions of really well qualified, very professional technology experts out in the world. And it's probably the case that if you're as a senior leader involved in any of these projects, you're not there because you know the technology, you're there to build a team or to work with a team to take them forward and deliver some sort of outcome an some sort of end result. And I think one of the hardest things as a leader of a technological business is to get yourself away from the how are we going to do it more to the what are we going to do and why are we going to do it? And to start getting away from maybe some of the older, safer methods for managing projects and managing organizations where it's about being prescriptive about what happens and why and moving to a more collaborative culture where we start to talk about, "Well, what is the outcome? What is the thing that we're going to achieve?"

Russell Masters: And that's something that I've noticed has been really important in all the world that I've done, both in my previous roles and my current roles, is how is this going to show up in the face of the customer? And that could have been in the face of the end use of the service, or in my case now in the end patient. So the second big challenge for, I think, digital leaders is to start to get better at working towards outcomes and enabling your team to understand those outcomes. And then thirdly, really supporting them, moving away from a culture where you're the one making all the decisions and you're the one driving all the actions to the one where you're more making the team accountable for the outcome that you'll need to deliver and fostering a culture where we all work together to achieve an end result.

Russell Masters: And those are very different cultural approaches, those are very different management philosophies and ways of working and not ones that are necessarily well understood or well practiced everywhere. And so certainly that's been one of the big challenges of the experiences I've been through, both in previous roles and certainly in my current role, is how do you help organizations move away from action to outcome and how do you build the right team and create the right culture an collaborative spirit where you can run at those things together?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative), okay. All right, those are good bits of insight into some of the challenges. So let's then talk next about some of the what not to do. So I think a couple things I want to touch on that I'm taking out of what you just said, I think number one in my mind is that leaders can't completely offload the responsibility to become more digitally competent or adept. So there's a certain degree here of, "Okay, well if I'm not an expert here then I'll just hire someone to do it." So let's talk about the idea of not trying to cop out of growing your own perspective and knowledge and understanding.

Russell Masters: Yeah, I certainly think you've got to decide when you are going to participate or when you're going to be responsible for a new digital product or service or some sort of transformation journey. You still have to make a conscious decision about how are you going to show up and how are you going to participate in that project. And I guess there's various ways that you can do it. And sometimes it's just about not treading on the toes of the experts, if you know what I mean. And so first and foremost, your first focus should be building a great team. And having built that great team, you've got to trust that that team can do the task that you put them together for. Now, by the same account, you still have to be there and show up every day and show interest and drive the energy. As a leader, your job really in a number of ways is to just pour constant amounts of energy into those projects. And so there is a tension there between wanting to participate, wanting to roll your sleeves up and get involved, but also getting in the way.

Russell Masters: And I think I've seen and I've been myself part, and any experience I've gained here has been through a combination of dumb luck and mistakes and slips and trips. And it is really difficult when you're leading a big project to understand how far do you go in demonstrating that you're committed and care about it and you're willing to take action and participate and how do you make sure you don't go too far and stifle the creativity and the enthusiasm and the ownership of the team around you? And so that's a difficult path to tread and one that you need to take a lot of care. But you certainly can't just throw it over the fence.

Russell Masters: And I think the other thing that you've got to do is just always remain focused on what is the outcome and I think a big learning point for me has been, historically as a project manager of projects or more junior roles, I always felt it was more necessary to drive for the most ambitious goal possible because that felt like really good work. And it's taken me many years really and probably the most number of mistakes and is probably the area where I continue to challenge myself to actually manage these things in a more agile method and not in kind of, to use the fashionable version of the world agile where it's kind of just constantly changing, what I really mean is to be properly agile where focusing on what's the smallest thing that we can do today? What can we deliver in a week? What can we do really quickly and be really efficient with? And again, that is a big challenge for leaders coming into these projects. You might be used to delivering in a more conventional way with more [inaudible 00:21:24] and culture. So both of those things really are the big challenge of what not to do, by all means participate, but don't over participate. And you absolutely have to have control but only the way that helps the team take it forward in the most agile sense.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, so there's a lot of areas here that are a delicate balance. So that being said, I think just a couple key points to reiterate for folks, number one is as a leader you can't, to your point, just throw it over the fence. This can't be a facet of your scope of responsibility that you just say, "Well, you know what? This isn't my area of expertise, so I won't worry about it." There has to be a greater desire to learn and grow and expand in the sense of that understanding, not necessarily in the sense, to your earlier point, of becoming an expert yourself. Number two is this idea of if you know that this is an area that you need to increase your knowledge of but you are not going to be the expert then you do need to hire a team of experts that you can trust, and then you need to allow them the culture and environment in which to do what they do and carry out the mission that that you're setting forth. And to your point, that is often going to look different than maybe projects have in the past, so understanding that there needs to be some morphing of workflows and culture and expectations to be more outcome based versus action based.

Sarah Nicastro: So all kind of areas of finding the right balance for yourself, your company, your team, your project that you're working on. But I think those are some really good points in terms of what not to do.

Russell Masters: Yeah, I think you've just got to show up. You've almost got to be there when the problems are there and show up when the problems are there. So trust that your team will take this thing forward, but recognize that they'll get stuck at times. How can you support them and take responsibility for the problems and then just kind of fade away then it's all working. But all the while, demonstrating that you really care and that you're bothered. And I've certainly tried to only ever associate myself with projects that I'm really passionate about and I care about. And I think that, again, is another side to this more modern leadership style has needed to be, it's a much more feeling, much more empathetic approach, and to what are effectively very technological and kind of scientific problems.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, I think that's a good point. And that point traverses this topic into other areas of conversation related though to innovation, which is as our businesses continue to evolve and transform in ways that are new and different, you mentioned earlier the idea of a more collaborative working environment. The more we all have to own our areas of expertise but also work well with people that have different strengths. That's how this all continues to advance. We had a conversation on here not too long ago about the fact that when you look at the topic of digital transformation, it's this very fragmented and siloed approach that is really killing business's opportunity to get a return on their investment. And so this idea of whether it's digital transformation or digital products and services, this idea of greater collaboration, better teamwork, more agility is super, super important. So let's talk a little bit more about what that means though. So I want to talk about three areas of what we should focus on doing. And number one is creating a digitally native culture. So talk a little bit about what that means and, not that you can give anyone a blueprint for doing it, but maybe some thoughts on what it means and how to consider advancing that culture within a business.

Russell Masters: Well, I think you've got to, coming back to my previous point about people and this being so people centric, I think it wouldn't be unbelievable in a lot of companies and people who work for companies you might be listening to, the digital projects, IT related projects, they don't always have the best reputation. They can be expensive, they can take time, they can be impersonal. And I sort of think the key to having a digital culture, if you like, is both to completely dispel the fear of these kind of activities and make them as accessible as possible. And that requires you to talk about them frequently, express them simply, make the language as simple and practical and real as possible. And there can be some resistance to that, because it can sometimes be the case that you have your experts and you have people who are very invested in maybe the previous ways of working, and so suddenly talking about it in maybe less technologically accurate terms or in a simpler way can be counter to the current culture. But it's essential that you make everybody feel like they can have some part of these initiatives and that digital capability and digital content can mean something to them.

Russell Masters: And then I think you've really got to start with either the customer or your workforce or both tell you and you've got to make whatever you're working on as relevant to the problems and challenges you've got at any particular time as possible. And the more that you can talk about outcome, the more that you can talk less about the technology and what you're going to implement and more about the change it'll make within everybody's daily lives and the more belief that you can have. And that can be hard, especially if you're leading an organization where maybe there's a bit of legacy, there's a bit of history or maybe you're sort of a bit earlier in your journey. But showing up every day, being really positive about it, is massively important. And you'll suddenly find almost you reach critical mass where this stuff starts to move. And then before you know it, your whole organization is behind this and seeing what's in it for them. And that's when this stuff is both at its most fun and its best because then you can capitalize on that energy and use that to drive forward and whatever the right strategies for your organization and move more towards a digital first culture.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I was just thinking, we talked earlier about how technology itself has become democratized and it's almost this idea of now next we need to democratize the interest and responsibility throughout the organization. So the technology is there, the capability is there, it's the people part of it, the culture part of it, and weaving it into everyone's scope of work and everyone's language and all of that. It makes sense.

Russell Masters: And investing in everybody who's involved in that change because whether you're moving from working on a certain application or providing a service in a certain way or maybe just gaining information or using information to gain an outcome, it is just so important that everybody, from the most senior person to the most junior and everyone in between, is involved in that. Because otherwise you run the risk of it becoming a particular person, a particular area or particular department's job. And much the same as historically, the other productivity tools that we each organization came to know and love became ubiquitous. It's the same here, it's just got to be consistently delivered, everybody engaged, and made relevant for as many people as possible.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative), okay. All right, there's a lot of other questions I could ask you there. And I think we could certainly have you back and talk a bit about the how to in some more granular detail with some of these things. But for the sake of today's conversation, area number two in terms of becoming more digitally adept is improving digital acumen. So let's talk about how leaders need to be able to talk the talk when it comes to digital.

Russell Masters: Yeah, and I think this is another area where there's the potential to get caught out or trip yourself up.

Sarah Nicastro: Overdo it.

Russell Masters: And I think first and foremost, you have to just be realistic with yourself. I've over the course of a 20 year career have found myself involved in increasingly digital technologies, increasingly digital projects, and over the course of that time I've made a point and I've made it a specific ambition to learn more about these technologies, learn more about the approaches and learn more about the best ways to take these forward. It's about learning enough of the language so that you can converse and learning enough of it so that you can engage with the team that you build around you and the team that you work with to take this forward. So you do need to know enough about the technology to make yourself educated and informed, but you don't have to be the expert.

Russell Masters: And I think learning to ask intelligent questions and learning to pick out the areas where maybe it's worth digging into a big deeper or checking your understanding, is probably a far more valuable skill than, for example, taking yourself back to night school and learning all about cloud architecture and everything else. Primarily because you just won't do it justice, and the standard in industry now is so high and the level of education is so high and the quality of individuals that you can attract to these teams is so high. And so if you find yourself, and you should, involved in these increasingly digital projects, your job should be to become familiar and converse in the broad language and be able to know who to speak to about which challenge and which issue, and to learn how to bring those people together in a way that drives towards a common goal.

Russell Masters: And I would definitely advise against trying to become a very deep domain expert, unless you want to retrain on something else, but an executive level I think it's about, "How do I understand enough of this to actually bring together the parts to make something whole?" Much the same as if you're building a house, you wouldn't lecture our architect on where to put the beams and how deep the footings would be, you trust that they know how to do their job. But you'd certainly have an opinion on what the outcome looked like, how many bedrooms and what it would look like.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that's a good point. And I think one of the key things here is pride and don't let pride get in the way of making impacts that matter here. So this isn't about pretending you know more than you do or you know everything. You don't need to know everything, you need to know enough to be able to understand where the business needs to go and understand what the end goals are and to be able to, like you said, pour energy into the team and motivate them. But I think the world we live in today, there's no way for leaders to be a master of all and no need for. I think that the more you can, like you said, ask good questions and own the areas where you don't know what's being discussed. Because if you can just own that and you can let your team, the experts that you've hired to execute here, let them educate you because that lets them see that they're valued. There's nothing wrong with just admitting that, "I know this much, you know this much, so what do you think and what do you think we need to do next?" And like you said, trust the people that you have put in place to do these things and just know enough to talk with them about what's happening and where it's going.

Sarah Nicastro: I think that there's this element for leaders of just the whole pride and power area that we really need to set aside and just focus more on the people and team building and the outcomes.

Russell Masters: Yeah, and I think this isn't a digital challenge, as much as we're seeing a technological step change within industry, we're also seeing a step change in the philosophies that managers and leaders are using to motivate people, to bring teams forward. And we hear a lot about what's the purpose and the vision and maybe historically those could be treated as quite perfunctory kind of things that we just do because that's what appears in the corporate report or something else. But increasingly those are really important areas. And I think the other thing is, to your point on pride, I don't think it's necessarily about, there's nothing wrong with pride, I think that's a good thing. But maybe accepting or tuning into the fact that actually creating the compelling vision for a team of super enabled, super capable people is actually something to be very proud of and is actually tremendously valuable within an organization. Bringing together all of the right disciplines, lining them up in the right way, especially as most organizations today and most teams are multidisciplinary. We no longer exist in organizations where individual departments do their thing because we know that real truly game changing outcomes come from combining lots of different elements together in a certain way.

Russell Masters: And so I think it's not just a digital challenge, it's a modern leadership challenge, it's how do we create organizations with purpose and mission and vision? And how do we get super positive and proud of that as opposed to maybe knowing what the right answer is at any point in time? And ultimately far more satisfying, I think, than always being the person who makes the decision and directs traffic.

Sarah Nicastro: For sure. Okay. And then the third area, what is your best advice for building confidence, competence, and capability?

Russell Masters: Well I think it's just built upon the conversation that we've had before. I think being very, very curious about every project that you're going into. Certainly something I've had to watch for myself is to jump too quickly to a conclusion or an answer and to try and encourage myself to be more open minded. And the more open minded you can be and the more flexible, the more adaptable you can be, and the more opportunities you can see and the more opportunities you explore, the more you learn. I definitely think this is an area where learning by doing is a really important part of this. This, like any kind of new subject area or discipline, there's so much information out there that you can almost paralyze yourself by trying to know enough to get started. And so I think you've got to start. But I think very much building upon your point, it's about taking forward whatever you're working on with the confidence that you have the right team around you and the humility to engage those team members no matter how small or big the question. And then use that and relying upon your leadership belief and your skills and experience to bring all those elements together.

Russell Masters: And things will go wrong, and I've had many things go wrong in my career. But if you are attacking things with positivity, if you're always doing it for the thing, then my experience you always get the support of your team and your organization and the best thing to do is to embrace that and use that as one big learning experience. And I think that confidence comes from knowing it won't actually be that bad if things go wrong and embracing the fact that if you are working in small steps, your last mistake probably wasn't a big one.

Sarah Nicastro: Right. And I think when you talk about, maybe not digitally native culture, but just the type of culture we need to be fostering today period. This idea of a fail safe environment is very important. Companies aren't getting ahead by playing it safe and embracing the status quo. And part of being able to promote creativity and innovation is people not being terrified to make a mistake or to fail. And so I think that's a good point. Building confidence comes from making some of those missteps and recovering from them and what you learn in doing that, and that's okay and that's important.

Russell Masters: And I think it's the learning the lesson is the most important thing. I would be disappointed in myself to repeat the same mistake again and again and I think that's a really reasonable expectation in the teams that you create and the organization that you work within is, "Well, let's make this mistake and if we make it once well let's not make it again." And I think that's the most important and seeing how you can build upon that is in itself incredibly enabling. And I think maybe just learning to trust your team and trust people is maybe actually one of the things that will have come out of the current circumstances, obviously we've all moved to remote working and a huge number of organizations that would have previously maybe been concerned about that or maybe worried about letting people work from home. I've actually seen it's worked really well and it's a really good proof point of it's not so much about worrying about a mistake, it's maybe trusting that your teams and you will actually make less of them than you might think and might actually achieve more and leveraging the power of people, as with all these things, whether it's management or digital, it's all about the people.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, for sure. Okay. So Russell, last question, what is your best advice for leaders that know that they need to become more digitally adept in terms of, we've talked about some of the, "Here's what not to do, here's what to do," what about specific actions? Whether that's resources or just, "Hey, maybe try this." What type of tactical advice do you have for folks?

Russell Masters: Yeah, and I can't confess that I knew all this when I started and in some of the roles, this is definitely the result not the starting point in terms of my experience, but I think a good discipline to get into, whether it's a digital project or something else, is focusing on the outcome. And that can sound really easy, but it's actually quite difficult to train yourself to think, "What is the outcome I want to achieve?" And it's not, "I want these tasks done by this date," it's, "Well I want my customer to now see these things," or, "I want my employees to now be able to do this." So that is a really good discipline. And I think start would be the other piece of advice. You will learn far more by doing and getting involved than by not and waiting. And it's like any big life event, you're never quite ready. And so again, I will just say start. And network, network within your team, network without your team, and have the humility as you do that to be really open about your experience and not worry too much that maybe this is your first foray into this kind of world or maybe don't forget that as much as you've done 10 or 20 projects you've still got a tremendous amount to learn.

Russell Masters: So just have that continuous asking questions, networking, learning mindset. And with those three things, you won't go wrong. And I'm sure you'll have some slips and trips, but that is by far I think the best way to start.

Sarah Nicastro: Cool. Awesome. Well Russell, thank you so much for joining us and sharing this advice. I think there's some areas here we could definitely dig into, so I'd love to have you back and have some more conversations. But appreciate you coming today on a holiday and sharing with us and our listeners. So thank you.

Russell Masters: Sarah, it's been fantastic to be with you and thank you so much for asking me. It's been a great experience, thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: We'll do it again soon. You can learn more by visiting us at futureoffieldservice.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @thefutureoffs. 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.

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