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Companies worldwide are employing field employees primarily for sales and marketing aspects of the business. As helpful as they are, it's equally challenging to manage them.
For starters, keeping an eye on the field employees’ activities and locations is challenging. Then, as a manager, you are faced with the question of how to manage your field force.
Simply by investing in field force management software. The software will automate functions such as attendance, task assigning, reimbursement, etc., which is excellent for increasing the productivity and efficient working of the employees.
What Challenges does a Company Face while Managing Field Employees?
Managing your remote employees manually is like putting yourself against a wall of nails — it will hurt. However, there are a number of challenges you may already be experiencing or might face in the future if you manage your field employees without good field force management software.
Unable to Track Location
Tracking location accurately is one of the most significant issue managers face with field employees. Not only location but also their tasks. Not being able to track their employees’ whereabouts can leave the manager feeling helpless as he doesn't know the bandwidth his employees have to fulfill an urgent task.
Productivity
A manager wants all his employees to be super productive, including the on-field employees. An employee who efficiently meets his deadlines is the ideal employee that a manager wants on his team. But this productivity can only be achieved with good management of tasks and time, and the information manager needs to manage them.
Communication
Proper and healthy communication is vital for managers and field employees to perform well in their respective jobs. But since the manager is in a cubicle and field employees are on the road, the distance between the two can cause a gap to emerge. If not fixed, this gap can cause their relationship to sour. Which will affect their work as the flow of information is disturbed.
Documentation
Managing physical documents is the challenge the field force most complains about. Since these employees are mostly on the road, it becomes a hassle for them to carry physical documents. Most of the time have to be extra careful of these documents worrying about any damage.
It is also time-consuming since they must travel to the office daily to submit them. And for the company, keeping track of these documents and storing them carefully is also challenging.
Time Efficiency
Managers and employees both complain about the time crunch they face every day. This is primarily due to improper task allocation and the need to do the same repetitive daily work that can very easily be automated.
The very act of assigning tasks daily and individually to each employee is a time taking. This leaves managers with next to no time to formulate future strategies. And for field employees, it is time taxing to travel to the office daily to mark their attendance.
What is a Field Force Management Software?
Field force management software is a system company can use to align field employees and their operations with the in-office staff and track their performance.
The purpose of this software is to automate the operations of the managers and field force in a manner as to promote transparency and productivity in the working of the employees.
Through the field employee management software, the manager can monitor the progress and productivity of the employees in real time. Furthermore, he and his field employees can work remotely in a much more time-efficient manner.
How Can Field Force Management Software Resolve the Challenges?
Field force management software lets you easily skip or overcome the aforementioned challenges. Along with helping you productively manage your employees, it also automates several business operations.
Real-time Location and Task Tracking
Thanks to the software, managers now don't have to constantly call their employees for updates on their location and tasks. As they can through the application, can accurately track their employees. In addition, even their task list can be tracked in real-time. The manager can see the same as the field employee updating his checklist.
This helps managers keep a record of the routes traveled by the employees and the bandwidth they have for any urgent and additional task.
Smart Task Management
Allocating the task has got to be one of the most important tasks for managers and also the most time-consuming. Through the tool of bulk task assigning, the managers can assign a month’s task prior. The daily task will be visible to employees on their app on time. This is great for time preservation as employees won't have to wait for them to be assigned jobs. Instead, they can directly head to the first task location.
Automated Reimbursement
Automating reimbursement is a big plus for keeping the field force happy as they are the ones who daily have fuel and other expenses. But, unfortunately, they can't keep track of their bills, nor is it possible for the accounts department.
So the software enables them to upload their bills instantly on the app and will be visible to all the managers. This eliminates the need for employees to keep collecting the bills and submitting them in the office.
Even managers benefit from this feature as they can cap the reimbursement limit. This is customizable according to the team and designation.
Digital Documentation
Field force management software presents you with the option of uploading and storing documents in the cloud storage offered. This removes the need to carry physical documents.
It even has a fantastic custom form tool where employees can take feedback. It is customizable. The form has an attachment feature where documents, photos, and videos can be uploaded.
In Built Chatbox
In-built chat boxes are a great way to avoid using multiple apps for communication, as they are time and battery-consuming. With the in-built chat box, the employees can easily share and receive information from managers and other in-office employees. In addition, voice notes and photos can be sent and received if the message is unclear.
Remote Geocoded Attendance
Only a good field force management software will look after its users thoroughly. For example, the software offers geocoded attendance, meaning employees can only mark their attendance on the first location of the job. Managers can even request visual verification if they are still not satisfied. This way, managers can remove buddy punching and record accurate data.
Manage Your Field Force with TrackoField
Now that you know the challenges you might face while managing your field employees, why not avoid them with field force management software? The software will help you automate your company’s operations and track field employees.
TrackoField is a leading Field workforce management software offering top features and tools to help employees and managers work better. The software is very flexible and customizable to suit all your business needs.
Get a demo now!
Source: Manage On-Field Employees Using a Field Force Management Software
