Empowered Workforce and Actionable Data
TEAM Takeaways from ISSA 2019 and BSCAI Contracting Success.
We rolled lucky 7s in Las Vegas during the cleaning industry’s top events, the ISSA Show North America and BSCAI Contracting Success Conference. TEAM employees from product management, sales, account management, marketing and our executive team walked away with a jackpot of cleaning industry trends and product feedback (along with a ton of hand sanitizer). We covered a lot of ground in our conversations with TEAM customers and other building service contractors, but two big themes jumped out: empowering the janitorial workforce and leveraging data to improve business results.
An Empowered Workforce
Employees need specific information to do their jobs well and want that data delivered to them as conveniently and usable as possible. Putting information in the hands of employees in real-time not only improves efficiency and saves frustration but also helps establish clear job expectations and supports a feedback loop on performance. These are all key drivers of worker engagement and fostering trust in an organization — a significant weapon against employee turnover, particularly among the younger generations entering the workforce.
The latest technology and IoT devices were also on display on the trade show floor — a trend that continues as facilities are encouraged to pair cleaners with smart devices and self-guided equipment for more efficiency and quantifiable results. A frequent topic discussed in TEAM’s booth was the latest in employee tracking technology from Lighthouse, TEAM’s newest addition to the product portfolio. Lighthouse manages workforce efficiency and provides contractors a way to continuously track employees and assets, which can help protect contractors against slip and fall liability.
While the verdict is still out on where BSCs can see the best return on IoT, it does open the door to a slew of new data sources. That leads right into the next big theme — leveraging data to improve business results.
Actionable Data
We’ve all heard you can’t improve what you can’t measure, and we know improvement is the basis of every goal-based leadership discussion. But, according to what we heard at the show, not everyone is digging deep enough across their own data. Those who already examine their data are realizing it takes a lot of work to turn a mountain of data into something actionable.
For example, reducing employee turnover is always a topic of conversation amongst service contractors, but how well are BSCs digging in and analyzing their own workforce data, and do they know what to look for?
During the BSCAI Contracting Success Conference, TEAM’s President Jill Davie and Kwantek Founder Collie King presented on janitorial industry labor trends and why data is crucial for measuring supervisor performance. During their presentation, they noted the downturn in workforce retention is not likely to improve with 0.4 percent annual growth projected over the next four decades, so industry operators must figure out a way to retain the folks they have. They also gave BSCAI members a place to start by analyzing industry data to uncover some benchmarks contractors can start to track.
Data management also showed up in improving client retention and overall service delivery themes. Contractor-led sessions enforced the value of using data to identify at-risk clients and problematic patterns and trends. They also hit on leveraging good results to improve customer perception of quality and to enhance relationships. Meanwhile, TEAM showed off new ways to look at quality and operational data in Insights, our advanced data and analytics web-enabled platform, to help customers start to explore their data.
These interactions validated TEAM’s product roadmap for 2020 where customers will see a renewed focus on operational advancements across our in-field applications and further expansion of Insights, designed to help clients effectively mine their data, identify problems, and take corrective action to reach their business goals.