7 Ways to Motivate your Industrial Maintenance Employees

Withthe continuinglabor shortageproblem andever-shrinking budgets,you need to retainand maintain the motivation ofyourvaluableindustrialmaintenance workforce.

In this article, we’ll discuss how modern technologies can help.

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>Index

The Situation

The Role of Technology in Employee Motivation

1. Replace Mundane, Routine Tasks

2. Improve Communication

3. Provide Real-time Access to Data
4. Provide On-the-job Learning

5. Improve Data for Better Decisions

6. Attract and Retain the Younger Generation
7. Technology for Better Management

Overall Operational Impact of Employee Satisfaction

Sigga Solutions for Employee Engagement

How toMotivateEmployees inIndustrial Maintenance

The labor shortagecontinues to get worse withbaby boomers retiring at a record clip and the lack of interest inmaintenance and production jobs bytheyounger generations.The impact has been an increase in costs due to overtime andexcessive use of contractors.At the same time, budget pressures have accelerateddue to thechallenges introduced by thepandemic.

For the maintenance technician, the overtimecombined withpressuresof the job are having anegative impact on job satisfaction. With the labor shortage, preventive work gets set aside toaddress urgent problems. And as any maintenance manager knows, this sets off a cycle of less preventive maintenance leading to more reactive, break down maintenance requirements.

For the maintenance technician, the constant stress ofhaving to fix something quicklyin turn causesthem to do the minimum toget things running.Now, maintenance technicians are experts at their trade, pressuring them to take short cutsdevalues their work – they want to do the job right, the first time.Witha growing proportion ofbreak-fixactivitiesin theirdaily workload,job satisfaction suffers.

To deal with these challenges, you need technology.According toDr. Ankita Singh, SVP of HR atCignexDatamatics, “Technological innovation is the solution to motivate employees andretain talent in today’s scenario. From process improvement to employee experience, from communication to collaboration, from hiring to retention, technology not only helps employees to automate routine work &amp enhance productivity but also in being happy through better engagement.”

For maintenance technician’s this is especially true, let’s explore the different ways modern, digital technologies can have a significant impact.

The Role of Technology inEmployee Motivation

In aglobal studyby Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company,“it was revealed that employees who work in digital workplaces are not only more productive, but also more motivated, have higher job satisfaction, and report a better overall sense of well-being.

The majority ofrespondents (97%) also felt that their workplace would be greatly improved by an increase in the use of technology. In addition, 64% of respondents reported feeling that their company would fall behind the competition if new technology were not implemented.”

This feels at odds with the perspective that employees feel threatened by technology taking away their jobs. Althoughreducing headcountmight be one of your goals,thefactremainsthat technologycanimprove the job satisfactionof the employees youwant toretainin many ways.

1.ReplaceMundane,RoutineTasks

Dr. Singhnoted that“Automating routine tasks frees up employees to perform work they find more meaningful and that definitely motivates them.”In productionfor example,robots take on the repetitive tasks thatdon’t require judgement freeing up the workerfor tasksthat requiresome human ingenuity to perform.

For maintenance technician’s, replacingdata entry and paperwork tasks can be accomplished with a mobilemaintenance appthat allows them toenter information while they are working.As a result,the work they hate – paperwork – can be replaced with the work they love –more time tofix things.

2. ImproveCommunication

Technology, like mobile devices,enable bettercommunication and collaboration for teams.In terms ofitsimpact on job satisfaction, Dr. Singhoutlined how mobile devices provide an“Instant feedbackmechanism(including) inputs, feedbacks, appreciations, recognitions, work allocation, guidance, and direction(which)is highlyappreciated,and it also improves engagement &amp motivation.”

Considering the environment of maintenance work, with thepotential for a problem being discoveredat any moment, having immediate accesstothesystems andpeople required allows for quickcoordination and response.With a mobile maintenance solution, new notifications can be raised, turned into work orders, approved,and resourced in a matter of minutes.For maintenance techniciansagain,thisallowsthemmore timeto do their work as opposed to waitingfor decisionsand paperwork.

3. ProvideReal-timeAccess toData

A mobile maintenance appcanprovideimmediate access tothesystems andinformation technicians need todo their job. Manuals, checklists, safety guidelinesand more can be referenced on a planned or new, urgent work order.This allows maintenance technicians to spend more time doing their workwith the confidence that they are doing the work correctly.

In a recent webinar,HowMobile EAM Can Increase Your Plant Efficiency and Reduce Costs, theProject Leaderat SaintGobain, Noureddine Benbellat,described howdelighted the organization was withtheability tolabel each piece of equipment, so that themaintenance staff could use a mobile device to scan and immediatelyget a checklist to get the equipment back up and running.Thecompany wasso excited with thetechnologytheyextended this forms functionality for use cases in theproductionand quality departments.

4. ProvideOn-the-jobLearning

According toRiia O’Donnell’sarticle on HR DIVE, “In an era of deep talent gaps, the need to train has never been greater. And new tech that promises to make workers more productive — if they only had the time to learn to use it — compounds the problem.”This is certainly true for today’s maintenance technicians with thegrowth oftechnologies likesmart equipment,Artificial Intelligence (AI)andIIoT. To repair a piece of equipmentcanrequireboth physical andsoftware-relatedactions.

The ability to have immediate access to information to do their jobs, enables employees to learn while doing.Whether they are referencing a manualor step-by-step instructions, employees are training themselvesat their own pace.In fact,in the Aruba study they found that“89% want training anytime/anywhere they need to do their job.”

Dr.Singhadds to the point that“as employees become more reliant on their phones, it is more common for them to carry out tasks of all scale on mobile in those micro-moments (during a break at work, waiting for public transport) available… Many activities, particularly learning, is slotted in during spare moments, like during travel.”

5. ImproveDatafor Better Decisions

Now talking about smart machines, AI andIIoTdevices– theseIndustry 4.0technologies also contribute to employee satisfaction.Theyprovide useful information thattechnicianscan use to identify and diagnose a problem.Some of the technology allows the equipment to repair itself, but most of these technologies don’treplace thetechnician’sjob butsupport their analysis and decision-making.Once they’ve gotten over the learning curve, these technologiescontribute to their satisfaction in doing a job well (and certainly asource of positive feedback from management).

Improving data quality also comes from simply capturing data accurately and consistently to enable better analysis and decision-making. As technicians capture information such as the time to complete a task on a work order, this information becomes available to management to be able to use to schedule the same task in the future. When schedules are designed to provide technicians with the time needed to do the task right, the technician will feel less pressure to cut corners and that their work is respected.

6. Attract and Retain the Younger Generation

Theyounger generationwas raised using computers and the internet. They expect to be always connected and have access to information wherever they are. Replacing paper-based maintenance processes with mobile devices will meet a basic expectation of these generations.In the Aruba survey, they found that“most respondents thought digital technology would result in a more efficient (56%), more collaborative (52%) andamore appealing (57%) work environment.”

The younger generationcan also be charged to help drive the adoption of mobile workflows with their fellow technicians. This would be a valuable job challenge(and retention strategy)for the younger technician while helping the organization to quickly gain the cost, productivity,andjob satisfactionbenefits ofamobilemaintenance solution.

7. Technology forBetterMaintenanceManagement

Maintenancemanagementsupervisors and leadersof courseplay a key role inemployee motivation.Technology can help management better organize, communicate, andhave a positive impact on employee satisfaction. Technology can also improve thequality and efficiency of management tasks to the delight of the management team.

>Immediate Access toStaff

As noted earlier, having mobile devices givesthe maintenance management staff immediate access to their staff to rearrange work as needed toquickly respond to a corrective or breakdown event.Mobile technology also provides real-time visibility to thelocation and work status of a dispersed workforceprovidingmanagers withgreaterability totrack performance and provide real-time feedback.

>Improve Scheduling

>Schedule the right techto the right jobwith the right amount of timeto do the job right.

You can streamline the routine steps to create the weekly schedules withplanning andschedulingsoftware.Then use the time saved toimprove the scheduleswith insights into technician capabilities, skills and certifications, detailed availabilityof the technicians, machine downtime calendars, parts availabilityand so on. The list of considerations is extensive so the more that can be automated and presented intoa view forevaluation, the easierand fasterit is todothehuman adjustments.

And with the data captured from technician useof mobile devices, the planning and scheduling staff are better able to assigntime to work orders for scheduling.

The result is abetter schedule that drives technician productivity(higher wrench time)and job satisfaction, not to mentionimproving the job of the scheduler.Doc Palmer,in hisMaintenance Planning and Scheduling Handbookputs this point in perspective:”Implementing properplanningand scheduling can improve productive maintenance time (wrench time) of a typical organization from 25-35% to 50-55% – almost doubling the ability to get work completed.”

Overall Operational Impact of Employee Satisfaction

As we’ve mentioned, maintenance technicians are more satisfied if they can apply their skills. Ricky Smith, Senior Reliability Advisor forGPAllied,Equipment World article, summarizes the results well: “Once you’ve got your processes standardized, repeatable and efficient, not only does wrench time increase, but employees enjoy their jobs more and machine uptime increases as well…It will change the whole organization, but you can’t talk about that at first because you only control maintenance. You don’t have to show them (management) or send them an email or brag about it. Just let them become aware of it. They will see equipment reliability going up. People will be more satisfied in their work. There will be less absenteeism, better morale and less turnover.”

Addressing employee job satisfaction has many benefits. According to Dr. Ankita Singh, SVP atCignexDatamatics, “A fully engaged workforce means reduced churn and increased organizational productivity and efficiency. For employees, their workplace should be digital, productive, competitive, adaptive, advance, and safe to work.”

Sigga Solutions for Employee Engagement

Implementing new technologies in maintenance operations is complex and constantly changing. We can partner with you to overcome these challenges with proven digitization and mobile solutions with experienced deployment teams. Not only will you gain significant operational efficiencies,but youwill alsoimproveemployee satisfaction and retention.

SiggaMobile EAMis a proven mobile solution designed to digitize the activities of the maintenance and repair worker. The solution replaces tedious, manual paper-based processes with everything the maintenance worker needs in a mobile device while in the field or plant including data from smart technologies.Sigga Warehouse and Inventoryextends the mobile job satisfaction benefitsfor furthercross-organizationcollaboration benefits.

Sigga Planning &amp Schedulingenables the planner to replace tedious spreadsheet work with a solution to automatically create a baseline schedule for maintenance and repair activities. This allows the planner to focus their time on finessing the schedule with ad hoc requirements and making their own value-added inputs.

Sigga Solutions

>Talk to our consultants to learn how we can help you improve the motivation of your employees with proven technologies.