{"id":16114,"date":"2021-12-08T17:02:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T17:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fieldnation.com\/resources\/becoming-a-buyer-of-choice-vet-for-what-you-expect\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T05:16:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T10:16:33","slug":"becoming-a-buyer-of-choice-vet-for-what-you-expect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fieldnation.com\/resources\/becoming-a-buyer-of-choice-vet-for-what-you-expect","title":{"rendered":"Becoming a Buyer of Choice: Vet for What you Expect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Shawn Fields, Senior Field Services Strategist<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Buyer of Choice blog series is designed to help service leaders gain and maintain a competitive advantage by strengthening their positive network effect among independently contracted IT service technicians. Being a \u201cBuyer of Choice\u201d can be broken down into three best practices:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Success Starts with Pay<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vet for What you Expect<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Clarity Matters<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the <\/span><a href=\"\/insights\/success-starts-with-pay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">previous blog post<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, we focused on the first item on this list and emphasized the importance of offering technicians competitive market rates in exchange for their services.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Let\u2019s focus now on this second-best practice: Vet for What you Expect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What does that mean, exactly?<\/span><\/p>\n<a name=\"vet-for-what-you-expect\" class=\"fldn-table-of-contents-anchor\"><\/a><h2 id=\"vet-for-what-you-expect\"><strong>Vet for What you Expect<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I\u2019ll start with two pieces of advice:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consider using the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">same<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> type of process to screen for on-demand labor that you use for your permanent employees.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leverage the automation tools that come with on-site labor platforms to make this vetting process more efficient. With Field Nation, this means using features like 1) <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/support.fieldnation.com\/s\/article\/Talent-Pools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Talent Pools<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, 2) <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/support.fieldnation.com\/s\/article\/Smartaudit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SmartAudit<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and 3) <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/support.fieldnation.com\/s\/article\/Auto-Dispatch\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Auto Dispatch<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By putting the same degree of care into your independent contractor vetting as you would with a full-time hire, you ensure that your on-demand technicians have everything they need to represent your company. You also help ensure a good \u201cfit\u201d between your company and your on-demand workforce, which creates the environment for long-term success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use the data available to make the process of finding technicians more efficient. Platform ratings and job history can help you quickly create a list of prospective technicians. If soft skills are important for a given project, you can use appropriate screening methods to determine fit. A short survey or even a phone interview may be useful in these scenarios. Combined, these techniques can help you <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/support.fieldnation.com\/s\/article\/Talent-Pools\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">create a pool of screened technicians<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. With this talent pool at your disposal, you can quickly route future work to a group of vetted, trusted technicians.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It should be acknowledged that building these talent pools takes time and effort. Unfortunately, this means that some service organizations are tempted to skip this step in their adoption of platform labor, opting to take a more ad hoc approach that deemphasizes adequate vetting for speed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The challenge with this approach is that it doesn\u2019t set your service organization up for success \u2013 either initially or long term.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, some companies\u2019 adoption of on-demand labor includes saying \u201cyes\u201d to the first technicians that express interest in their available work. These companies risk the scenario of sending an inadequately prepared and vetted technician to a work site to represent their brand. Worse, they keep their relationship with on-demand labor in its most immature stage instead of working to build a curated pool of technicians they know they can trust.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In contrast, other service organizations work with their dispatchers to reach alignment in regard to their business\u2019 needs, strategy, and process. They leverage this understanding to create a vetting process that may necessarily include surveys and interviews. Some successful Field Nation users incorporate brief training sessions into their vetting process to ensure that the on-demand technicians they work with are adequately prepared for their work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once these processes are complete, these organizations gather vetted technicians in pre-approved Talent Pools that empower them to automate key parts of the subsequent dispatching process. Tools like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/support.fieldnation.com\/s\/article\/Smartaudit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smart Talent Pools<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/support.fieldnation.com\/s\/article\/Provider-Assessments\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Provider Assessments<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> make this automation even more accessible and powerful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Frontloading this vetting effort unlocks the true potential of on-demand labor and makes the process of utilizing the right on-demand technician more expedient in the long term. What\u2019s more, it solidifies a service organization\u2019s status as a \u201cBuyer of Choice\u201d by building ongoing relationships with technicians whose skills and approach to work are a good fit with a given service provider.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This leads us to our final best practice: Clarity Matters. We\u2019ll cover that in the last post in our \u201cBuyer of Choice\u201d series.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"o-grid__col o-grid__col--12of12 o-grid__col--8of12--up-medium\">\n<article>\n<div class=\"entry-content s-quarantineContent\" data-ui-component=\"ContentFormatter\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"o-grid__col o-grid__col--12of12 o-grid__col--8of12--up-medium\">\n<article>\n<div class=\"entry-content s-quarantineContent\" data-ui-component=\"ContentFormatter\">\n<p><em>Shawn Fields brings more than 30 years of IT industry experience to Field Nation \u2014 with expertise aiding clients in retail, financial services, manufacturing, life sciences, food and beverage, state government, IT, and utilities. He has successfully led the entire spectrum of IT services in the outsourcing arena, advising notable clients like Intel, GE, Citi, NASA, Rockwell Automation, Coca-Cola, Honeywell, AT&amp;T, Bank of America, Booz Allen Hamilton, SunTrust, Georgia-Pacific, Southern Company, Levi, and BMW. Additionally, Shawn had led innovation, design thinking and digital transformation projects for large clients across multiple continents.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The current labor shortage creates a focused sense of urgency around being a &#8220;Buyer of Choice&#8221; in the eyes of on-demand technicians. Putting a high degree of care into your independent contractor vetting helps ensure a good \u201cfit\u201d between your company and your on-demand workforce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":16637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"xn-wppe-expiration":[],"xn-wppe-expiration-action":[],"xn-wppe-expiration-prefix":[],"footnotes":""},"content-group":[],"class_list":["post-16114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","fldn_content_type-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Becoming a Buyer of Choice: Vet for What you Expect | Field Nation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fieldnation.com\/resources\/becoming-a-buyer-of-choice-vet-for-what-you-expect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Becoming a Buyer of Choice: Vet for What you Expect | Field Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The current labor shortage creates a focused sense of urgency around being a &quot;Buyer of Choice&quot; in the eyes of on-demand technicians. 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