Millennials are now the largest generation in the U.S. labor force, but they often work side by side with long-time company veterans. Millennials bring a unique array of talents that can complement those of their veteran co-workers. This blend of demographics and talents makes for an effective field service team. Still, some employers believe that vets and young employees will not embrace the same ways of doing business. One of the most persistent fallacies about the young and old centers around technology: the young will love it; the old will reject it. But a little research, coupled with our experience with our customers, has shown that mobile solutions like ProntoForms appeal to field service Millennials and veterans alike.
The Millennial appeal
A study from PricewaterhouseCoopers confirms that “Millennials expect the technologies that empower their personal lives to also drive communication and innovation in the workplace. 59 per cent said that an employer’s provision of state-of-the-art technology was important to them when considering a job.” This doesn’t mean that Millennials will embrace every app that you load onto their smartphones. A bad app will soon have them returning to pen and paper.
Our app offers more than just digital versions of paper forms. ProntoForms appeals to Millennials because (aside from facilitating faster and more accurate field data collection) it boasts state-of-the-art features and user experiences similar to those used in their social lives:
- Sketch Pad: Field workers can sketch on top of site photos and seamlessly integrate them into mobile forms. This is similar to a feature offered by the Facebook Messenger app, which lets users draw on top of their photos and send them to friends.
- Credit card processing: Millennials can close business transactions on the spot, similar to how they pay for taxis using smartphone credit card readers.
- GPS stamps: ProntoForms includes the ability to use maps that indicate where each form is completed – just like Geocaching or Google Maps.
This is only a sample. If you’re interested, check out more of our app features.
Veterans and mobile apps: three lies and the truth
Some think that most senior employees won’t like using mobile apps. The argument is that they’ve been using the same tools for years, so why should they change now? The reality: they’re embracing the new. The Nielson Company found that, “Even those aged 55+ spend more than 21 hours across an average of 22 different apps per month.” As an aside, they also observed that 18-24-year-olds spend over 37 hours per month on 28 different apps, which again speaks to how mobile apps appeal to a variety of age groups.
Still, some worry that field service veterans will find mobile forms hard to use. In our blog post Top five mobile forms myths, we gave an example of how ProntoForms has been embraced by those who are less than tech-savvy. “Switching from paper forms to mobile forms on tablets was a scary idea for some of our technicians. But they all love ProntoForms,” said Stephane Turpin, National Manager of Care Service for Walter Surface Technologies. “They find it intuitive and easy to use – even the guys who had never used a tablet before!”
Other veterans might fear that mobile forms will leave them irrelevant. But that’s also a myth. The ability to fill out forms rapidly has simply allowed them to get more work done in a day while still leveraging all the knowledge and experience they have gathered over a long career.
- BrightView has leveraged mobile forms to generate business – to the tune of a $3M ROI in three months.
- Funderburk’s field workers are completing more roofing jobs each day.
- Tanknology is completing inspections faster than ever before – and has raised the number of annual inspections from 300 to 1,300.
If you’re still not convinced that your field workers will embrace mobile forms, let us know in the reply box. But if we’ve put your mind at ease, click below and get started!
