Podcast Episode Transcript

Why giving technicians control beats the best scheduling software

Welcome to Ucora's podcast for mechanical service company owners and operators. We share practical ways to lead with trust, respect, and ownership so your technicians stay motivated and committed for the long run.

Let's get started.

If you are running a commercial mechanical service company, you probably know this situation well. You have likely spent a small fortune on sophisticated scheduling software. The kind built for centralized dispatch and maximum control from the office.

But here is the kicker. Even with all that technology, your technicians may still be frustrated. Job hopping may feel frequent and productivity may not be where you need it to be. Teams stagnate. And that stagnation is extremely expensive. There is a severe technician shortage across North America. Turnover is high and the costs keep piling up. Lost revenue, recruiting challenges, onboarding time.

If total centralized control were the silver bullet, those critical metrics would have improved by now. They have not.

That brings us to our focus for this deep dive. We want to challenge the assumption that good scheduling must mean total control. Let us look at the possibility that ownership is the real key, not control.

Ownership.

There is a historical parallel here. Think back to manufacturing in the late twentieth century and the rise of lean principles. The idea was radical at the time. Stop the endless handoffs and rigid assembly line mentality. Give workers more autonomy over their part of the process or even the whole process. In many cases, productivity doubled.

So how does that translate to field service?

Instead of the office pushing specific appointments onto a technician's calendar with rigid times that never account for traffic or a job running long, the technician pulls work from a queue. They decide the sequence, working within firm priority deadlines set by the office.

For example, they know Job A and Job B must be completed by lunch, but they decide whether to take the nearby quick Job A first even if Job B came in earlier. It shifts scheduling from an office control tool to a technician ownership tool.

Of course, the first reaction we hear is: that sounds like chaos. How do we manage liability? How do we make sure compliance checks get done if we are not directing each step?

That is the core tension. If the technician is driving their day, how do you maintain quality?

What the data shows is almost the opposite of chaos. Job timing often improves significantly. Why? Because the technician can optimize on the fly based on real world conditions the office cannot see. Traffic. Site access. Knowing a needed part is already on their truck from an earlier job.

Here is something telling. Technicians frequently bypass expensive scheduling software and instead use tools they trust like Google Calendar. Not because they want to ignore the system but because the specialized software is often too rigid. Too many clicks to adjust a sequence. Unreliable GPS integrations. Technicians need speed and trust. Google Calendar gives them both.

They gain speed. They trust the plan they built. They execute faster.

And something else happens when companies treat technicians like professionals capable of planning. Word gets out. Morale improves. Productivity improves. Hiring improves. We have seen unsolicited resumes arrive simply because technicians heard it was a place that respected autonomy.

That is the qualitative side. What about the numbers?

The numbers back it up. We followed one company closely. They paired full job ownership and self-scheduling with real time pricing information so technicians could see the importance of each job. The result was remarkable. They doubled their revenue in 12 months without adding staff. Audited financials confirmed it. No increase in headcount. Just a different scheduling model and better incentives.

This points to the need to rethink how service operations are structured. Broadly, we see three models.

First, traditional scheduling. The office assigns everything and dictates the day. Still the most common.

Second, shared control. The office assigns the work orders, but the technician manages the sequence and timing. For example, the office gives a window of 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and the technician decides whether to arrive at 1 p.m. or 3 p.m. depending on how the day unfolds.

Third, full self scheduling. The office sets priorities and any urgent jobs. The technician plans and executes the route from a queue of available work.

Performance trends are consistent. Companies using shared control or full self scheduling tend to grow faster, keep technicians longer, and report higher customer satisfaction.

The real cost of old style centralized scheduling is not the software license. It is the lack of autonomy. That lack of autonomy fuels job hopping. It creates constant friction between office plans and field reality.

There was a quote in the source material that captured this well. When the company stopped telling technicians what to do minute by minute and instead let them take ownership of their days, something shifted. The pride technicians felt translated directly into better performance and a stronger business.

So the key message for anyone listening in this industry is clear. Chasing control without empowering people with ownership is proving too expensive, especially in a tight labour market.

Which brings us to the final thought. Take a hard look at your current system. Is your scheduling process helping your technicians succeed and optimize their work in the field? Or is it mainly helping you, the operator, feel like you are in control?

Consider what processes you may be overcontrolling. Consider what unlocking ownership could achieve.

That is the end of today’s episode. Thanks for listening. Share these insights with your colleagues and remember to visit ucora.com for more on building motivated long lasting teams.