Deskless workforce management is centred around people, so it is important to understand the various personas what their needs are. When we say personas what we are really talking about is the various people and how they interact with our Skedulo applications. Personas represent people’s experiences within the system and are used to map their needs to Skedulo functionality, capabilities and typical business processes.
The objective of this lesson to is share with you the 4 high level personas for Skedulo and outline the needs they have, so you can align your role with a Skedulo persona to ensure you are taken on the right learning pathways moving forward.
We understand that every company is different, with different expectations of their workers so we want to clarify that the following 4 personas are a starting point and as you move into more advanced training, you will start to see this list increase, as we educate you around typical industry specific use cases.
The 4 Skedulo personas are
Resource, Mobile Worker, Field worker, Untethered worker
Deskless Worker
As the name implies, we define a Deskless Worker as anyone who does not sit behind a desk to perform the majority or all of their work. Deskless Workers typically only manage their own schedule and are a user of our mobile app.
Needs
- Visibility and easy access to their schedule to plan their working day
- Information available to support quality customer service
- Easy navigation between job locations
- Streamlined documentation and job data capture
Coordinators, Dispatchers, Scheduling Managers
Scheduler
A Schedulers role is to manage the day to day movements and coordination of Deskless Workers, constantly keeping their finger on the pulse and responding to the demands of a mobile workforce. Schedulers may also be the ones creating the work and typically a user of our Web app.
Needs
- Visibility and connection with regional workforce
- Match Resource skills and requirements to work
- Optimize working day of Resource including efficient travel time
- Detailed and granular view of the Deskless Workforce that can be customized
Manager, Director, Supervisor, Finance Manager
Operations
Operations oversee, plan and structure the schedule based on operational goals. They benefit from tools to help drive cost efficiencies and need to see the bigger picture. Operations may also represent supporting departments such as finance, human resourcing, etc.
Needs
- Oversight of cost and utilization of workforce
- Single view for analysis and planning for operational efficiencies
- Scalable solutions that can show ROI and minimize risk
- Big picture view of the workforce
System Manager, IT Department, CIO
Administrator
Manages the solution updates, configuration, integrations with 3rd party applications and may support the other personas with system training and user management.
Needs
- Oversight and understanding of the complete end to end process
- User management, access, permissions and system security
- Knowledge to support and consult with other personas to improve system capabilities and efficiency
- System updates, release management and handles relationships with various support channels
We hope by now you can see yourself aligning to at least one of the roles listed above. In some situations someone using Skedulo might fall into multiple categories. Let’s dive into an example below, where someone falls into two personas.
Self-Scheduling
Skedulo offers a degree of flexibility over the capabilities offered to deskless workers but in a lot of use cases, work is prescribed by schedulers to the deskless workers. In some organisations, the deskless workers have a larger degree of flexibility whereby they are given the autonomy to schedule their own work. On the flip side, this self scheduling method of working may also be applied to a scheduler who needs to cover for a deskless worker by allocating work to themselves and heading out into the field.
Characteristics
- Somewhat plays the role of both resource and scheduler
- Typically characterised by working with a medium to high level of autonomy in their job
- They will coordinate with multiple stakeholder/ activities
- Lots of trust from their employer
- High level of interaction with the clients/ customers
- Typically (but not always) more of a senior or experienced role.
If you feel you fall into this way of working, then exploring training content directed towards deskless workers and schedulers would be of benefit to you.