• Replies 13 replies
  • Subscribers 2 subscribers
  • Views 14 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related

Do you let technicians self-schedule, or is everything dispatcher-controlled?

Deja Washington

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a great week so far!

So our team has been growing (we're up to 14 techs now!) and I'm wondering if we should start letting our senior technicians do some of their own scheduling. Right now I control everything from the dispatch board — who's going where, what order, the whole thing. It's worked fine but honestly it's getting to be a lot, especially when I'm out sick or on vacation and someone else has to cover.

I've heard some teams let techs claim open jobs or move things around within their own routes, and I'm curious how that works in practice. Does it actually save time or does it just create chaos? What about when customers request specific techs — do you let the tech handle that directly?

Really appreciate any insights! We're trying to figure out what "good" looks like as we scale up. Thanks so much in advance!

Parents

  • Pro tip: if you go this route, invest in training your techs to actually read the job details before they start moving things around.

    I've seen techs rearrange their whole day because "the address looked closer" only to find out the job required a second tech or special equipment that wasn't available at their new preferred time. Dispatcher would've caught that. Tech staring at a mobile screen at 6am? Not always.

    Not saying don't do it — just say your checklists and job requirements need to be bulletproof before you decentralize. The info the dispatcher holds in their head needs to live somewhere visible.

  • in reply to Josh Mercer

    lol we just let techs do whatever and it works fine

    ngl our dispatcher was kinda controlling and ppl were stressed. new manager came in and was like "yall are adults figure it out"

    couple ppl abused it at first but peer pressure is real lmao. nobody wants to be the guy who screwed the team

    tbh the app makes it pretty easy to see who did what so its not like ppl can hide

Reply
  • in reply to Josh Mercer

    lol we just let techs do whatever and it works fine

    ngl our dispatcher was kinda controlling and ppl were stressed. new manager came in and was like "yall are adults figure it out"

    couple ppl abused it at first but peer pressure is real lmao. nobody wants to be the guy who screwed the team

    tbh the app makes it pretty easy to see who did what so its not like ppl can hide

Children
No Data