Improving Field Engineering
Structure
New organisational design for OM support
•
•
•
•
Delivering coaching
Up-skilling
Customer complaint handling
Dealing with complex customer
problems / faults
• Quality checks
• Supporting new products
• Real time Technical support
•
•
•
•
•
Optimising vehicle utilisation
Arranging absences
Laptop issues
Arranging stores
Other ad hoc
• Business analytics
• Managing the coaching team and
admin/analysis team
• Removing inefficiency and
improving quality of patch
• Transparency during team levelling
• Team development
• Change Management
Field
Technical
Coaches
GM
Operational
Engineering
Manager
Coach
Manager
Admin /
analysis
team
Technical
Coaches
Admin /
analysis
team
SOMs
OMs
TMs
Operational
Engineering
Manager
2
Who does an engineer contact:-
Operational Manager
Admin Team
Safety
Personal issues
Annual Leave
Development
Vehicle issues
Stores issues
Absences
Technical Help
RiCE
Workflow & Allocation
Job fluidity
Job progression
Access issues
Product issues
Quality of Personal workmanship
Appropriate
Product
helpdesk
Online
Technica
l Coach
Recap (7th June)
• Different organisational structure required to improve OM do-ability
• Field Technical Coach – grade C2
• Administrative Support Team – grade B2
• Analysts – grade C2
• Operational Engineering Manager – Business Improvement Consultant
• Technical Helpdesk
• Field Technical Coaches to be accredited and ring fenced
• NI direction of travel to be the same
• Job descriptions, grading and resourcing strategy shared
Operational managers able to work flexibly across attendance pattern hours
Coaches focussed on technical coaching
Admin and analysts focussed on reducing inefficiency and supporting field engineers
Consolidated help desk open across attendance pattern hours and able to answer
any technical / process question posed.
4
People movement - Volume
Current resource profile
“Service Delivery”
Proposed Structure
(9 GM’s)
Analysts = 28*
Analysts = 13
Admin = 69
Coaches (C2) = 536
Coaches (C3) = 38
Admin = 83*
Technical Coaches = 402
(Increase from previous 330)
574
SDRP** = 172
Coaches (B2) = 83
SDRP** = 83 (B2)
* Includes the Mobile Workforce GM
** SDRP:- Service Delivery Resource Pool
5
Analysts
6
Resourcing strategy - Analysts
Recruitment of Analysts (C2)

There are currently less people in analyst roles than required by the review.

Variable grades and role descriptions currently exist

There is a need to recruit in some geographical areas
-
Identify existing C2 analysts in each of the new GM areas to establish shortfall
-
Openreach resource pool approached to fill these positions (SDRP).
-
Open advert

OEM to project manage in the implementation of the analysts role and functions in
each GM patch

Communications and 1:1 with all impacted by the changes as first step by the end
August
7
Analysts
Key
accountabilities
Perform Repeat
Report and Early
Life Failure
analysis
Furthers Analysis
(interim approach
pending technical
helpdesk
implementation)
Reactive Analysis
or Project work
Key activities
• Review repeat report/ELF website
• Review MIS/NEO and read on engineers notes(clear code), following clear code, duration between two
jobs)
• If further investigation required contact engineer and complete RR/ELF form and understand reason for
RR/ELF and challenge where required. If required contact second engineer to see what he did to resolve
issue (sensitivities around first engineer knowing)
• Provide OM with analysis to action e.g. coaching plan action point
• Where no action needed for OM, close off the repeat report with suitable reasons provided
Furthers website
• Review of previous days furthered work looking at trends
• Produce a report highlighting areas of focus
• Provide report to Operational Engineering Manager or OM to action for engineering coaching plan. (up
skilling, training, performance, buddying)
Furthers (for where there is a local process for authorising furthers)
• Review data from local process for dealing with furthers to see success of furthers intervention
• Produce a report highlighting areas of focus
• Provide report to OSM or OM to action for engineering coaching plan
Respond to requests from:
- 21 CN, TRC Compliance Team/e-viper, GM , WFA or Other 3rd Party requests
Review available data to analyse and identify root cause of issue
e.g. - Visits ratio, TRC Analysis, Frames FD1P1, Frames R42
% time
on task
40%
25%
35%
8
Admin Team
9
Resourcing strategy of Lead Administrator
Recruitment of Lead Administrator (C2)

Creation of a new role - Team leader to the Admin team and support to the GM.

There are currently more people in GM PA roles than required.

We will review the grading of all current GM PA’s from old structure.

Match C2 graded people to current Lead Administrator posts and move into post
Selection interview for all individuals (C2 / C3 grade) in Admin pool of resource

There is a need to recruit in some geographical areas
-
Openreach resource pool approached to fill these positions (SDRP).
-
Open advert

Team Members redeployed onto lower grade work would retain pay and pension
protection (PPP) rights.

Communications and 1:1 with all impacted by the changes as first step by the end
August
10
Lead Administrator
Key Activities
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
Maintain the diary for the General Manager, including scheduling and planning of meetings etc, highlighting any
clashes as appropriate
Support the OEM in the management of customer escalations from all parts of Openreach, utilising the clerical
/administration team to ensure that information is collated and is communicated to relevant parties.
Provide the required level of support and guidance to the General Manager for all administration and clerical
activities including: Providing agendas, taking and cascading minutes, collating returns and closure of action
points, arranging travel, room booking and setting up conference calls.
Management of General Manager e-mail account – Respond to urgent issues in General Managers absence,
delegate e-mails as appropriate, prioritise emails for General Managers attention, sift and use discretion to
delete any unnecessary correspondence
To prepare slides for presentations using PowerPoint and spread sheets using Excel, at the direction of General
Manager
Deal with arrangements for Discipline/Grievance Cases and appeals for the GM, liaising with HR / Accenture for
suitable time/venue, also ensuring letters/paperwork are received on time
g)
h)
Deal with telephone message on behalf of the General Manager
Supervise a team of clerical/administrative resource to provide an administrative function to the GM
geographical patch. This will include overall responsibility for effective management of the team/group email
account and quality of admin output, the allocation of lead tasks i.e. ad-hoc collation of materials for layer 5 and
layer 6 management, one off event management and all hands event management.
i)
Ensure consistent and fair distribution of administration support across the whole GM management team (both
OM and SOM). Ensuring that requests/tasks deemed urgent are given priority over daily request for
administrative support.
11
Resourcing strategy - Admin
Recruitment of Admin Assistants (B2)

There are currently less people in admin roles than required by the review to cover
the ad-hoc and administrative aspects of the OM and coach roles.

All existing admin people to be matched to GM areas.

There is a need to recruit in some geographical areas
-
Identify existing admin in each of the new GM areas to establish shortfall
-
Openreach resource pool approached to fill these positions (SDRP).
-
Open advert

Team Members redeployed onto lower grade work would retain pay and pension
protection (PPP) rights.

Communications and 1:1 with all impacted by the changes as first step by the end
August
12
Administrative Assistant
Key accountabilities
Key activities
1. Manage and optimise
utilisation of vehicles
• Review forthcoming planned absences and vehicle issues, and organise travel and absences
for engineers, vehicles and keys to the right place, and back again following the absence
• For unscheduled vehicle problems, take calls from engineers, build an absence for the
engineer as appropriate and, if necessary, arrange a replacement vehicle.
• Book absences for team meetings
• Review Route2Learn to see upcoming training and inform engineer and build absences
where the training needs to be done with the manager
• Schedule EYP and PPE safety checks, including booking the absences
• Build absences for replacement laptops as appropriate
• Receive calls from engineer and update hours on timesheet
• Remind engineers to complete taskforce updates
• Ordering stores (where stores hub is not near engineers)
• On the day requirements for stores or equipment
• Ordering replacement tools
• Repairing and/or hiring bespoke equipment (generators, mechanical lifters, etc.)
Respond to requests from:
• Operational managers for coaching resource, by matching it with the skills, location and
availability of the Field Technical Coaches; and
• Customer complaints team for high-level escalations support, by matching the complaint with
the location and availability of the Field Technical Coaches.
• Respond to requests from analysts under direction of Operational Engineering Manager to
complete analysis and reporting activities as necessary
As required by operational managers and central teams
2. Manage field absences
3. Support field engineers
with laptop issues
4. Coordinate stores and
deliveries
5. Coordinating requests for
coaches
6. Ad-hoc analysis
7. Responding to ad hoc
requests for admin support
% time on
task
25%
25%
10%
10%
20%
10%
As required
13
Technical Coaches
14
Coaches in organisation
Breakdown by Director
Breakdown by GM
BVG
Darren Baythorpe
244
Band 1
C1
C2
C3
B2
BVH
Brian Richardson
423
BVG1
Janette Philips
2
0
39
1
1
BVC
Mark Collins
241
BVG2
John Richardson
0
0
58
2
1
BVG3
Imran Patel
2
0
49
12
7
Chris Payne
1
0
60
2
7
5
0
206
17
16
Volume
667
BVG4
Network Investment
241
Director
Total
Total
244
908
Band 1
C1
C2
C3
B2
BVH1
Craig Wilkie
0
0
63
1
14
BVH2
Pat Garland
0
0
71
0
15
BVH3
Luke Corkill
1
0
62
6
25
BVH4
Martin Holloway
2
0
69
10
5
BVH5
Pete Easy
2
0
65
4
8
5
0
330
21
67
Director
Total
423
15
Coach analysis
Coaching activities breakdown
Hours
Main support activites performed by coach (or by
per
manager in absence of coach)
month
Technical queries
Business Analytics
Vehicle taxiing arrangement
Stores
Laptop issues
Arrange absences
Othe Adhoc
Total support activities
Technical coaching activities (performed only by coach)
Shrinkage (25%)
Total available hours per month per coach (7hrs, 20 days)
20
18
12
4
2
2
2
60
45
35
140
Mi x of obs erva ti ons a nd i ntervi ews for Opera ti ona l Ma na gers a nd coa ches
Key Observations & Issues
•
About 55% of the coach’s time is spent on supporting activities to the OM.
•
Support activities are not performed in a consistent way and the level of support required in each activity
varies from region to region;
•
Technical coaching activities are not performed in a standardised way and without a close link with training
communities.
•
Technical queries need to be handled across attendance pattern hours – help desk
Benefits of a ring fenced coaching team
Coaches
 Guaranteed Coaching in place
 Utilisation of current coaching skills
 Know schedule of activities – coaching, on-line help, feedback, work-stack
 Support in the development of technical and coaching skills
 Part of a team dedicated to provide high quality coaching interventions
 Separate line for management
 Not easy to work in the queues
Engineers
 Guaranteed Coaching in place
 High quality coaching available
 Single point of access to technical support
 Support in the embedding of new skills
17
Resourcing strategy – Technical Coaches (C2)

Communication to all Volume team members by end August
–
Ring fencing of Technical coaches
–
–
–

Timetable for implementation Q3.
Setting up of Regional Admin Teams
Similar direction of travel for Network Investment
To address the imbalance of too many people for posts:
–
Conduct a preference exercise within current Volume coach population
1.
2.
Considered for new Technical Coaching role
Move to Service Delivery Resource Pool
Considered for other C1/C2 graded roles
Return to multi-skilled volume engineering role

Where multiple people to post exists skill matching / selection interviewing will take place
(Multiple people to post process)

B2’s covering Coach return to volume engineering roles or SDRP (if no vacancies)
18
Field Technical Coach
Key accountabilities
Key activities
1. Delivering effective
coaching to field engineers
Engineers’ line managers will request specific interventions based on an engineer’s coaching
plan. This will typically be one-on-one coaching, and may include:

Coaching to improve behaviours around safety, quality and effectiveness, in response to
problems identified by managers and recorded on their coaching plans

Support field engineers new products, in order to help embed the training for those new
products

Identifying and recommending appropriate action to remedy an engineer’s technical
knowledge of process gap. Range from simple to complex xDSL skills.

Support new field engineers adapt to the working environment

Assist with local coaching workshops

Carry out field engineers’ post training event evaluation, monitoring, and coaching

Carry out any planned accreditation and assessments

Write summary reports following each coaching intervention, so as to update
engineers’ line managers.

Identify any skills shortfall and recommend any appropriate action or action taken to
resolve

Carry out retrospective quality checks on engineers’ work

Carry out agreed periods on the work-stacks to maintain, and improve, product
knowledge and skills (six weeks per year)

Respond to on-the-day emergency technical requests on an ad hoc urgent basis

Provide engineers ‘real time’ technical engineering advice across the range of
engineering skills and processes to improve safety, quality and productivity. This ‘real
time’ advice will be delivered over the phone.

Work with other coaches to identify areas of common failure to enable the business to
take corrective action.
Respond to calls for assistance on difficult broadband service issues, including high-level
complaints and escalations. This would typically be to progress complaints and escalation
cases through to a satisfactory conclusion, by diagnosing, locating and fixing the most complex
and difficult broadband service issues. Any technical issues would be highlighted to the
Operational Engineering Manager.
2. Summarising coaching
interventions
3. Additional coaching
tasks
4. Assist with difficult
broadband service issues
and deal with high level
customer complaints
% time on
task
60%
15%
15%
10%
19
Support for Engineers
20
OEM & Coaching Structure
Example of GM Patch OEM Team
Regional OEM
Analysts
Admin Team
Coaching Manager
Technical Coaches
(including Online
Coaches)
Coaching Manager
Technical Coaches
(including Online
Coaches)
Overview
1. Potential Gap when we ‘ring fence’ coaches – engineers wont be able to contact them in real time for
engineering advice and assistance
2. Solution identified – increase Technical Coaching numbers from 330 to 402 (approx: 8 per GM Patch)
3. This gives the capacity to provide an ‘Online Coach’ facility in each Region where engineers can call a
pool of Technical Coaches dedicated to answering and resolving real time engineering queries
4. Technical Coaches will not be dedicated as Online Coach 100% of the time. This will be one element of
the overall Technical Coach role with each coach rotating equally through this function
Online Coach Function linked to the bigger
picture
1.
2.
Engineer needs real time engineering assistance
Engineer logs onto RiCE Self Serve (linked into Tools &
Device Strategy)
Engineer searches RiCE content to assist with query.
3.
Self Serve layer (RiCE)
Online access via engineer laptop/device
utilising RICE platform
•If unresolved through RiCE search, engineer is directed by
RiCE to the correct 2nd Level Helpdesk Support layer
•Most of this exists across Openreach already but will be
complimented by the Online Coach function
2nd Level Support layer
Existing
Support 1
Existing
Support 2
Existing
Support 3
Online
Coach
2nd Level Support inputs and outputs sent to Openreach
Analysis Team to review and feedback the learning back
into the business to review and amend content/process.
Regional OEM
Team
T&D
Chief
Engineer
Training
Openreach Analysis Team
Analysing input/output
from Self Serve Layer
Updating and refreshing
online content
Providing Business
Intelligence throughout
Openreach
RiCE
(Rich Information Content Exchange)
A new way to connect to information
1.
The ability for our CPs to put rich information onto a job
to assist the engineer.
•
Specific health and safety information
•
photos; special install instructions
2.
Provides an on-line means of guiding an engineer
through a job
•
using simple pictures, diagrams, videos and
instructions
•
a more accessible E-Assistant
Why does RiCE matter

Rapid product updates - drives development.

Supports newly trained workforce, adds knowledge and know-how / capabilities

Promotes self–learning and effectiveness.
Continuous Improvement loop will drive RFT
Continuous
improvement
Team
manager
T&D
Process /
Procedures
updated
Self Serve layer
Training
Context code
required
Helpdesk
1
Helpdesk
2
Chief
Engineer
Helpdesk
x
Improve processes
All Contacts
captured and
analysed for
trends &
continuous
improvement
2nd Level Support
Self healing improvement
What is RiCE
• RiCE is web based, so
device agnostic
• Each Job will have RiCE
Space
• Each space will have the
content to do the job
• Content is written by
engineers for engineers
• CPs can add information
when they need to
Next Steps:-

Send out comms to Volume teams

Explore telephony solutions for online coaching

Development & testing of RiCE

E-assistant in place

Conduct review after six months to assess impact.
Network Investment
29
N.I. OMA analysis
Key Observations & Issues
•
50% of the OMA’s time is spent on support
activities to the OM.
•
Consistency in key activities observed on ‘dilo’s’
and submitted on templates.
•
As with Volume, support activities are not
performed in a consistent way and the level of
support required in each activity varies from
region to region.
Laptop
0%
Other
5%
Stores
7%
Comms
1%
Safety/Quality
14%
OMA Activity template breakdown
Analysis
14%
Surveys
11%
Surveys
Admin
12%
Admin
Field visits
Safety/Quality
Field visits
36%
Stores
Other
Laptop
Comms
Analysis
Information based on 218 Activity templates submitted by all N.I. OUC’s.
OMA ‘Day In the Life Of’ breakdown
Laptop Comms Analysis
4%
2%
0%
Stores
11%
Safety/Quality
6%
Other
8%
Surveys
Surveys
15%
Admin
Field visits
Admin
30%
Field visits
24%
Safety/Quality
Stores
Other
Laptop
Comms
Analysis
Information based on 35 ‘dilo’ completed in all N.I. OUC’s.
Key Observations & Issues
•
70% of the OMA’s time is spent on support
activities to the OM.
•
OMA’s observed that they would spend more
time in the field supporting team members but
‘other’ support activities prevent them from doing
so.
OMA’s in organisation
Breakdown by Director
Breakdown by GM
BVG
Darren Baythorpe
244
Band 1
C1
C2
C3
B2
BVH
Brian Richardson
423
BVC1
Fergie Collier
0
0
18
1
0
BVC
Mark Collins
241
BVC2
Mark Trelfa
1
0
17
1
0
BVC3
Mark Trelfa
0
0
18
3
1
Volume
667
BVC4
Adam Johnstone
0
0
32
5
0
Network Investment
241
BVC5
Hywel Philips
0
0
17
2
0
BVC6
Simon Hasted
0
0
22
2
0
BVC7
Terry Ferguson
0
0
25
3
0
BVC8
Terry Ferguson
1
0
31
2
0
BVC9
Tony Joliffe
1
0
28
6
2
BVCA
John Mills
0
0
1
0
0
BVCB
Ann Pinsent
0
0
1
0
0
3
0
210
25
3
Total
908
241
31
OEM
Q4
Q3
Develop process
appoint
Redefine OEM
Job Desc.
26th Sept
19th Sept
12th Sept
5th Sept
29th Aug
22nd Aug
15th Aug
8th Aug
1st Aug
25th July
18th July
11th July
4th July
27th June
20th June
13th June
6th June
High-Level Timeline
PM roles
Field Tech
Coach vol
Recruit coach
managers
Agree
comms
plan for
Volume
Team
Members
Admin Team
Analysts
Coach
Preference
Exercise
Technical
coach
selection
Ring fenced
coaches
Establish Individual roles and
responsibility
local
resource &
BAU
recruitment
Analysis roles
plan
established
Network
Invest.
Establish & agree new
structure
Build new structure
(coaching, analysts, admin etc)
OMA DILO
Help desk
Systems,
comms,
structural
review
Proposal
(similar to
volume)
Establish &
agree new
structure
Build new structure
(coaching, analysts,
admin etc)
CWU & Prospect engagement