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Guy Eid and Caroline Gregory tackle an important topic today for field engineers which is about communication. As we know field engineers are people who go on site to service customers, and it is important for them to be ready before they go and to be presentable and show up professionally. In particular where the field engineers might be outside their normal territory. They might be replacing someone. They might be arriving in a country that they are visiting. How should they communicate to handle those situations appropriately. Caroline Gregory is the Community Manager of The Field Engineer community, where she is working with members from over 110 countries. Caroline has been teaching expats, and inpats, cultural business skills for over thirty years. She has worked with major businesses including Unilever, the UK MoD, BP, Total Energy, and Siemens, through her business Intercultural Success. Feel free to contact Caroline if your business has intercultural challenges. Guy Eid is a highly experienced Field Service Leader originally from Lebanon, who has been living in Canada for many years and has many years of working with many cultures.

You’ve wrapped up initial interviews and narrowed down your applicant pool—now what? In this episode, we dive into the critical next steps of the hiring process for field service engineers and leaders. Learn how to design an effective second round, spot the green flags that signal true operational excellence, and confidently make the final hiring decision. Tune in to discover the ultimate strategies for securing the best field service talent after the first cut. With Guy Eid, Bruce Breeden, and Charlie Apps. This is the third part of a series of round table discussions. So do watch the other videos in the series.

Seven Field Service leaders, Guy Eid, Vikram Bhasker, Arnaud BILLARD, Paul Camidge, Maurizio De Poli, Jerome Varvaro, and Charlie Apps, discuss 'How to get interviewed'. The seven field service leaders share what they look for when they are shortlisting job applications. Watch their discussion to learn the traits, tactics, and methods you can use to get your name on the interview shortlist.

Putting People First in Field Service A Conversation with Arnaud Billard is our first interview in French. Our French title is 'Placer l'humain au cœur du service sur le terrain, une conversation avec Arnaud Billard'. With over 17 years leading large-scale service organizations across Europe and EMEA, Arnaud Billard specializes in service transformation, customer experience (CX) and the design of operating models that turn service functions into genuine value creators.His career spans medical devices, diagnostics, pharmaceutical and broader life sciences with roots in the automotive sector where he built his foundation in operational excellence and lean methodologies. Rigorous process discipline in service of human outcomes not as an end in itself.Arnaud has led post-acquisition integrations, digitalization programmes, field service optimization and the evolution of multicultural service organizations across Europe, with P/L accountability and a focus on sustainable growth.One conviction has sharpened over time: how people feel, customer, patients, frontline teams, directly shapes business outcomes: patient experience, listening and psychological safety are performance levers. Attention, presence and trust within a team are among the most underestimated drivers of operational excellence and resilience. This is not peripheral to leadership, it is central to it.Arnaud explores these dimensions at the intersection of healthcare, wellbeing and leadership effectiveness across generations: professionals feeling overwhelmed, children with fragmented attention and elderly people losing connection.What he has built and led:- Service strategy & operating model design, Europe and EMEA- CX and patient experience transformation- Post-merger integration and change management- P/L management, growth and scaling service organizations- Human-centred leadership and psychological safetyHis leadership style is grounded in clarity, empathy and rigour. Sustainable excellence emerges when people are supported, trusted and heard, not only measured.Outside of work: philosophy, pastels, classical flute, rollerblading, snowboarding.Excellence through balance, the right movement at the right moment.Keywords: Service Leadership / Medical Devices / Diagnostics / Life Sciences / Pharmaceutical / EMEA / Europe / CX / Patient Experience / Service Transformation / Operating Model / Operational Excellence / P/L / Post-Acquisition Integration / Change Management / Digitalization / Field Service / Scaling Up / Human-Centred Leadership / Psychological Safety / Professional Resilience.

Supply Chain Management is critical for field serviceengineers. Global politics, trade wars, real wars, and conflicts, allimpact the ability of service and installation operations to function successfully.  We recently interviewed Matthew GuyGallardo who is a Global Spare Parts Planner at CooperSurgical on The Field EngineerPodcast.   In 2024 Charlie Apps interviewed RosemaryCoates for The Field Engineer Podcast to discuss global supply chains, SCM, reshoring, and the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Two years on global supply chains are being challenged even more than they were in 2024. So, The Field Engineer asked Rosemary Coates to meet with us again and share her insights on the current state of the Global Supply Chain for field services, installations, and after-market management. Caroline Gregory of The Field Engineer speaks to Rosemary Coates about Global Supply Chains and Field Service Excellence. Rosemary Coates has an MBA and started her career in logistics for HP. She then built an extensive career in global supply chain. Rosemary is an author and has written books about manufacturing, including 42 rules for superior field service. She is an experienced speaker and serves as an expert witness globally. Rosemary was named as one of the hundred most influential women in Silicon Valley in 2024. Reshoring Institute. In 2014 we started the Reshoring Institute which is a research institute but we also help companies think through their global manufacturing strategy and help them determine if they can can re-establish any kind of manufacturing in the US or to rethink their global strategy. And that's really important these days because of the geopolitics. So you have to I mean companies have to be nimble and able to sort of turn on a dime when there's some geopolitical situation that forces them to make different sourcing decisions and you know different operational decisions. The importance of field service I always start with the context that field service doesn't get enough attention in most organizations. you know it can be a fairly significant amount of revenue that's generated through field service and yet the field service organizations do not normally report into the very senior levels in an organization. They're usually a level or two down and and even though they're representing not only a significant revenue stream but they're really the voice of the customer. I mean the field service people are out there talking to customers every day and we should be listening to what they're saying, what feedback they're getting and so forth that would help drive you know the product development marketing you know there's all sorts of parts of the organization that would benefit from the information that’s gathered through field service. So I always start with that context that field service is really important to most organizations and is not getting enough attention and we need to drive the awareness of field service organizations to a more senior level.So the field service engineers are speaking directly to the people who are feeling the pain I suppose.Seniority of Supply Chain within an organisationAlso you know what we're seeing now is a lot of reorganization creating and elevating supply chain management to more senior levels in organizations so it's no longer just a back office function a lot of a lot of promotion I mean today it's not unusual to see chief supply chain officers that are sitting in the C Suite and run an organization from a supply chain perspective.

How to Hire the Best Field Engineers - Interview Tips for managers, was the first part of a series of roundtable discussions with advice for field service managers on how to hire and interview successfully. Featuring veteran field service leaders Guy Eid, Arnaud BILLARD, Bruce Breeden, and Kevin Mace. Today we released the second part of the roundtable discussing, 'Questions That Actually Work', with the same veteran field service leaders Guy Eid, Arnaud Billard, Bruce Breeden, and Kevin Mace. The panel discuss the questions that should be asked from both the hiring manager's point of view and the candidate's point of view. 'The kind of questions you are being asked will tell you what is important to the company.' 'Is there any ambiguous area where you would like me to tell you more?' As an interviewer how would you answer the question 'Why should I work here?' Whether you are an interviewer or candidate, 'Did they make you feel they can deliver what you are looking for?' If you want to connect with our panel in The Field Engineer community, you can join the community here, You can also follow The Field Engineer LinkedIn page

The Field Engineer meets Lisa Hellqvist the Managing Director of Copperberg and a member of The Field Engineer community. Copperberg create business platforms bringing together the manufacturing community in order to grow and build relationships globally. Lisa discusses the future of field service engineering with Caroline Gregory of The Field Engineer. Women in Field Service Engineering We're constantly hearing from field service leaders that they would like more women in their team. I know that you think that making the workplace more attractive could be part of the solution as it would attract more people overall to field service engineering. So, how can companies do this? What's your advice Lisa? That is of course the million-dollar question and if I have the true answer, I will bottle it and sell it very expensively. But on the other hand, it is to me and you're saying something there that I really believe is true is that we say and I actually like that you asked if we want more women sometimes they even bump into the expression need which I think is who needs more women and why that's even another part of the discussion. But when we say want it's a terminology thing as well where I think okay but what can we do to make them want to choose us right or you know we have to ask ourselves that question but the question essentially is a broader question because if we don't have women applying for the job but we also see we have too few candidates overall applying for the job as a field service technician or an engineer. It either starts with the educational system not actually you know having enough people graduating with the right type of titles or we are not attractive enough as employers and then we have to ask ourselves okay what are we communicating when we're going into these recruitment processes'. Copperberg recently published a white paper on the topic, 'Service at the core'.https://www.copperberg.com/white-paper-service-at-the-core/

How to Hire the Best Field Engineers - Interview Tips for managers, is the first part of a series of roundtable discussions with advice for field service managers on how to hire and interview successfully.

Guy Eid of The Field Engineer talks with Rich Meredith. Rich has been a member of the Field Engineer Community since May 2025.He is an HSE or SHE as some people might know it. This is Health, Safety, and Environment. And this is a critical area of our industry as we all know. Rich has a long history in quality management, in health and safety, and in mental health also. He is a writer. His genre is fiction books and his most recent book is titled Valhalla.Quality and Health and SafetyThere's a lot of parallels between quality and health and safety. They're similar management systems, you know, and you know, safe systems of work and procedures are very very similar. The Value of People“If you want an organization to be really, really successful, you know, everyone's important and you need to make them feel important.”HSE and SHE for Field Service EngineersFrom your perspective, how do you see the link between health, safety and environment and field service? And what has been your experience? I think one of the hard things a lot of what I've noticed a lot of health and safety managers don't really want to necessarily go to - or SHE managers - don't really want to go near field service. I think the reason for that is you know, sort of a lot of health and safety or SHE managers maybe work at a facility. They have full control over the environment, the building, the equipment, everything whereas in field service it's very different. It's the customer's building and the customer's equipment. I mean, even if you're working on, you know, the equipment which your company has sold, it's still the customer's equipment and you know, where they've put it. They might have put your equipment right up against the wall when actually you need access behind the system and stuff like that. So, the egress isn't there and it makes it really difficult. So, actually the only thing you've really got control of, well, not control of, but the ability to influence is the behaviour of the field service engineers. Because they're generally not always, well, actually we didn't encourage people to work alone, but if you're talking about a field service model where it's just someone goes out to different site every day, the people are working alone. In fact, for our group because of the the different hazards, people didn't work alone. They worked in pairs cuz you needed a buddy just in case. But, you know, it's teams of two working on their own. And you know, I understand human beings are hardwired to be - sounds like I'm insulting the whole human race here - are hardwired to be lazy. We're designed to conserve energy, find the fastest way to doing things, and as we all know, sometimes implementing controls for health and safety isn't the fastest way to doing something. It's the safest way to do something. So, I could understand the kind of desire to take shortcuts. Unfortunately, those shortcuts can be dangerous, and you might get away with it maybe 99 times out of 100, but that hundredth time might be the time you get seriously hurt. So, really I think the main thing I kind of understood from that was making sure if we could try and influence behaviours, then you've kind of got yourself in a good place then cuz I can't from my perspective, I couldn't see all the hazards all our field service engineers were seeing. What I wanted to do is have a culture where if a field service engineer found something new they'd not seen before, maybe a I don't know - equipment that wasn't maybe - a nearby piece of equipment which looked dangerous, that I wanted them to feel comfortable to stick their hand up and say, "Oh, I'm not comfortable working here. That's not right. I know that's not right. That machine's not being run right and I'm worried I'm going to be affected by that. It might leak gas. Maybe there's going to be explosion." And that was really the one of the things we really wanted to underline.

Tamsin Jordan a Bioscience Field Service Engineer discusses her life, thoughts and career with Caroline Gregory of The Field Engineer. Tamsin is also a salsa dancer and teacher.Why would you recommend field engineering to others? People who are wondering what to do with their life and so on. And with that, who is it ideal for, which may be a lot of people, I don't know. And who may it not be a fit for? Again, your opinion.Yeah. In my opinion. So, I would start definitely with the travel since that is an overarching theme of the job. So if I would recommend it to people who love their daily work life to be different every day. Someone who's very flexible is excited with change because it's quite dynamic, right? Maybe you have, you know, your week already kind of planned, but then there's like a breakdown. So you have to change everything about. So people who like thrive off that dynamic way of life, which is me. I hate monotony. I can't stand it. And people who obviously some FSE jobs they'll have office time but the ones that I really enjoyed were completely field based. So if you're comfortable enough to be by yourself to be directing your workload to take responsibility yeah if you thrive off that and you like to see new places all the time and also that you like to work with your hands that you love like the technical aspect of the work and you're okay to work by yourself for hours on end then yeah. So yeah people who that would match their personality absolutely and but in saying that as well like it's not like it wouldn't be for someone who maybe likes routine habits and who enjoys daily going to see like the same people like their colleagues.Different culturesYou have travelled a lot and you seem to really enjoy not just the travel aspect, but the learning about the other cultures that you meet and work with or socialize with. Why is this so important to you and how does it make you a better field service engineer? So it's important to me like diversity for me is the spice of life and from all my like well my curiosity and my traveling like you see many ways to be and many like different ways of life and of ways of approaching things which enriches me instead of you know just coming from like oh this is how we do it blah blah blah blah. So I always find it quite like liberating when you see loads of different like people and different cultures generally like doing things different ways and you're like okay like maybe I can take from that.Loneliness in the fieldI am a person who really enjoys their alone time. I feel good by myself and I use it to like regenerate and kind of like half hermit. And then when I want to be social, when I want that social interaction, you know, I'll like maybe be talk like not usually, but a lot of the times there's like maybe the user of the system if you're doing like a repair or anything will be there. They'll be curious. They'll be wanting to see like what's under the hood, how it works. So, you know, if you're like that's a perfect opportunity to like engage with someone. SalsaWhy would you recommend salsa to others? Because that seems to be the your favourite part of dancing and with that, how does teaching dance and explaining subjects as a field service engineer overlap because they're very different things.Yeah. Some similarities, but so dancing like salsa was I guess my first love and it brought me so much joy. It's obviously it's very embodied, very very grounding. But many other activities are as well. If you love the music for salsa, go for it. But dance in general, like whatever music you like to whatever way you like to dance like 100% it's there's so many studies that of how supportive and healing it is for the nervous system and just for your whole physiology and mentally, emotionally, just everything. So dance is one of those activities that really gets me into a joy state very quickly which is amazing.

Matthew Guy Gallardo, Global Spare Parts Planner at CooperSurgical discusses his career, importance of field service and his music with Caroline Gregory of The Field Engineer.How do you overlap with field service?So at the core you could say my job is to make sure that when a field engineer anywhere in the world needs a component to service a medical device that part has to be available and for it to be available it has to be correctly forecasted and hopefully sitting in the right regional warehouse.Concretely, I would say that leads into inventory, you know, optimization, you know, safety stock modelling, all of these specific supply chain aspects. And then hopefully with that, you're able to reduce stockouts and all of this work involves connecting different data systems, right, that we have in the company, CRM, ERP, Power BI, you know, this ecosystem which can actually tell us the sort of consumption we have.Data and AIBut data accuracy is something which is constantly we're constantly working on it especially now moving into the whole how can we you know integrate AI into anything or everything. I think it's so important that we first of all see what we can use beforehand in terms of tools or whether we can use just the most basic mathematical formulas to you know make decisions before going into AI. I think AI requires some clear cut data. Data which has no garbage or no rubbish on it, right?The customer and satisfactionI think the most satisfying part of the role and I think this is across the board from you know the planning side the operational the schedulers the field service engineers is seeing that we've been able to deliver for the customer and I know that sounds very corporate but that's the reality especially in our industry and in many industries right. Being able to see that a shortage we thought we were going to have on site all of a sudden we were able to meet. Seeing that a customer still trusts us from one year to the end to carry out a service on an equipment which is very valuable for them. I think it's worth it. I think it sort of pushes you to not stick to your scope of work but actually look into external factors and making sure that we can really meet everybody's expectations even though that's very difficult at times.Lack of the right spare partsAnd then seeing the impact that has on the field service engineer because that could potentially delay their visit or create a revisit. Value of an MBAThe MBA allows if it's like a good program which I was fortunate enough to go on, it allows you to actually sharpen up on how you think and possibly how leadership might be thinking in your company especially if you're working in a big company because that sometimes is very difficult to translate down and how you can then you know build with vendor relationships globally.MusicObviously languages come into communication and so on which also moves us I think onto music because that's another way of communicating.Overlap between managing global supply chain and being a drop in musicianI'm a drop in musician, so I tend to go to jam sessions a lot and open mics. I'm classically trained, but you know, to get away from work, I tend to go to a lot of local pubs and you know, local stages to just drop in and play. So, you'll have various musicians playing and then when someone drops out, you drop in, right? And then you start improvising on the go. And it's when I'm on stage, I tend to always listen in to all the parties what they're doing because harmonically you need to listen in. You can't just start playing because it won't sound very nice and then you'll know if it sounds nice or not because you'll see the more people come in or more people go. But and that's quite similar to my role because in my role you need to take into account so many different factors. So I think those two are like in a certain way in parallel.

Achi Kushnir is a biomedical engineer with over 20 years of experience spanning healthcare technology, medical devices and global health. He has worked internationally training healthcare professionals and implementing innovative medical technologies before dedicating much of his career to humanitarian initiatives across Africa and aboard the global Mercy hospital ship. Today as a keynote speaker, social entrepreneur and co-founder of a digital mental health start up, his work brings together engineering, healthcare innovation, entrepreneurship and humanitarian impact.Achi’s focus“I've always been drawn into the medical field. So being able to understand behind the scenes you know apart from the doctor that is holding the device or he is actually making the operation there are a lot of people behind the scene that is making sure that this is going to be safe that they have designed and implemented a technology that can help help him. And to be on the clinical side was very fascinating for me and later on I've realized that you know to be able to leave an impact and change lives you not necessarily need to be the actual doctor that is doing the operation. You can actually contribute a lot by also being the engineer behind the scenes that the person that can connect between the dots the needs and the solutions.”

Thanks to Guy Eid, Jerome Varvaro, and Paul Camidge for a great discussion around some interesting topics, 'Skills for field service team communication + serving clients when mistakes happen, do AI bots help?' Here are a few quotes from the Podcast roundtable published today. ''The field engineer is often the only person the customerever sees one to one, face to face as it were. And so, I think we really as an industry need to be pushing companies to say, 'Hey, you need to develop our teams to be able to do this better.' "   "You know, if somebody makes a mistake, you have toacknowledge that we all make them, right? And coach the person through it... Knowledgeis power, right, to teach the employee. If I have one of my managers that's made a mistake with one of his employees and I have to speak with him, it's to make them understand what it was they did and what the impact was so they canlearn from it, right? You know, so but simply just chastising somebody or levelling a threat it does nothing."   "I think we've all agreed that replace people at yourperil whether it's a field service engineer, a customer support engineer, a customer services agent, whatever you are looking at the people are theorganization. And without them you will have a challenge." We hope you enjoy the full discussion. If you enjoy our content please subscribe to our Podcast.

The Field Engineer⁠ Podcast just published a discussion between a young Biomed from Seattle ⁠Daniel Galiant⁠ who has 5 years' experience, and 40-year veteran ⁠Guy Eid⁠. Guy - 'You see, when I started my career, instruments or medical devices were not connected as they are today. And we used to repair circuit boards at the component level, replacing capacitors and ICs and all that good stuff. Now it's two, three layers on the same board. You cannot possibly contemplate replacing a component, replace the whole board. The instruments are connected. Most if not all medical devices are now intelligent and they have a CPU, they have a computer, you can do remote diagnostics into them and this is where it can be very helpful, right?' Communication is key, right? Whether it is between the user and the Biomed or between the Biomed and the Field Service Technician that communication is key that the details in the communication, the tone of the communication, how you build trust, how you really learn about what's going on and the trust that you have with the Biomed. If you are a Field Service Technician this is where it makes the Biomed more at ease to speak with you in a friendly way, give you the details that you might be looking for to help the Biomed and get the instrument going again and the patient on the instrument'. Daniel has serviced and maintained a range of equipment from infusion pumps to imaging equipment. Daniel explains how he started as a Biomed. " I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do until I had a buddy that recommended me the biomedical clinical engineering program at ⁠Bates Technical College⁠ and I didn't know what it was. This is going back, you know, going back to 2020. It was a small field. It was niche. (Bates Technical College is in Tacoma WA). Daniel discusses one of his early jobs, how he and a colleague serviced 600 syringe pumps in a few months. "We just systematically broke down our day-to-day into goals, how much numbers we need to hit. Then we would always rotate. One of us was running around the different floors. Critical care, ICU, emergency, hospice, you're going down while the other one is PMing. And as he PMs, once he hits 10 or no, 20, goal was around 20, but once he hits 10, then we'd switch. So, give you a break to let your mind refresh. But the big thing was seeing how friendly you are, that customer satisfaction skills, those communication skills of, you know, the nurses are having a rough day. They got patients coming in and out. It's a very fast-moving environment and you are as much of in a sense a customer to them as they are to you or a client to them as they are to you as you both need each other. And that definitely became a big lesson of ask kindly, ask permission. Even when you're rushed, you don't change your approach, right? You put on a calm demeanour. You're still - 'How's it going? Good. Good. How are we looking today?' Got the smile".

What is the role of a Field Service Manager? Should they still be hands on performing service calls? Bruce Breeden, Guy Eid, and Paul Camidge discuss this thorny topic. (Thanks to Jerome Varvaro who was set to take part, until a last moment schedule change). 'Companies are looking to reduce their costs and if they can get a supervisor to do the job of a manager, then that looks like a brilliant way of reducing your overhead costs. It's very short-sighted. I think it's typically done by managers who have limited or no experience of field-based management and the challenges that that creates. Managing 10 people in an office is far more straightforward than managing five people in the field'. Paul Camidge 'Another thing we haven't touched on is smaller companies. Obviously, you know, people do multiple jobs and it's the biggest segment of the service market really. And so you see it that way. And again, I keep touching on remote areas. You know, so I think there's a necessary reality that would support doing that. And I know in one organization I was with recently, you know, again, our remote territories, we had the technicians and engineers doing a lot of sales responsibilities. I know we're going to touch on that a little later. But you know, from a quoting standpoint, from a project management standpoint, again, I think from a hybrid stretch, as long as it's designed and the company supports it, I think there's a role for it. Or it’s even a different title, right? Bruce Breeden 'Most of us if not all of us come from the background of field engineering and it's easy for us to roll up our sleeves and work with our teams and help when necessary. And somehow it can be expected but it doesn't mean that we are doing that daily. And if we look at it from the customer's perspective also, customers are expecting a manager who is able to make decisions and support his team for a better outcome for the customer and not on the equipment level only on the whole solution that the company brings to the customer'. Guy Eid 'It's all about the right person in the right place. And when you pick the right talent and you put that person in the right place, this is where magic happens. Communication is key. We keep repeating that and saying it. It's key upwards, downwards, across the board. It's important. And if I want to go back to another topic that was discussed at another round table, keeping the field engineers informed, gauging their opinion because they are the ones living the reality every minute of every day is important. And that gives them visibility. It gives them the importance. And that dynamic if it exists through the whole company that will be an unstoppable company for sure'. Guy Eid Thanks to our panel for this great discussion. Do you think Field Service Managers should still be hands-on? If yes, how much hands-on? Let us know in the comments.