What's your process for handing off a job when a technician calls in sick?

Been on both sides of this. As a tech getting a dumped job, the worst thing is walking in blind. Pro tip: if the original tech already talked to the customer, I need to know exactly what was promised. Nothing worse than showing up saying "I'll assess the situation" when Jake already told them it'd be done today.

What helps me:

• Voice memo in the job notes if there's time — 60 seconds beats nothing
• Customer contact history so I can see if they've been difficult
• Photos of the site if the sick tech was already there

We also started using status "In Progress - Handoff" for these situations. Lets the office track how often we're scrambling.

Teresa, this is a process gap I see everywhere. You're reacting instead of planning, and it's burning out your dispatchers.

Here's what we implemented:

Primary/Secondary assignments on every job. Not just in your head — actually in FieldPulse. We use the "Assigned Tech" field for primary and custom tags for secondary (BACKUP-MASON, BACKUP-COMMERCIAL, etc). Takes 10 seconds when scheduling and saves 20 minutes of panic.

Handoff checklist in job notes template. When status goes to "Reassigned," the tech gets prompted: customer contacted? materials staged? permits verified? site access confirmed?

Customer communication is dispatch's job, not the tech's. Always. We call with the new ETA and name. Tech focuses on the work.

Also — measure this. If Jake's out frequently, that's a coverage problem masquerading as a dispatch problem.

the tag thing is smart. we're not using custom tags for anything really. do you tag by skill or by who's close to the job?

Skill first, geography second. A backup tech who's 10 minutes farther away but actually knows commercial refrigeration beats someone close who'll botch it and need a callback.

We tier it: SKILL-COMMERCIAL, SKILL-RESIDENTIAL-HIGH, etc. Then secondary tags for zone if needed. Takes setup but your morning reassignments become 30-second decisions.

We've got 34 techs and this still happens weekly. My dispatchers were spending 45 minutes some mornings just on phone calls.

Simple change: sick tech calls dispatch first, not supervisor. Dispatch immediately flags jobs as "Needs Reassignment" in FieldPulse. Whole team can see it in the dispatch view.

Customers get automated SMS with new ETA once reassigned. We don't call unless it's a same-day change after 10am.

Handoff notes are mandatory. Tech doesn't clock in without reading them. Boring but it works.

mandatory notes sound nice until you're the guy getting three reassigned jobs at 7am and the sick tech left garbage notes because they were actually sick, not planning to write documentation

in my experience the best handoffs happen when dispatchers know the work, not when there's a policy

Fair. Policy doesn't fix bad notes. But "no policy" means no notes at all half the time.

Oh this is so timely! We just had this happen last Tuesday and I was scrambling. Thanks so much for starting this thread Teresa!

Question about the voice memo idea Josh mentioned — do you upload that as a file attachment or is there a way to embed audio in FieldPulse? And does the replacement tech actually listen to it? Some of ours won't click through to attachments.

Also curious if anyone uses the @ mention feature in job notes for handoffs? Like @ mentioning the backup tech so they get notified? Or does that get lost in notification noise?

Really appreciate all the ideas here!

@ mentions work but only if the tech has notifications on... which half don't.

Simpler: we put the backup tech's name in the job title. "HVAC-INSTALL-247 [REASSIGNED TO MARTINEZ]"

Can't miss it. Dispatch view, mobile app, customer sees nothing different.

lol i just text my dispatcher "got it" and figure it out

ngl tho the worst is when they move a job and don't tell me the customer already paid for something i was supposed to upsell. happened twice last month.

tbh just need the money stuff in the notes and i'm good