Grounds maintenance and street cleansing operations depend on experienced field professionals. They know the areas they work in. They understand how local conditions change throughout the year, where extra attention is needed and when specific locations require intervention. This local knowledge helps them work more efficiently and deliver consistent quality every day.
The challenge is that much of this operational knowledge still lives in people's heads.
As grounds maintenance expert Jeroen van Ammers explains:
"Experienced people know the routes. They have the knowledge needed to execute them. When somebody is ill or it's the holiday period, it's really hard to replace those people because it reduces the quality of the route and it costs more hours to get to the same result."
Staff shortages, holiday periods and an ageing workforce are making this challenge more visible every year. Yet the problem is not that organisations rely on experienced field professionals. Their expertise is invaluable.
The real issue is that operational knowledge often stays with individuals instead of becoming part of the organisation.
Many organisations still rely on paper maps, spreadsheets or verbal instructions to organise and carry out daily work. While these tools provide structure, they quickly become outdated as areas evolve, new assets are added and local conditions change. As a result, much of the knowledge that makes experienced field professionals so effective remains in the heads of the people carrying out the work.
This is where digitisation changes the way organisations operate.
Instead of storing operational knowledge in separate documents or relying on individual experience, organisations can capture and share that knowledge in one digital environment. Route-specific instructions, local situations and operational insights become directly available to everyone carrying out the work.
As Jeroen explains:
"That's why digitisation is such a big thing, because everybody can do the route."
Importantly, this is not about replacing experienced professionals. Grounds maintenance and street cleansing operations will always depend on the judgement of people working outside. Digital tools simply make their knowledge available to the entire team, allowing every field professional to start with the same operational understanding.
When operational knowledge is shared instead of stored in individual minds, organisations become more resilient. New employees become productive more quickly, teams can support one another more easily and operations become less vulnerable when experienced colleagues are unavailable.
The result is not less reliance on people. It is better support for the people doing the work every day.
Discover how Jewel helps organisations capture operational knowledge, support field professionals and make grounds maintenance and street cleansing operations less dependent on individual experience.