Have you ever wondered what actually happens to applications when issues arise with connectivity or the network becomes unreliable? When it comes to being as efficient as possible on-the-job, we turn to mobile performance management, a critical factor for the success of any worker in the field. In essence, we are talking about providing workers with the capability to perform and finish every task on time.

With this in mind, it is essential for any organisation who employ field workers to ensure that they stay connected – this includes police officers, gas engineers, utility companies or any other remote workers who use tablets or smartphones.

>See also: How innovative technology is turning the tide for telecoms

Here are five top tips to ensure connectivity for those remote workers.

1. Optimising traffic

To maximise productivity in the field, industry-specific apps are key. However, these apps come with their risks. Everything, ranging from an employee’s workload, network conditions, server capacity and location through to device age and performance, can cause stability issues and lead the apps to potentially crash whilst out in the field.

By enabling workers to roam seamlessly across networks, they will have no concerns about losing app connectivity. Compressing data and shaping traffic will also ensure that critical information that is gathered in the field isn’t lost.

2. Applications control

It’s very simple – keep the business critical apps (those that are crucial to workers) up and running during the work day, whilst giving workers access to their devices after business hours through Wi-Fi.

>See also: SGN’s mobile evolution in the gas and energy industry

By restricting personal app usage to Wi-Fi only and during non-business hours, workers remain focused and the network is always available. It’s also worth considering blocking heavy bandwidth apps to help optimise data flow when signal strength is weak. Help to prevent data overages with compression, data optimisation and proactive alerting.

3. Performance analytics

Analysing performance is an absolute must. By having access to robust data, this ultimately provides for a truer reflection of how workers, devices and applications are using bandwidth. Once armed with this information, IT teams are able to make smarter decisions allowing them to fine tune and enhance the user experience and maximise productivity.

Gaining access to network and app usage reports, inventory analysis, coverage maps and device maps allows you to understand what mobile workers are experiencing.

Workers that are on-the-move throughout the workday rely on GPS location data for more efficient scheduling, route-planning and to control fuel consumption. This is only possible if there are reporting tools that confirm that the GPS capability is working.

4. Simplify security to keep data safe

Mobile security doesn’t have to be a nightmare. IT administrators need to create a highly flexible and programmable secure mobile strategy.

>See also: The mobile workforce: the new movement

A secure tunnel protects the data sent between a device and enterprise resources, that in turn protects applications running over public networks regardless of location. The secure tunnel should exercise strong authentication and encryption to ensure that data communications are protected whilst on insecure public networks.

Administrators should be able to configure options from the per-app level to device-wide, ensuring customisable and secure access to enterprise data. Most importantly, IT should tightly restrict access without making security burdensome for mobile workers.

5. Root cause connection issues

When connectivity issues occur in the field, it is often hard to tell what is causing the problem. Business workers aren’t IT experts. When working in the field, connectivity issues and performance problems are notoriously difficult to diagnose.

Consider using remote diagnostics to gather complete troubleshooting information. This is critical, allowing IT to identify the root cause of the problem quickly, without relying on workers to run tests and answer questions. IT needs the power to resolve problems quickly to put the workers back on the job.

>See also: 5 trends impacting enterprise mobility in 2017 

For any organisation with workers in the field, arguably the most important question to consider is whether you possess the ability to implement performance management structures and policies that keep your employees connected, engaged and efficient.

There is no question that mobility and the performance of the business are linked. This is why a growing number of organisations are finally beginning to understand its importance.

Sourced by Chris Walters, UK & Ireland country manager at NetMotion Software