Why Field Service Technicians Create Workarounds
Workarounds are often labelled as resistance or poor behaviour. In practice, they usually appear for a much simpler reason: the process gets in the way of the job.
No field service technician starts the day planning to ignore systems or bypass the “right” way of working. Most want the opposite. They want to complete the job properly, move on to the next one, and avoid creating more work for themselves or anyone else.
For leaders, this matters because workarounds quietly undermine data quality, distort reporting, and make service performance harder to trust. And from their perspective, what’s visible is the outcome: steps skipped, data captured later, processes not followed as designed. What’s harder to see is the friction that caused it.
Workarounds are not rebellion. They are a rational response to systems and processes that slow work down in the field.
When Pressure Turns Process into Shortcuts
Field service teams operate under constant pressure with full schedules and jobs rarely going exactly by the plan.
When the day starts to slip, there is little room to absorb delays. In that environment, technicians default to the fastest path forward. If the approved process slows progress, a shortcut appears. Not because it is preferred, but because it keeps the job moving.
Many of these workarounds can be traced back to small points of friction before and during the job. We looked at those moments in What Actually Slows a Technician Down on Site.
Most service processes are designed with good intent. They assume clear information, predictable jobs, and linear steps. Real work is rarely that neat.
When systems force steps that do not match what is happening on site, technicians adapt. They skip ahead. They delay updates. They capture information later, if at all.
The gap between designed workflows and real work is where most workarounds are born.
Workarounds Are a Signal, Not the Problem
Once a workaround exists, it spreads quietly.
One technician finds a faster way. Others copy it. Before long, it becomes normal practice. From the outside, everything can still look fine. Jobs are completed. Reports are populated.
Underneath, data quality slips and exceptions increase. This is where many organisations get it wrong. Workarounds are treated as a compliance issue, rather than what they actually are: feedback from the field.
They highlight where timing is wrong, where steps are unnecessary, or where the process no longer reflects reality. Trying to stamp them out without addressing the cause usually just pushes them somewhere else.
Designing Out the Need for Workarounds
Reducing workarounds starts with better design, not tighter enforcement.
That means aligning workflows to how work actually happens, capturing information at natural points, and allowing flexibility for different job types and scenarios.
This is where Salesforce Field Service becomes most effective. The platform does not force a single way of working, which means teams can design workflows that reflect how jobs actually unfold on site.
When that flexibility is used well, technicians are no longer pushed into finding shortcuts just to keep moving. The need for workarounds reduces naturally, because the system aligns with the work instead of competing with it.
When workflows are designed around momentum, technicians no longer need to adapt the system to get the job done. The system adapts to them.
The Takeaway for Leaders
If workarounds are widespread, the solution is rarely a stricter process or more training. It starts with understanding where momentum is being lost and redesigning how work flows through the day.
Left unaddressed, workarounds quietly erode trust in data, increase rework, and make it harder to scale service operations with confidence.
The fastest gains come from removing friction, not pushing people harder to work around it.
