Keep what your most experienced people know.Get new starters useful sooner.
We sit down with your most experienced person and use an AI interviewer to walk through real jobs they've done, then turn what they know into an assistant your new starters can ask at any hour.
Book a 20-minute callThe know-how that runs your firm sits in a few people's heads.
That costs you twice: when one of them leaves, and every time someone new starts.
When an experienced person leaves, what they know leaves with them.
Some of what they know is written down. Most of it isn't. Which supplier to ring when the usual one can't deliver. Which client always wants a second look before they sign off. Why the plant room on one particular site never behaves the way the drawings say it should.
When they retire or move on, that judgement goes too. The firm finds out what it lost one job at a time.
Every new starter takes months to become useful, and your best people train them.
A new starter can be qualified and keen and still not know how your firm does things. They learn by asking. The people they ask are your most experienced, who are also the people you most need out on jobs.
Each question is fair. Together they take a real chunk out of a senior person's week, and it starts again with every hire.
What new starters are missing is rarely in the manual. It's the correction an experienced person makes without thinking. For example:
The textbook says
Before sizing a replacement pump, check the design flow rate and system resistance on the drawings.
We start with your expert, not with the software.
General AI already knows the textbook. It doesn't know what your most experienced person knows, so that's where we spend our time.
We walk through real jobs with your most experienced person.
An AI interviewer sits down with them and works through jobs they've actually done. The approach is called cognitive task analysis: a structured way of drawing out expert judgement. In plain terms, it asks what they noticed when they arrived, what they decided at each point and why, and what a new starter would have missed.
Your expert does the talking. The interviewer asks the questions and keeps the notes.
The textbook says
When commissioning a new air handling unit, check the fan speed against the design air volume and record the readings.
We show them the textbook answer and keep only what they'd do differently.
For each kind of job, the interviewer sets out what the manuals and training courses say. Then it asks your expert where they'd do it differently, and why. We record the difference. That difference is the part no one else has.
The textbook says
If an office zone won't hold temperature, check the setpoint and the time schedule on the BMS.
New starters ask the assistant, at any hour.
What we capture goes into an assistant your new starters can ask on site, in the van or at home in the evening. It answers the way your expert would, because it is built from what your expert told us.
The textbook says
Change air handling unit filters at the interval set in the planned maintenance schedule.
Your expert's judgement, on hand for every new starter.
Your senior people stay the source. The assistant carries what they know to the places they can't be.
- Answers the way your expert would.
- New starters ask a question and get the answer your most experienced person would give: your firm's way of doing things, not a general answer from a manual.
- There out of hours, and after they retire.
- It's there at seven in the morning before a site visit, on a Saturday call-out, and when your expert is busy on another job. It keeps working after they've retired.
- Senior time back.
- Your experienced people stop being interrupted for the same questions. New starters stop waiting for an answer before they can get on.
- Who owns what we capture.
- DATA PLACEHOLDER: who owns the captured knowledge.
You don't have to wait for someone to hand in their notice.
If a few people carry most of what your firm knows, it's worth getting it down while they're here.
Most firms can name the one or two people everyone goes to with questions. That's where we start. Here is what the next few weeks could look like.
We're running a small number of pilots.
We're working closely with a few firms to get this right, and we have room for a small number more.
A pilot means one experienced person, one area of work, and your new starters using the assistant on real jobs.
Before we start, we'll agree what we're both looking for. Along the way we'll be straight with you about what's working and what isn't.
A 20-minute call is the quickest way to find out if this fits.
We'll ask about your firm and answer your questions. No sales pitch.
About Fieldbook
ABOUT PLACEHOLDER: who is behind Fieldbook.