Workplace Strategies to enhance productivity

The workplace strategy has assumed a new meaning and importance in modern workspace. Highlighting the same, Shail Gala, Associate Director, Project Management, DTZelaborated on the strategies for change management that should be adopted for smooth transition in an organization. According to Shail, Hot desking, agile working, activity based working, telecommuting are the new words of workplace strategy as real estate has become the top most cost factor for many companies. “In most offices, the space requirement is based on either headcount, corporate standards, space efficiency, budget or organizational flexibility. In any office, there is at least 12% vacancy at any given time. The same can be reduced by accommodating more persons, making staff more productive through comfort & collaboration and by providing organizational agility i.e. working from anywhere. But, this requires training people and offering them choices. For instance, offices can be designed with home zones or fixed spaces for certain departments, shared spaces for collaborative work, seats in the coffee shop for relaxed working and some private areas so employees can choose the place to occupy depending on the work they are doing,” he said.

Explaining the FM role in change management, he stated “To adapt the staff to new regimen, change management has to be implemented at many levels which includes, leadership approval, workshops and discussions with employees at all hierarchy, enabling staff acceptance and empowering operational teams. FM changes too, as it now has to provide hotel like service where the person coming after should get clean desk with no signs of earlier user, round the clock cleaning, stocked pantry etc. Strict policy enforcement for all and security of employee possessions, become critical factors too in shared spaces. Thus, change has to be well supported by FM to succeed.”

Technology enabled workplaces

Talking about the impact of technology in workplace, Sreedhar Saraswathi, Business Head – South Asia, ARCHIBUSspoke about the new systems and innovations that were driving FM globally and in India. He explained the concepts of CAFM and BIM used as foundation for FM systems, now known as TIFM- Total infrastructure & facility management and IWMS – Integrated workplace management system. “These help allocate, enable, optimize and preserve the resources. In fact, during building lifecycle of 30 years, FM contributes up to 34% of operational saving. Additionally, GIS, cloud computing, mobile apps, social media and virtual reality & augmented reality have become great tools for FM,” he added.

Mind games for the audience

The summit ended with an exciting session by motivational speaker Pradip Amladi of Mynd Storm. The highpoint of his session was the magic tricks that conveyed the personality development messages in a lift hearted manner. His thought provoking games not only energized the delegates after the long day of deliberations, but also left everyone with some inspirational concepts that could be followed in personal and professional lives for more fruitful outcome.

In all, the delegates found the sessions beneficial and the topics relevant. For some, the summit provided the opportunity to network with FM professionals and industry experts, for others, the discussions and presentations offered insight in the key areas of facility management. As one of the delegates from Germany put it, “The IFM Summit was a valuable opportunity to meet the relevant stakeholders in the FM industry. It was good to learn about the business side of our industry as well as the technical challenges.”