As the world suffered under the spell of Covid-19, employees were hard at work from their homes trying to strike a work-life balance. Fast forward to the present day, in the new normal, the pandemic has forced the adoption of new ways of working, convincing organizations to re-imagine workplaces in creating an environment to not only break employee inertia, but also to convince them to come back to their second homes - the office.

Employee engagement has taken on an innovative way of connecting with the workforce. While technology will continue to enable this connect, another strategy which has gained prominence is the role of external agencies - one such being that of facilities management. In the evolution of this concept, today facilities management is about managing employee experience as much as the workplace space. From improved office design, automating mundane tasks, to providing on demand services, facilities management has come a long way and will continue to help in defining the future of workplaces.

ET this month looks at 'Enhancing Employee Experience at the Workplace: Role of External Agencies.'

In the Thinking Aloud segment, Jay highlights the importance of facilities management and how it will help in striking the right balance in improving and engaging employees at the workplace. On the Podium, CEO of Compass India Support Services, Joel Anthony elucidates on the rising trend of companies outsourcing support services to specialised companies and the fact that this trend is here to stay.

In the We Recommend section, we review Jimmy Soni's book - 'The Founders' which is an account of PayPal's journey from an idea to how it is one of the world's trusted digital payments brand backed by marquee names – Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, among other founders.

In Figures of Speech, Vikram's toons are all about engaging employees at work!

Please also Click Here to check out our Special issue of ET, which is a collation of selected themes that were featured over the years highlighting the changing landscape of the business world. This special edition has been well received and can be Downloaded Here for easy reading and is a collector's item.

As always, we value your opinion, so do let us know how you liked this issue. To read our previous issues, do visit the Resources section on the website or simply Click Here. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn - where you can join our community to continue the dialogue with us!

A picture from the turn of the decade sticks in my mind when I discuss workplace and offices.

It was the peak of the dotcom boom and many new IT firms were sprouting in India, some created by returning techie NRIs in Tier-2 cities. This was the time when bungalows and apartments in Koramangla and other sleepy suburbs of Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad were being converted into IT offices. The picture in my mind is vivid still: on entering this IT firm's office - which was a leased bungalow – the first thing to greet me was a Pool table, and there were a bunch of youngsters playing (and some watching) an engrossing game of Pool. No, this was not a club but an office! This at 11 am when traditionally offices were buzzing with employees busy at their desks! It was not unusual at this start-up for employees to sleep at their desks or curl-up in a sleeping bag next to their table after an all-nighter. Of course, this was the early days of a new kind of workplace where the start-up IT firms were imitating the Silicon Valley garage culture where employees worked hard and partied even harder. Offices in India have not been the same since.

What do employees want at their workplaces now? With all the talk of the reluctant employee who has got comfortable with the work from home model, and resists overtures to return to office, there is renewed debate on what offices are meant to be. Is it really necessary to ask everyone to come every day to the office? Can some employees always work from home, or should the firm modify their rules to convert to a hybrid office version? Well, there are merits of each model and every firm has to make its choice depending on their own unique needs. However, the key point here is that the pandemic has rudely shaken the conventional notion of what an office is and how employee workspaces should look like.

Apart from the challenge of the unexpected external element, there are other reasons why workplaces have radically changed. Technology is the primary driver of change, we all understand, but what is not generally acknowledged is that there has been a transformational shift in the way businesses are organised and managed today in many sectors. Gone are the days when employees had to be visually supervised by controlling their input activities. Firms today speak the language of employee engagement and focus on output and outcomes rather than measuring input parameters of time and effort. A good employer stresses on creating an environment where employees feel psychologically safe and motivated to deliver the best results without having to worry about physical limitations.

Consequently, new kinds of workplaces have emerged over the years. While there are positives in providing individual workstations, some firms have looked at the cost of real estate and have opted for shared workplaces (think WeWork), hot desking, etc., as measures that meet their base requirements. What has emerged in a big way is the rise of the business of Facilities Management (FM).

The desire to focus on the core business at hand has led to firms resorting to an outsourcing strategy which has created a large and growing FM industry. A McKinsey study revealed that FM spends is in the 10% to 25% range (of total indirect expenses) for certain industries like logistics, retail, and manufacturing, where they have a wider footprint of operations. Further, their study has assessed that this industry could reach a size of USD 1.9 trillion by 2024.

Interestingly, costs aside, what was considered peripheral initially has actually emerged as an important aspect in providing a wholesome employee experience at the workplace. From the legendary tale of Google's '150-feet from food' rule (supposedly every employee is never more than 150 feet from access to some food) to workplaces that are pet friendly, to free massages, yoga class, free ice cream, etc., the goodies do not end. In the midst of this cornucopia of freebies, the employee is expected to deliver on his duties. And, to enable the senior team to focus on the core deliverables, an external FM team is tasked with all these aspects. Consequently, the growth of the FM industry.

While the pandemic impacted this industry too adversely, the unexpected off-shoot has been a big fillip to push this business towards digitalization and automation. With workplaces becoming hyper-sensitive to hygiene, safety and security requirements, the earlier method of deploying more cheap bodies to the task is no longer acceptable. A higher degree of automation has been demanded by all firms creating a push towards innovative solutions and even capex investments have grown.

The FM sector is potentially on a growth track after the disappointment of the last 2 years. After being an ancillary function that did not get its due all these years, there is now an opportunity to play a vital role in supporting and delivering on the organization's employee experience strategy. This is an idea whose time has come as we are living in the age of human capital shortage. With talent acquisition and retention becoming important to a firm, FM firms are nimbly re-positioning themselves as wellness providers, both within and outside the office. What they also need to do now is to raise standards by investing in their own human capital as so far, a large number of their staff have been occupied primarily in labour intensive tasks at the lower-end of the value chain. It is time to reinvent the business to win big in the marketplace.

back to top ^

ET:  Over the last decade, more and more companies are choosing to outsource facilities management, catering, security, and many other support services, to specialised companies such as yours. Please tell us why is this a rising trend?

JA:  The reason is not far to seek. In a VUCA world, the quality of an organization's talent is critical to its survival and growth. And in this war to attract and retain talent, the workplace environment and the user experience has become more important than ever before. Today, employees when evaluating to join an organization look at things like Indoor Air Quality, Safety & Security, Wellness & Well-being in the Food Program, Sustainability, etc. Each of these subjects are very specialised with complex interconnections with each other.

In the dynamic competitive environment, organizations found that they did not have the bandwidth to build expertise in each of these disciplines and focussing on their core competencies while outsourcing non-core and near to core activities to specialist firms would bring them a higher ROI.

Hence, the shift from in-sourcing to out-sourcing of these activities.

ET:  As a leading firm in providing specialised services to enhance employee experiences at the workplace, what are the current practices in the post-Covid office world?

JA:  The Covid-19 pandemic has had a far reaching and lasting impact on www – NOT the world wide web but Workforce, Workplace and Workflows with the paradigm shift in each of these being:

• Workforce – from great place to work to trusted places to work in
• Workplace – from cost efficient cleaning to visible cleaning and hygiene
• Workflows – from touch to touchless/automated

And therefore, the initiatives to encourage employees to return to office must address touch points in these areas and this is where the role of automation, digitization and technology comes into play to address return to work anxiety. It starts with each employee declaring their health status, booking hot-desks or meeting rooms, social distancing norms in the workplace being continuously monitored and maintained, IAQ monitors flashing PM2.5 & VOC data to immunity boosting food & beverages in the cafeteria. Not to forget, a sanitised transportation fleet to ferry them to and fro from their homes. And all this facilitated through a workplace experience app on your personal mobile.

How do I bring the outside in? Instead of using the gym in the workplace, can I use the gym near my home. The same holds true in case of a creche. How does one blend the experiences of what employees do in life and where they work, holds the key to the next generation workplace environment and employee experience. And all this facilitated by the employer through the service provider acting as an enabler.

ET:  It is widely reported that employees are currently facing inertia to get back to the workplace. How can external agencies help in enhancing employee experience in the hybrid workplace?

JA:  During the pandemic, employees used to work predominantly from home and have over the past two years, made adjustments to balance work and home commitments while being at home. Hence, the hybrid workplace is here to stay.

How does one give the home experience at work in the hybrid workplace will be an important dimension in overcoming the inertia and herein, the role of external agencies comes into play. On demand services will increasingly become the norm.

To provide the psychological safety net associated with a home, the FM partner would have to have more visible cleaning in place with staff who are fully vaccinated and wearing badges stating the same. Hand sanitization stations across the facility will be a necessity. IAQ monitoring and use of UV solutions to ensure air quality is critical. Food services will have to give options akin to homemade food and that too on specific request of the employees. The health and nutrition quotient of these offerings will also have to significantly go up to cater to the increased awareness on wellness and well-being. Communication around how the food is prepared, transported, and served with zero compromise on food safety becomes all the more pertinent. The transportation fleet provider will have to set up partitions in the vehicle cabins and adhere to the limitations of the number of employees travelling in a cab and ensure that the vehicle is sanitized at all times.

ET:  How has technology been harnessed in enabling a safe and secure office space while also keeping in mind employee well-being?

JA:  Technology has become all pervasive in the post pandemic world in the workplace environment. Thermal scanners and face recognition cameras greet you at campus entrances. Touch free elevators that read QR Codes displayed on your mobile screens, touchless coffee vending machines, booking hot desks and meetings rooms to your seat and meals in the cafeteria, everything is powered by the latest in technology innovation. Even cleaning is no longer done on the basis of some pre-determined frequency but is done on the basis of occupancy & usage, which is monitored through IoT sensors. To ensure consistent cleaning, use of robotics is gaining more and more acceptance while adoption of digital twins and reliability centred maintenance harnessing AI, is taking safety and business continuity in the workplace to a different level altogether.

ET:  Please tell us more about your firm and how you have managed to ride the turbulent waves of the pandemic to grow your business.

JA:  Compass India is part of Compass Group PLC, the world's leading provider of contract food and support services with presence in 45 countries and a turnover of approximately US$ 32 billion. Compass India has been servicing the Indian Workplace, Healthcare and Education market needs since 2008. It operates in 450+ client locations across India and services 160+ million sq. ft. area. Our sector-focused businesses give our clients access to unrivalled experience, global best practices, and market-leading innovations. Compass India has won awards such as 'Most Admired Food Innovation of the Year Award' for workplace food concepts at the India Food Forum Awards - across all retail & food service categories and the Coca Cola Golden Spoon Award for FoodBook, for engagement and food ordering platform. It was also recognised as one of 'The Economic Times Best Brands 2020' on the parameters of innovation, trust, and uniqueness and "A Great Place to Work" in 2021 by the Great Place to Work Institute.

At Compass, we relentlessly endeavour to continually innovate and design relevant concepts to nourish workplaces, the workplace environment, and the employee experience.

This relentless pursuit to stay relevant, shaped our response to the pandemic. The organization's resilience, adaptability and resilience were put to the test. Employees not coming to offices to work, meant an immediate cessation of revenue w.r.t food services. Harnessing the existing food production capacity and competence of the team, it was decided to take food to the consumers. Responsible Biryani embedding the stealth health concept & MyMeal – a food subscription program was made available through the food aggregators. Let's Feed Together saw us reach out to take care of the migrant labour across the length and breadth of the country.

Our Centre of Excellence Teams in the Support Services business swung into action to identify new and profitable revenue streams. From supply of PPE suits, masks, sanitization programs, touch/contact less systems to deployment of housekeeping robots and development of mobile enabled facility management applications – everything was done in record time in close collaboration with our vendor partners. An all-pervasive entrepreneurial spirit saw many innovations come to light in very short turnaround times. A special Covid protection and Covid Care programme known as Carona Kawach offering medical insurance among other facilities to our frontline employees, kept the morale of the team high thereby ensuring that our services in industries classified as essential services by the government like Healthcare and Pharma manufacturing, were unaffected.

Thus, concerted effort orchestrated across all segments & revenue streams saw us successfully navigate the turbulent times brought about by the pandemic.

back to top ^

What does Tesla, Yelp & YouTube have in common? Apart from being huge and famous brands that need no description, each of these companies have been backed by 'geeks' who once either founded or were employed by digital payments provider, PayPal.

Since its listing, PayPal marked its 20th anniversary in February this year. Along with the celebratory milestone, the company has benefitted from increased digitalization & demand for digital payment services, amid the rapid growth of e-commerce.

Jimmy Soni is an award-winning author, and media professional. Having served as the Editor at the Washington Examiner and the New York Observer, the author steps back to examine PayPal's origin in his book 'The Founders.' He speaks of the company's initial days and paints a portrait of the contrarians who made what PayPal is today. Marquee names include Peter Thiel (Palantir Technologies), Elon Musk (Tesla & SpaceX), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Chad Hurley (YouTube), Max Levchin (Affirm) and David Sacks (Confinity), the tech gurus of yesteryears who are the unbeatable visionaries of the day.

PayPal's story stands out as it is not like any of the technology companies which identifies with one entrepreneur. Thiel's venture, Confinity, started by backing Max Levchin's idea of allowing PalmPilots to send money within reach. On the other hand, Musk's idea was to create "the Amazon of financial services" and call it X.com. Hiring strategies also differed between the two masterminds. While Thiel focused on friends and family who eventually turned into employees, Musk drew on his existing relationships of his previous ventures for talent, eliminating those whose vision diverged from his. Jimmy Soni has painstakingly researched the journeys of each of the founders of PayPal and offers readers the distinction of Musk's and Thiel's start-ups that came together to form PayPal. The result - an easy read, highlighting various approaches to business, management, and culture. After Confinity merged with X.com to form PayPal, it was sold to eBay for US$ 1.5 billion in 2002.

There were a lot of companies founded in the late 90s, but only a fraction made it to the other side of the internet stock bubble - PayPal being one of them. PayPal's success lies in its nerdy mix of competitive talent. Its competitive peers - MoneyMail, PayPlace, c2it - failed as PayPal managed to whip up its secret sauce - limiting the losses from fraud through fraud-analytics. The founders understood early that for payment networks to work, scale matters a great deal.

Despite being named as one of the "worst business ideas" of 1999, the company regained its lost glory over the years; the PayPal team featured in the 2007 Fortune magazine cover story as the "PayPal Mafia" which emphasized the company's position at Silicon Valley. One of the many interesting aspects of the book is Elon Musk's definition of innovation - "It's a process of recursive self-improvement and you always have to ask yourself the question, 'Am I adding value for other people?' Because that is what a company is supposed to do." It gives readers a fresh perspective to what innovation is (which PayPal is a proof of), adding a dimension that innovation should have the element of solving problems for real people.

As a group, PayPal's founders have driven this century's innovation and entrepreneurship. CEO Dan Schulman has his tasks chalked out already. Going forward, PayPal expects their active accounts on its platform to reach 750 million by 2025, with its revenue doubling to US$ 50 billion. The company has increased spending on its marketing campaigns too and its new Super App, which combines all the features like mobile messages, digital wallet, P2P payments, buy-now-pay-later, etc., is all set to pave its way for growth.

back to top ^