Branche: Professional Services | Reading time: 3 min.
Imagine a company with 8,000 office employees that suddenly needed an overview of workplace occupancy in the office. This is what KPN’s head office faced with the outbreak of Covid-19. Facilitor and facility partner Yask looked at what was needed to quickly make changes within the existing facility system.
Erik & Sander
KPN & Yask
Headoffice KPN
A crisis? That calls for immediate action!
KPN’s mission is to connect everything and everyone, simply, innovatively, reliably, and sustainably. In normal circumstances, connecting everything and everyone is already an enormous task, but in times of crisis it becomes truly monumental. When the Covid-19 crisis broke out, KPN was keen to connect its own employees, not least in terms of assuring its services. A practical question also arose: how was it possible to gain insight into the number of occupied workplaces in the office, so that the measures imposed by the Dutch government could be respected? Yask, KPN’s permanent facility services partner, decided to enlist the help of Facilitor to resolve this issue.
Erik Troost is a commercial product manager at KPN Real Estate Service. He’s full of praise for the way KPN, Yask and Facilitor worked together. ‘Together with Sander Nievergeld, performance manager at Yask Facility Management, we looked at how we could integrate reserving workplaces online within our current Facilitor CAFM system. The Facilitor team proved to be flexible, rapid and innovative during this search for a solution. Within two weeks they had fulfilled our wish, and our employees were able to reserve their workplaces. This was important, because we, like every other company, were unexpectedly facing a new reality. After initially working from home, staff were gradually allowed to return to the office in the summer as the lockdown was eased, obviously with observance of Dutch government guidelines such as group size and 1.5-metre social distancing. However, with 8,000 office employees, it’s essential to know how many employees are present at any given moment in what office, and for how long.’
Sander Nievergeld helped with the technical application during the development of the reservation system: ‘To get the workplace reservation up and running, we first had to make the nine work and meeting locations visible in the software. We then had to assign rights to each specific area, since not everyone can make unlimited reservations at any location. It was an arduous task, but thanks to the pleasant cooperation we managed to perfect the reservation system for KPN employees. During this process, Facilitor exhibited its speed and flexibility in a time of a great need. However, there was more work to be done. We set about creating an option to make reservations for team areas. This both allows reservations for an entire team, and registers visitors and arranges catering in a single flow. It shows that it is always possible to redesign and further develop Facilitor modules.’
The possibilities in Facilitor are enormous, they can be proud of what they have
The cooperation with Yask and KPN has always been characterised by good chain cooperation, even before the Covid-19 crisis. Since April 2017, Yask has been responsible for facility services at all KPN offices in the Netherlands, with a focus on location management, project management, event management, service desk services, and concierge services. The company also directs various chain partners responsible for cleaning, security, landscaping, waste processing, and catering. Facilitor plays an important role in connecting these chain partners. Sander Nievergeld: ‘The options for connecting and integrating other systems to the KPN Facilitor environment are very efficient and effective, such as the link to the ordering systems of suppliers for office supplies, and the system we use to monitor the sensors in paper containers. Our cooperation with Facilitor is based on our application managers personally adjusting the system as much as possible. Facilitor offers an incredible range of possibilities, and we can get a lot more out of it. For example, we once asked a question about an option we wanted and Facilitor replied that this solution already exists. The company can rightly be proud of its product.’
Erik agrees with Sander. ‘Our cooperation here is marked by healthy interaction. Facilitor helps us with what we need, and we come up with questions and recommendations. It’s also peasant to have a single point of contact. I look at things from the customer’s point of view, while Sander deals with technical aspects, so we complement each other perfectly as a team.’
Facilitor also exists an app, in addition to the desktop system. With this app, KPN employees will soon be able to send alerts and make requests easily, anytime and anywhere. ‘If someone comes across a problem with the coffee machine or copier, it’s important that they can send an alert immediately. Alerts about cleaning or arranging catering are also possible via the app. There are 15,000 to 18,000 alerts per year, so it’s useful that employees don’t necessarily have to return to their workplaces to arrange or report something. We’ve made things as simple as possible for everyone.’ Sander reinforces the message. ‘Ultimately, we want to start using QR codes placed in prominent places in office buildings. After scanning with your phone, you’re shown a list of the most common types of alerts, so you have the option of quickly selecting one and sending your alert. This makes Facilitor even easier to use.’
To improve the user experience with Facilitor, work on linking it to Outlook is now ongoing. If you book a meeting room or event room in Outlook, this reservation will also be processed directly in Facilitor. The option to book catering and register visitors will appear automatically. The rollout of this link is expected in late 2020.
Facilitor is used at KPN in different ways, for the management of KPN offices on the one hand, and for the management of KPN shops on the other. Each KPN business unit can integrate its own facility requirements in Facilitor. In terms of costs, this is a smart solution, because it means everyone can use a single overarching system. According to Sander, connecting all business processes in a single system offers the organisation major benefits. ‘I’ve noticed that other organisations are looking to KPN with regard to using this facility management system.’ Erik concludes: ‘We’re building positively on our decision to implement an overarching modular system of this type. That’s something we’re very proud of.’
By Marieke Stokkelaar, Open Up Communicatie, publication November 2020
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