Predictability in an unpredictable time
Steven Breuker from NS and Els Hooft from Yask: “We work together and look carefully at where we can improve performance.”
There are 60 people in the team at Concern Accommodation. ‘Some are employed by Yask, while others work for NS, but all of us work closely together, and we have different jobs to do. For example, the people at Yask are also regional managers,’ says Steven Breuker, head of Concern Accommodation. Els Hooft, performance manager at Yask, nods in agreement. ‘There’s a lot of interconnectedness, which works very well. We work in unison, and look carefully at where we can improve our performance. For example, we see best practices at other clients, then adapt them to our situation. Take Facilitor’s CAFM, for example. We also use it with other clients, thanks to which we’ve acquired experience with the module for workplace reservations, among other things. After the outbreak of Covid-19 and its associated measures in the Netherlands, we included this module in the CAFM at NS.’ NS employees can use the workplace reservations module to reserve a place in buildings with a hundred or more workplaces. This gives the NS Accommodation team a perfect picture of the occupancy rate in the various buildings. ‘People can’t enter our buildings without a reservation. It’s the best way for us to guarantee NS colleagues a safe workplace,’ says Breuker.
CAFM is the hub
According to Breuker, Facilitor’s CAFM is the hub at the heart of Concern Accommodation. ‘Both strategically and operationally. At a strategic level, it is used for property management, such as rental contracts, property-related information, and how many square metres are rented. From an operational point of view, it mainly concerns aspects such as a broken coffee machine or dirty floor. NS colleagues can send alerts about these matters themselves via the CAFM on their desktop or phone. These alerts are received by service desk, which takes over the further handling.’ The people on the service desk manage all the partners, such as maintenance companies, suppliers and cleaners, according to the established KPIs. ‘In this Covid-19 era, the number of alerts has decreased significantly,’ says Breuker. ‘For example, there are normally 2,000 people here in the head office in Utrecht. In July and August, this number was 400 at the most. Now that the latest Covid-19 measures have come into effect, we are back to March levels. We always follow the guidelines issued by the Dutch Institute for Public Health and the Environment and the Dutch government, which means working from home as much as possible. This automatically leads to fewer alerts, since normally 80% of all alerts in the CAFM are made by NS colleagues. We have around 8,000 active users.’
However, the absence of an alert doesn’t mean that the air conditioning is working properly in all the rooms or that it’s clean everywhere, says Breuker. ‘The big advantage of the reservation system is that we know exactly which rooms have been occupied and which haven’t. We use this information to determine how to deploy our services. The CAFM therefore puts us in control, and provides predictability in an unpredictable time.’
The graphics module gives us every possibility to arrange the management of all these buildings well
Gradual expansion
Following the previous addition of the graphics module, NS recently added the workplace reservations module to its CAFM. The maps of a location are entered via the graphics module, which allows Concern Accommodation to see at a glance what a location looks like, and the facilities in the room. The customer can therefore easily send an alert if there is a problem in a room, and it can be resolved rapidly because all the detailed information is available. This module is also used to gain insight into how many square metres of office floor are managed nationally. ‘We’re a dynamic company, with regular relocations. Some of them recent. Breuker points to the first floor of the head office, and continues, ‘There used to be benches and some tables and chairs up there. We moved them downstairs to the reception. With a view to keeping people safe from Covid-19, it’s no longer necessary to pass through the entire building for a short appointment. People can simply meet here at the entrance.’ It’s important that Concern Accommodation implements all these relocations quickly and properly in the graphics module. This allows it to maintain an accurate picture of the workplaces at the site, where the fire extinguishers and coffee machines are located, and what type of floor is in each room. Concern Accommodation’s property portfolio is enormous. This module gives us every possibility to arrange the management of all these buildings well, but the data does have to be correct’. Incidentally, a process schedule has been created in Facilitor. This ensures that most relocations are also carried out perfectly and promptly. Hooft: ‘It means we go through the entire process, and a following step can only start when the previous step has been checked and completed.
Less hierarchy
Facilitor cuts through the hierarchy, Hooft continues. ‘NS likes to lead the way in terms of accommodation and facility matters, which is why we’re constantly looking for new opportunities together with Facilitor; where is there room for improvement?’ Breuker immediately adds, ‘We think the user interface could be a bit sexier. But that’s already being looked at.’ He’s referring to the optimisation of the alerting structure and the new look being given to everything so that it matches the corporate style of NS. Hooft: ‘The advantage is that we don’t have to hire a consultant for everything, as our own functional manager can make all kinds of adjustments for us in Facilitor. This means we can process requests quickly. In this way we continue to make Facilitor easier to use, and ultimately serve the 10,000 NS end users even better.’
By Martijn Louws, Facto Magazine, publication November 2020
