The post How to Adopt a Successful Hybrid Working Model in Facilities Management appeared first on Okappy.
]]>If you own a business that employs lots of people or are involved in workforce management for a large corporation, the idea of remote working may not be new. Of course, this is largely down to the pandemic forcing businesses to adopt working from home (WFH) while everyone was in lockdown. But, what is new is just how many companies are considering a hybrid working approach as a long-term model for their operations.
So, what does ‘hybrid working’ actually mean? To put it simply, hybrid working is a flexible working model which allows employees to work from a variety of different locations. Employees can be trusted to get the work done, standards haven’t dropped and the approach has several other benefits for the individual (not least for their work-life balance and overall productivity).
In larger companies, facilities managers are generally tasked with the job of adopting hybrid models because they play a central role in workforce management. But, saying that you want to take on new working practices like this is one thing. Delivering hybrid working is an entirely different ball park – especially when you may be dealing with multiple sites. And it gets more complicated as the size of your business grows.
Here are 5 of our tips for adopting a successful hybrid working model in the Facilities Management Sector…
Building a virtual community that works for everyone in your business is not as easy as it sounds. The first place to start is speaking with your employees to ease them into the idea of a partially online workplace. This is particularly crucial for those who are least likely to engage with online activities – perhaps because of their job type or age – and so, as a consequence, may feel left out. Slowly build confidence by offering training resources to get them up to speed.
As we come out of lockdown, it may be that some employees will want to work from home more, others may prefer to get back into the office. Getting the balance right and not damaging productivity and business growth (or staff morale) involves being honest with staff and showing that you have a clear and coherent strategy in place.
Not all work can be successfully handled from home. If most of your work is office-based, then it’s relatively easy to work remotely if you have the right software in place. If you’re running a maintenance department, where most of the state-of-the-art equipment is in one location, or spread out across multiple sites, it may not be so obvious.
Each department is different, but it’s important to nail down the jobs or tasks that can be carried out remotely and those that can’t. Employers need to be clear about the reasons so they don’t feel their needs are being ignored. Companies also need to be flexible enough to change things if business growth is being affected or new solutions are found.
Running a hybrid working model without an official strategy in place may be okay for small businesses. The larger your payroll, however, the more important it is to have a hybrid working strategy document with clearly defined OKRs/KPIs.
Your strategy is going to need to factor in ways of monitoring employees – another reason why you need complete buy-in from employees. This can often be the most contentious part of WFH and requires a good deal of trust, thought and openness. Like most strategy documents, your hybrid working strategy isn’t set in stone. There should be regular reviews of how it’s working, including analysing data to evidence any updates.
Hybrid working models should be viewed in a holistic way, alongside your business goals. Facilities Management leaders should have a mechanism for monitoring performance and measuring how remote working delivers, not only for the company as a whole, but on an individual level.
Understanding the challenges employees face and what resources they require to do their job properly is key to making sure the model is fit for purpose. Make sure you schedule in check in calls with your employees to gather feedback, keeping your KPIs in mind. You should be seeking to continuously improve the ways of working within your organisation to meet both employees and business needs.
One of the areas that has advanced and made hybrid working more viable is technology. But making sure you’re using the right tools can make or break the success of a particular department or company as a whole. Collaboration software is vital and there are several key considerations for businesses to make when choosing a package.
Many FM companies require multiple packages, others find that one workforce management software works well for them. Another key consideration is how employees engage with the software – it needs to be intuitive and easy to use, not just for those working from home but those in the office and out on site too.
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Great hybrid models are agile and can be adapted to different circumstances. Understanding this and knowing how to implement different strategies, while keeping control of the ‘whole vision’ is critical.
Okappy Portal+ is here to help bridge communications, not only between people within the company but, between your company and it’s subcontractors and external parties.
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]]>The post 3 Steps to Recession Proof Your Organisation appeared first on Okappy.
]]>It’s official. We’re in a recession. UK economic growth has been in the negative, dropping by 20.4% between April and June 2020. It’s worth remembering that most of the damage was done in April, during peak lockdown. GDP growth has been creeping up since May and if you have a look at the Okappy business activity index page it shows that work has been bouncing back.
But, in these uncertain times, there are things you can do to help your workplace get in the best possible position to ride it through. Here are our 3 steps:
Chances are, the plan you had at the start of 2020 for your company or department has gone out of the window. In the chaos of lockdown, you may not have had a chance to properly revisit it. Have a look at some of the key targets you set at the beginning of the year and see how they can fit in now. If they’re no longer applicable, scrap them and work out what they should be for the rest of Q3 and Q4, moving into 2021.
The most important things to consider are the key risks to your area of the business. Work out whether the risk is too high for certain aspects and respond by spreading the risk. This could include taking steps to reducing debt or moving some of your business operations to a different location.
Following on from assessing risk, scenario analysis can be a helpful way to test different models to help mitigate future loss. Start by defining the objective and gathering data. Identify the key factors, trends, and uncertainties that may affect your plan when it comes to operations and finances.
It might be helpful to do a PEST analysis to help you analyse the political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological changes in your business environment. You can develop potential scenarios by separating certainties from uncertainties to understand the risks to your workplace in the short, medium and long term.
Having a large volume of jobs doesn’t necessarily mean your workplace will come out top – the real defining factor is cash. A review of your business finances will be a big part of recession-proofing your organisation. Take a long hard look at the state of your cash flow within your department. What you have coming in and out – and when – will have a knock on effect on whether your workplace is in a fit state to ride this out.
Work out if there are any unnecessary expenditures that your team can permanently or temporarily cut. Have a look at what sorts of clientele are bringing in cash and paying invoices on time. Can you focus efforts on helping to secure more of the same?
If you’ve done all of this, but capital is holding your department back or you’re not able to cover the costs to pay the suppliers and team – a business loan could be a backup option. For businesses affected by Covid-19, many banks are offering special rates and application criteria, so it’s worth looking around at what is on offer for your organisation. Have a look at what government support is on offer too, as there may be a particular grant or scheme that you’re eligible for that will give your workplace the boost it needs.
Staying connected with industry stakeholders is paramount for business longevity. This relies on healthy channels of communication between departments, employees, managers, customers and subcontractors.
Having one platform where communication takes place and is documented means that key details involving all aspects of the work are readily available and can be tracked if required. If your current channels of communication are fragmented and broken, it’s worth considering changing your methods. This way you will have all your information at your fingertips and your business will be ready to jump into action, instead of being caught up trying to trace what happened in the past.
Okappy can help. It saves you time, minimises mistakes, streamlines jobs and invoicing, and by integrating with Xero and other accounting packages, it offers tidy balance sheets you can show to your bank when you need a loan.
Ready to make your life easier with Okappy? Check out our free trial or request a demo to see Okappy in action!
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]]>The post How to Rebuild Trust In the FM Industry appeared first on Okappy.
]]>The construction and FM industry is crying out for change. Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, productivity in the UK has flatlined – and the construction industry has been one of the worst affected sectors. With the unprecedented impact of Covid-19 and the UK in recession once more, the industry will have to adapt or face the consequences.
Trust is paramount if companies are going to work together successfully. Construction projects are the backbone of economic growth for many countries. Each year a magnitude of funds is funnelled into infrastructure projects – think HS2 and Crossrail in the UK.
But often because of the sheer scale and complexity of these construction projects (the number of phases and contractual links, and the government involvement), scope for corruption in the industry is high.
According to data from the Insolvency Service, the construction sector remains the second-highest ranking sector for insolvencies in 2017. This lack of trust and transparency, is not only detrimental to the future of the industry, but it is costing lives.
It comes as no surprise that the investigation into the Grenfell fire found out that the main contractor behind the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower offered cheaper, more combustible cladding while misrepresenting the savings the switch would lead to in a bid to “pocket the difference.”
Dealing with large contractors like Rydon, in particular construction, facilities management or housing association organisations can pose big challenges for industry stakeholders. Often, it becomes all about pushing the costs down to the next person in the chain.
Feedback from an anonymous stakeholder working in construction reported how “there’s just no trust there, we have to hide our costs and add in extra costs because we know they’ll come up with any excuse to discount, delay or not pay our invoice.”
Now, with the unprecedented impact of Covid-19 and the UK in recession, having a solid foundation of trust is more critical than ever – not only for the survival of the industry, but for the health and safety of ordinary people living in the UK.
Market Networks connect businesses with their customers and subcontractors. In this respect, they are similar to on-demand smartphone apps such as Uber and Deliveroo that connect their gig workers with customers – except that the users of Market Networks are not anonymous, nor are they particularly disposable to one another either. In fact, Market Networks are used to improve transparency and build long-term relationships.
Market Networks are typically created within a specific industry or around a particular area of expertise. Examples of Market Networks already operating within the UK include Houzz for home designers, Eventerprise for event planners, and for those in the trade industries – Okappy.
While the use of Market Networks is not yet widespread within the Construction industry, there are nevertheless several success stories of companies and individuals implementing Market Network systems already.
Convert Water Ltd offer an all-round service to their customers, providing all elements of treatment and pumping of wastewater and sewage. They provide services as installers, subcontractors or main contractors, offering a total service package. They started using the Okappy Market Network to manage their workforce.
Following implementation, Convert Water Ltd and their customers have a lot more visibility and control over the work they do. Information is updated in real-time and instantly available to all stakeholders, resulting in fewer calls from customers wondering about the status of a job and less chasing for information from their technicians. This extra time enabled Convert Water Ltd to focus on the areas of the business that really needed attention; resulting in growing the company approximately 40% year-on-year.
“It frees up our time and allows me to spend more of it visiting sites and bringing in more work. This wouldn’t have been possible without Okappy! My engineers can add jobs for themselves so, if additional work needs to be done while on site, they can quickly add it on. Alternatively, if they need to go back to do further work, they can schedule it straight away without having to chase me.” – Anthony, Director of Convert Water.
“Covid-19 was the tipping point for us going fully digital. If Covid-19 hadn’t happened, we would have eventually gone down this route, but probably would have introduced it on a smaller scale with one contract at a time.” – Ewen Maclean, Facilities Maintenance Manager at Lewis Builders Ltd.
Covid-19 is causing us to rethink how we work and restructure industries across the board. If the FM and Construction sectors don’t make changes now, it could be too late.
Okappy is designed to streamline your communications and workforce management processes, and is one solution that could help reduce disruption to your business. With Okappy you can communicate with your network, send and receive jobs, manage your workforce remotely, run reports, and raise invoices – all on one platform. You can receive updates to job details as they happen and view all important documents needed for the work in one secure place. To learn more, request a call here.
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]]>The post Case Study: Lewis Builders Ltd appeared first on Okappy.
]]>Lewis Builders Ltd are located in the Western Isles of Scotland and provide Building services, Civils, Plumbing ( gas and oil services) for both commercial and domestic contexts as well as Electrical and Refrigeration.
We interviewed Ewen Maclean, Facilities Maintenance Manager at Lewis Builders Ltd, about how they’ve adapted to Covid-19 and how Okappy is working for them! Read on for more…
We started as a construction company in 1989. Since then we’ve progressed into being a multi-trade organisation. We are involved with plumbing, gas and oil, for both commercial and domestic contexts. We also work in areas of electrical and refrigeration.
Within the building sector we pretty much cover all trades, ranging from scaffolding and joinery, to painting and decorating. We’ve grown quite substantially over the last 10 years or so, and it’s much easier to have everything underneath the one roof! We cover the whole of the Western Isles from the Isle of Barra all the way up to the Isle of Lewis. There are about 70-80 people in the company with about 15 office and management staff, and around 60 engineers.
We use Okappy for managing smaller jobs that we used to use job cards for. Now we’ve got about 20 different people using tablets to manage these types of jobs.
I started with the company just over 7 years ago and I have always been involved with looking after reactive/facilities maintenance. We started getting quite a lot of work from FM companies looking after the supermarkets up here. That then went to looking after the post and sorting office and various other commercial properties. Then about 2 years ago, we got a substantial size contact with the local council looking after all the council properties on the island.
Often the islands can be slower to uptake to technology, but we knew that on the mainland most of the management was being done digitally with handheld devices. A lot of the FM companies now want to have access to a system that gives them reference points for information around job timings and location, e.g. for when you’re going on-site and sign onto the job etc.
We knew that digital was the way things were going, but we were a bit hesitant to start with because of what the cost may be. In order to keep all the operatives working on facilities maintenance jobs, going fully digital would require us to buy an individual tablet or iPad for each person, on top of buying the software and training program. So we thought it was going to be quite a costly thing.
Then obviously with everything that’s happened with Covid-19, we felt that now was the time to go as paperless as possible. Covid-19 pushed us to make the jump to digital a bit sooner, but it seems to be working pretty well for us so far!
We essentially used paper job cards with an excel-spreadsheet-based system. We logged all the job information that way and did monthly reviews on the system to see what jobs went out, what ones we hadn’t billed for yet, and what ones were on hold etc. It was straightforward, but very time-consuming and there was a lot of paper involved!
A job card would be sent out and when it came back, it would come back with other bits of paper from the different companies who had their own job sheets they wanted signed as well. You were coming back with four sheets of paper! Then there was the invoice to go on top of that! A paperless system seemed to be the best way to avoid this kind of excess movement of paperwork between people. It’s worked out really well for us so far!
We’re still in the very early stages, as we’ve only had the system for 5 or 6 weeks so far [July 2020]. During the first couple of weeks, we were still running a skeleton crew back from reopening after COVID. I’d say we’ve been using it in full swing now for about 4 weeks.
In terms of raising a job, and sending job information out – it’s been a massive time saver. We’re still learning different things and we’ve been really lucky that any question we’ve posed has been answered by the Okappy team pretty quickly as well! I can’t say that there’s anything I’ve asked that we haven’t been able to come to some sort of agreeable solution with. It’s worked very well for us.
We do have some people who are not so used to technology that are slower on the uptake, but even they’ve noticed that there’s a massive difference in the time it takes to set up a job and send them out. It’s definitely for the greater benefit long-term for us – without a doubt! I can only see it getting better and better for us, as soon as we get used to it.
Every different company we work for uses their own system for monitoring jobs, but it’s something that we’re going to possibly think about later. I think getting it working for us first, before we start introducing any of our subcontractors is the best way forward.
Covid-19 was the tipping point for us going fully digital. If Covid-19 hadn’t happened, we would have eventually gone down this route, but probably would have introduced it on a smaller scale with one contract at a time.
We cover pretty much all the trades for the local council. That’s around 200 different sites between all the schools, care homes and places like that. We would have possibly been using it on those contracts first and reviewed how it would’ve worked, before introducing it across more and more of the stakeholders that we work for. When Covid-19 came along it pushed us down the line of going as paperless as possible.
We’ve introduced it across the whole company for every minor contract that we have. It’s probably been a good thing in a way because we’re pushing ourselves into just bringing it across the board, which I think is quite important.
We were at that crossroads as a company anyway. The company was set up by 2 people and one of them actually just retired a few weeks ago. Our company structure was changing and 2 new management people have come in. We had to change quite a lot of the systems and policies that we had. It’s definitely a growth stage for us.
We’re putting money into having new vans and new machinery that’s required. We’ve upgraded a lot of our welfare facilities.
But we have to remember – it’s one step at a time. We’ve got operatives that are not so used to this kind of technology and it takes time to adapt. We’re changing a system that’s been in place for more than a decade and we’ve got to be careful. But, we’re definitely adapting and looking to grow in any way that we can!
I would say the best thing about Okappy is just being able to get instant updates on jobs. I used to get upwards of 15 calls a day asking me for an update on a job and what’s required, so being able to go in and just have all the information there, when they signed on, whenever the job’s complete, photos of any parts that are required and what was done on the job – it’s just brilliant! It’s such a massive, massive time-saver on my side of things.
I would just say that everyone we’ve dealt with within Okappy has been extremely helpful. It’s maybe a cliched thing to say, but we’ve dealt with Joe and there’ve been a couple of different people that have helped us with technical issues. Joe was especially fantastic, and did a lot at the start. I think it’s a great system. Like I said, we’re still learning and adapting to it, but I see it being very beneficial for us in the future.
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]]>The post Case Study: Discovery Fire Sprinklers Ltd appeared first on Okappy.
]]>Discovery Fire Sprinklers Ltd are located in Dundee and provide commercial fire protection services and domestic fire protection services in Dundee and throughout Scotland. They travel the UK fitting fire suppression systems to schools, care homes, houses and flats. They’ve been trading for 20 years, but only in the last year did they change their name to Discovery Fire Sprinklers – a move that has brought in more business!
We interviewed James Bryceland about how they’ve adapted to Covid-19 and how Okappy is working for them! Read on for more…
We currently have 14 engineers, and 5 in the office.
The amount of work that we had on and the amount of contracts we were juggling was becoming a struggle to manage properly. Right now, we’ve got over 1000 jobs that we’re pricing for and nearly 70 or 80 contracts. Trying to keep on track of all that was becoming a big challenge for me and the people in the office.
We were missing out on loads of work because of it. There were some times that we were forgetting to bill people. There was so much going on that we were forgetting to raise invoices! I needed something that was going to be a bit more user friendly for me, but at the same time, run all the jobs in real-time.
Before, we had a quality management system in place that we used alongside emails and job files. Emails and job files were just saved onto the company server. We had to keep going in and out to get information. This meant duplicating information between systems, which was off-putting and tedious.
With Okappy it’s all in one place, including the client’s paperwork, so it’s much easier to find documents to send off! I tested out three softwares previous to Okappy, but I didn’t get on with them. I thought they were too hard to understand. Okappy is so simple and easy, and that was the decision maker.
Obviously with COVID-19, it’s quite hard to say exactly because I’m working from home. Once we get back properly working on building sites, I’ll have a better idea then.
It has already 100% saved me time on the paperwork side. Before, the guys would come back with the paperwork, then I would then go and type it all out on the computer and then send it to the client. Now, the guys are closing the job off while they’re on the job, so I’ve already saved some time.
Before it could have taken a couple of days, or sometimes up to a week, for me to get that paperwork back. I’m actually doing it the same day that they’re closing the job off. Raising an invoice on Okappy takes 2 seconds. Before, it would sometimes take a week depending on when we got the paperwork, because our guys are all subcontractors. Our clients are now getting that invoice a week earlier, so in the long run we’re going to be getting paid quicker.
We’ve been lucky enough to still be working – concentrating on securing maintenance contracts through this time. We’ve spent quite a bit of money on our PPE, including some branded masks. We’ve got new equipment, and got all our policies in check to make sure that the guys all know what they’re doing when they fully come back, so there’s no issues.
It’s affecting everybody, isn’t it? Even over the next few months it’s probably still going to be affecting people. I think it’s going to be hard for a lot of guys coming back to work because they’ll have to adapt to a whole new way of working. This is a change, isn’t it? Nobody likes change and this is exactly what it is – you’ve got to change the way that you’re doing stuff.
Now that we have Okappy, I feel more equipped to adapt to future changes because of our improved efficiency, but for many businesses – some of them will struggle. Okappy has helped us adapt and it’s probably put us ahead of the curve.
We’ve got a couple of subcontractors that do work for us, and they’ve also got Okappy. I invited them onto it and told them that this was the way. There’s going to be twelve of them altogether, by the time we are done. These are subcontractors that we’ll be working with quite regularly. The networked element to Okappy helps to streamline what we all do along the chain of work. It basically means we don’t have to duplicate job information between different systems!
Yes, we’re on Linkedin and Instagram. I initially set it up on Instagram about three or four year ago, but it’s grown to over 600 followers now. People have actually messaged me for jobs on Instagram. We get messages from individuals and businesses, but normally businesses. Linkedin has probably got me a lot more work.
Efficiency. It’s a lot easier to manage. I’m actually out working again, instead of sitting at a desk just going through all the files. It’s got me back doing the parts of the job that I enjoy! We’re actually keeping on track of everything just now.
With Okappy, when all the guys are on site – I know that they’re on site. When all the guys complete a job – the information comes back to me. I can then easily raise an invoice. It’s so much more efficient now even though it’s early days! I put a lot of work on the system within the first two weeks and I’m really happy with the way it runs. It’s brilliant, I absolutely love it. It’s made my life a lot easier, anyway.
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