FMJ.CO.UK SUSTAINABLE WELLBEING FOCUS
ROUNDTABLE
JULY 2022 29
It was agreed that an important factor is in figuring
out what people want. “It’s not just about getting
people back into the workplace, but what they do
when they get there. It’s good having collaboration
areas, and focused places etc, but is it actually being
used in that way? Have you got enough meeting
areas, enough private areas, are people just coming
in because they want a change from the home
o ice, are they not coming in enough? We need
to do the analysis and then do that whole change
management piece.”
Q: What are the greatest changes and challenges
in the immediate a ermath of the pandemic?
Overcoming ingrained behaviour was mooted as
something of an unforeseen issue. “People were
told to work from home, so we’re now in the process
of figuring out how we engage them back into the
building.” It also comes down to the activity that
people are doing in the o ice, as one panellist
explained: “It must link back to purpose, and a lot of
people question ‘why spend so much time travelling
when you can do exactly the same at home?’”
Another challenge is in trying to encourage people
not to go back to the way things were before. For
instance, people booking a meeting room when it’s
not confidential and there are instead a range of
collaborative spaces they could choose instead.
According to Zip’s Daniel Johnson, having access
to chilled water while ensuring the taps were
sanitised was a requirement for clients arranging,
“return to work days when the building would
go live, so we took a lot of time to work with the
customers as top of the list was the provision of
food and drink to help entice people back into the
building.”
Q: How important a factor is sustaining
wellbeing in the push by organisations to meet
Environmental, Social, and Governance factors
(ESG)?
The panel agreed that when it comes to meeting
ESG, the FM’s core remit to achieve compliance
remains of huge importance. One said: “We’ve got
huge projects on fire safety management, installing
fire doors to meet legislative changes, and ensuring
we’re keeping people safe.”
And this responsibility also applies to the supply
chain, as Ferguson explains: “As a supplier we’re
being asked about what kind of environmental
targets we’re working towards, including the use
of electric vehicles. We’ve got half of our fleet using
EV and are putting the rest on hybrid.
We’re looking at our whole
end to end process as a
manufacturer, including
the use of solar power
and are seeing
these sustainable
requirements
more o en when
tendering or
retendering.”
Encouragingly,
the rise of ESG
is expanding
the influence of
FMs. One of our FM
panellists sits on four
steering groups because
there are so many links
from FM to other areas. “My
role is now more strategic because
of keeping abreast of other areas; including
supporting the voluntary sector for instance,
in terms of compliance assistance around their
properties.”
The pandemic and ESG also means that the silos
that used to exist between related disciplines, such
as HR or CRE are being breached: “We’ve been
calling for people and place to come together for
years, and this puts FM in a place it wasn’t in before.
If you can use ESG to leverage places on boards then
it’s to everyone’s advantage.”
Other ways our panellists are addressing ESG is
by organising wellbeing days, where sta can carry
out self-health checks, for instance blood pressure
checks. Other activities include bringing in local
food stallholders to sell a range of street food,
which not only encourages sta to come into the
workplace, but helps support the local economy.
Q: Does the delivery of workplace sustenance
need to be radically rethought to meet the huge
change in work patterns?
It was agreed that we need to start with defining
what is hybrid, as we won’t go back to pre-pandemic
styles of working but we need to determine what
will take its place. This most felt, appears to be
down to each organisation’s style of leadership
which influence work patterns. A straw poll of
our panel revealed that just one organisation was
operating on full attendance five days a week, a
small number were seeing an average of 60 per cent
capacity three days a week and the rest hovered at
around 40 per cent.
Hybrid working patterns have of course a ected
how food and drink services are managed.
Catering facilities became unviable during
the pandemic and there was a split between
organisations that decided to reinvest in facilities
and use them as a way to bring people back to the
o ice, and others who decided it was unviable.
One panellist admitted that as numbers dropped
they lost their catering provider and are deciding
whether to lease the space to a new
provider or instead install a fresh
vend o er. “But people are
coming around to the
idea that you need
something, as it’s
a key part of the
workplace o er.”
It was agreed that we need to
start with defi ning what is hybrid,
as we won’t go back to pre-pandemic
styles of working but we need to
determine what will take its place. This
most felt, appears to be down to each
organisation’s style of leadership
Access to
hot and cold
drinks remains
essential, but
as Ferguson
explained this
varies in how it’s
provided: “Some
clients have more
centralised hydration
areas in kitchen areas, while
others may place taps at the end
of a bank of desks. We do see multiple
which infl uence work
patterns.”
products being installed, so instead of having
just one tap they’ll have a number as they’re used
flexibly throughout the day. They’re also used as a
reason to have that five-minute chat, and get away
from the desk, to have a cup of tea or co ee or grab
a water.”