As we make progress through this “new” millennium a variety of market forces increasingly dictate that businesses must regularly adapt and
change – and therefore relocate in one form or another. Consequently the word churn is no longer really anything to do with storing milk,
having morphed into the Facility Manager’s lexicon to describe the frequent need to move staff and desks from one part of a building to
another in order to cope with yet another, market force dictated change.
The modern Facility Manager has therefore acquired high levels of churning competence and expertise but only a few have first hand
experience and competence in relocating staff and functionality to entirely new premises or sites well away from their existing location. In this article we therefore focus on some of the main issues which the Facility Manager is likely to face in preparing for, and dealing with, a longer distance move.
Push and Pull Factors
All business moves are driven by commercial considerations. Naturally these will vary depending on the sector and markets within which each employer operates and are often summarised under the heading of “Push” and “Pull” factors. At the outset it’s therefore helpful to understand which factor is behind the decision to move lock, stock and barrel to the new location. Examples of push factors include the need to expand or downsize, to exploit new markets, reduce costs, develop new products or move to less expensive areas with lower labour costs and staff turnover. Pull factors (essentially the opposite of push factors) include areas with less congestion and those offering grants and incentives. And of course accessibility and traffic congestion related concerns also affect key issues such as travel to work times, access to airports, suppliers and customers.
The Initial Stage
Once the announcement of a move has been made there is invariably an initial period during which staff will become unsettled and uncertain
about their, and their family’s future, posing questions like – will we be kept on, what’s it like there and do we really want to go? And whilst HR will be the main department within the organisation staff will turn to in order to answer these questions the Facility Manager, as a line manager, will need to have the answers available too. So close and regular collaboration between all the departmental heads at this early stage will be crucial in maintaining and bolstering morale within the organisation.
First Preparations for the Move
Relocation creates a major catalyst and opportunity for change. Rather like a fountain it produces a seemingly never ending cascade of
issues which have to be considered and resolved. And in so doing management is provided with the opportunity to re-examine the way things are
done today to see if they could perhaps be done better tomorrow.
Facility Managers thus become pivotal players in the overall relocation project and need to look ahead to identify (perhaps with outside assistance in some cases) if the relocation project will generate the need for new or one-off services, above and beyond those which are currently utilised.
Creating a Relo-Hub Team
Although businesses are invariably split up into different departments, divisions and sections the reality is that a holistic linkage must always exist between to allow the business to function effectively. In order to be successful relocation projects should therefore always be structured in such a way as to give a voice to the key players within the organisation.
Our very strong advice to employers contemplating or considering relocation is to set up what we call a “Relo-Hub” project team made
up of representatives from each department, division or section, chaired by someone at executive level and with an internal or external
project manager tasked to make it all happen, keep it on track and deliver the completed project on time and within budget.The Facility Manager should be a key member of this Relo-Hub and sit at the table with colleagues from (as a minimum) Finance, HR and IT, together with the appointed external or internal project manager and someone at board level able to make executive decisions. This tightly knit team should set and control the budget and meet at least fortnightly to control the entire project.
Planning New Space Needs
One of the earliest questions to resolve is how much space do we actually need and we are often surprised how many organisations actually get it wrong – sometimes spectacularly so, raising the vision of either double Decker desks or almost empty floors.
Here the Facility Manager has a crucial role of course. It will be largely his or her task to carefully examine the board’s ideas about how many square feet or metres of floor space will be needed in the new building. Proposed floor layouts can be discussed and tested in collaboration with the IT and HR teams so as to ensure an accurate brief is provided to the appointed search and acquisition agents.
The People Side of Things
In a wholesale move to a new location whilst the “soft” or people side of things is largely the responsibility of the HR team the Facility Manager will provide a valuable source of information and back up to HR which can be regularly reviewed within the Relo-Hub team.
It’s one thing to churn people, offices and work stations within an existing building but quite another to ask people to work in a different
location altogether and possibly face the prospect of having to move home or being made redundant. For HR, relocating people can be
fraught with all sorts of problems and they can do with any help they can get.
Typically their concerns will focus in a number of
key areas. These will be encapsulated within the Relocation Policy and will include;
- The need to determine who will be entitled to what if they move home at the request of the company
- What support will be provided to the family and/or children
- How many look see visits back and forth will be covered
- How close to the new facility will staff need to live in order to be entitled to relocation assistance
- What terms and conditions will apply to those being made redundant
- How will new staff be recruited
- How do we apply equality between the entitlement of staff holding different jobs
Within the Relo-Hub team the Facility Manager will become an ideal sounding board for the HR team to make sure the policy properly reflects the ethos and culture of the organisation and is seen by employees as open, transparent and equitable.
Utilisation of Space
In this area the Facility Manager can help rationalise and integrate the space needs which each individual department requires. Our own
experience is that this is best achieved by using a “quality circle” approach to examine how the flows between each department actually work. In other words, which department provides and receives services to/from each other department. For example marketing provides services to sales, and sales to accounts, whilst marketing receives services from sales and financial information from accounts.
A clear understanding of how this information and data is exchanged between the different departments can then be used to review the
space adjacencies needs of each department to ensure closer collaboration and better productive input and output for the whole business.
Space Planning
Armed with the information and data from the quality circles research the Facility Manager will be able to start planning the layouts for the new building. Most larger companies already have suitable software packages to produce a variety of suggested layouts which can then be discussed with each department and of course within the Relo-Hub team. And employers without the appropriate software will be able to outsource this task to a wide variety of suppliers.
Parking Needs
Staff parking is almost always a contentious issue – and often the bane of a Facility Manager’s life. Moving into existing older buildings means you should be able to clearly establish what’s available on site. But moving into buildings constructed more recently can be more
problematic.
Local Planning Authorities have tightened up considerably on parking by reducing the number of permitted parking spaces per square foot of
space within the building. It is always worth remembering that ratios in cities and town centres are niggardly whereas ratios on out of town
Business Parks are much more generous. An interesting ploy now adopted by some developers is to charge an extra annual fee per space – on
top of the annual rent and service charges.
Choosing the Right Contractor
Moving to a new location will often create the need for both replacement contractors and contractors with skills specific to the relocation
project itself. If you already have well proven and reliable service suppliers at the former location the chances are you will want to use them at the new building – subject perhaps to getting alternative quotes as part of a tender process. The most difficult task is always to identify, at the earliest opportunity, the range and scope of the services you will need.
For a Facility Manager the most likely “new” service suppliers are likely to include;
- Quantity surveyors
- Space planners
- Furniture suppliers
- Trunking specialists
- Fit out contractors
- Security and CCTV companies
- Health and safety and fire compliance companies
- Removal companies, and
- Move management specialists offering turnkey relocation on a ”close here on Friday and start work there as normal on Monday morning” basis
How to Choose a Supplier
As in most cases the best way is to ask for competitive quotes and for a client list so you can talk to existing customers. Check out which
professional body’s they belong to and ask to see their accounts as well as running checks on them with, say Dunn & Bradstreet. And always ask to visit them in person to meet the people who will do the job.
In Summary
Facility Managers already have a pivotal role in local moves or churn within existing facilities. But if the move is to a new and further flung location is to succeed the need for their involvement is absolutely crucial.
Stuart Mitchell
Senior Partner
Business Moves Advisory Centre
Published in Qube Magazine – May 2006
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