Concierge and other services to businesses - Changing needs & perspectives

NEEDS AND REQUESTS : CUSTOMISED OFFERING

Q : How would you define your operations?

L. Soetens: We (Burogest) are a facility services business. Our aim is to help businesses (mainly SMEs with 10 to 500 employees across all economic sectors) to focus on their core business, essential for their development.

In practical terms, our role is to deal with the support tasks, by sharing human resources (skills) and physical resources (workspaces).

So, by taking over administrative tasks (secretarial, remote secretarial, consultancy for admin, finance and HR management, support for digital comms), we not only free the company from having to deal with these responsibilities, but also respond to their increasing need for flexibility. The skills needed are therefore provided ‘on demand’ (hours and duration adjusted to fit operational imperatives).

Alongside this, the need for workspaces and workstations has to comply with the hybrid concept (in-person >< remote). Here too, our role is to provide an all-inclusive, ‘customised’ spatial solution (layout and equipment).

Initially, this requires an understanding of the company’s needs (analysing its operational modes) and then secondly, a calculation of the office space needed, according to three major components:

• shared spaces (e.g. meeting rooms);
• shared or individual workstations (depending on the number of employees working from home);
• recreation areas (offices have now become places for colleagues to meet, share and socialise).

The size and structure of the layout for the office space is thus determined by these three elements. 

ATTRACTING AND KEEPING TALENT

In her response, B. Verstuyft emphasises the new socio-economic model offered: “It shows increased turnover of company personnel (average frequency at which the younger generation of employees changes jobs is now every 5 to 7 years). Given this, concierge services provide benefits both for attracting and for retaining talent.

If the New Way of Working is now imposing a necessary (re-)development of workspaces, it has become vital to consider personal well-being - in all its aspects - for company recruitment strategies.

It should be noted besides that this well-being dimension features as the ‘S’ of the ESG (*) criteria, bearing on the company’s impact on its human eco-systems (employees, clients, suppliers, local communities, gender representation, etc.). 

In practical terms, aside from a modification to the ‘remuneration package’ of employees (the car is no longer the first choice), the well-being aspect relates to the benefits an employee may gain for their personal/family/work life balance.

In general, among employees, the basic concept underlying this model becomes: With the possibilities (and convenience) offered by remote working, my presence in the office must come with a number of benefits. What are you offering me?

This leads us (Easyday) to broaden the range of our services, including the ‘fridge’ (working with a caterer to provide food), a laundry service, a maintenance products package (refills at work), yoga classes, etc.

Alongside these, we also take on the organisation of collective meeting room schedules. This has become even more ‘critical’, as employees come to the office simultaneously some 2 or 3 days a week.” 

Confirming the major changes in the way businesses operate, S. Sagman puts the role of Growners into context. “As owner and lessor of tertiary ‘bespoke’ properties (**), mainly covering 100 to 500 m², and intended for SMEs and/or independent businesses (accountants, lawyers, IT, etc.), we have observed an increased level of queries raised by companies about the leased premises.  This questioning process covers a range of more pragmatic sub-queries: What do we really need in terms of location, performance, and arrangement of the premises? How can we motivate colleagues to return to the office? etc.

In this context, it is clear that provision of ‘personalised’ services within our properties has become an essential issue, the solution for which lies in the delivery of ‘package’ or ‘à la carte’ (pay-as-you-use) services, from Easyday and Burogest.

In addition, many companies that formerly reduced their office capacity (effects of home working), have now partly or totally reconsidered this decision. The value of having all employees present together in the office 2 or 3 days a week (avoiding the silo effect) is the motive for this review.” 

“An attitude which also depends on the company’s own core business. A mainly commercial operation requires less space than an administrative operation”, explains L. Soetens.

COST / BENEFIT

Q. : Can the gains (cost/benefit) of facility and concierge services be quantified?

“This question refers to the quantification of employee well-being. It is hard to say,” comments B. Verstuyft, who underlines nonetheless that “studies show that well-being in the office significantly reduces absenteeism rates.”

“Regarding cost,” observes L. Soetens, “it is clear that leasing space ‘with services’ (inclusive of charges) costs 15 to 20% more than that for the premises alone. On the other hand, provision of collective (shared) spaces for meetings or other activities helps optimise, and thus reduce, pro rata, the fixed, leased areas. Eventually, the costs are very much the same”.

Returning to the spaces/services concept, S. Sagman highlights two points:

• The value of services (especially catering) is especially important for buildings ‘in the middle of nowhere’, with no local provision;
• As far as possible, we include shared spaces, reserved and set aside for Easyday (e.g. for yoga classes) in some buildings. This is the case for the Park Station building (Diegem). 

BLUE/RED vs YELLOW/GREEN

“While it is true that the package of services offered within a building must relate to that in the immediate vicinity of the site, it is also true that the type of occupants (depending on the businesses) reveals a map of varying temperaments. The ‘blue/red’ - generally introverts - will eat a sandwich in front of their PC, while the ‘yellow/green’ - generally extroverts - will explore their surroundings”, explains L. Soetens. 

IN 5 OR 10 YEARS

Q. : If you look ahead 5 or 10 years, what development(s) do you predict in your core business?

L. Soetens: As we are already tending towards greater flexibility, creativity and agility (e.g.:  providing private offices 2 days/week, reorganising workstations as digitisation and remote working increases), this trend will increase to the benefit of the individual. This supports our need to be (very) close to people, in order to understand them better and thus respond to their expectations. The next ‘Connections Lab’ event forms part of this process for identifying common areas of interest for employees beyond their working life.”

Confirming this move towards the individual and their well-being, B. Verstuyft also observes “an increase in the provision of services and infrastructure (garages, workshops, showers, sports facilities, etc.) especially in relation to the development of soft mobility.

Another point is that as business spaces also become places for meeting, intended to bring employees together, demand is emerging for setting up ‘collective’ events (e.g. ‘well-being’ days).

Finally, the residential sector is increasingly opening up to services like ours. There are several reasons to explain this change, include a reduction in private spaces (+/-15%) and an increase in shared spaces (co-working areas, laundries, fitness, etc.), devoted to services.”

FROM THE OFFICE TO THE HOME AND BACK AGAIN  !

For S. Sagman, “it is clear that remote working is an acquired right which needs to be stabilised, but which will not be given up. Based on the principle of hybrid working (office/home) and an increasingly connected world (improving information flows) the change can be expressed as a formula: 

The more the workplace enters the home (home office), the more the home enters the workplace!

Hence living spaces expand within offices, with more spacious, better equipped and organised kitchenettes, or versatile areas (entrance hall, corridors) transformed into sitting areas (tables, chairs, pouffes, platforms, cosy corners, etc.).

As human well-being becomes the focal point for all business development strategy, it drives increased consideration for work, implemented especially through the provision of personal services”.

L. Soetens: “Hybridisation will be extended, beyond the sphere of the company HQ and the living space of the employee.  It will develop, with setting up of hubs intended to allow employees to come together (by geographical area) to experience the business culture without having to make lengthy journeys or enter cities! Businesses will seek a single solution which will provide them with a set of locations, spaces and services for use by their team members. This is what is offered by the brand-new platform Way’kUp !, launched at the end of last year.

“As the cities of the future respond to the message ‘forget your car’, this means not just catering for one section of the population, while another ‘emigrates’. It is a phenomenon already seen in Brussels. It is also justified because of the mediocre quality of public transport, the effects of which have been disastrous. While urban building projects multiply, transport is not keeping pace,” concludes B. Verstuyft.

(*) European metric, mandatory from 2024, the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria are used to assess a company’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) approach.  Going beyond economic aspects alone, these criteria take account of the social and environmental impact of a company’s operations.

(**) Approx. 50 tenants in 50 buildings.