Moving stories

When property consultant Lambert Smith Hampton alerted Independent Insurance that office space had become available on the sixth floor at 2 Minster Court in the City of London, the insurance company’s management team saw a golden opportunity to bring its London businesses together.

The 80-strong London underwriting team of Independent Insurance was located at 3 Minster Court, separate from the European insurance company’s main London base. The decision was made quickly to take the newly available 1,280m2 at number 2 where the company already had 2,580m2 on the fifth and eighth floors.

The only problem was the deadline. The facilities team had only seven weeks to prepare, plan and relocate the entire underwriting team next door. The management team at Independent Insurance wanted the new office to have an open-plan environment with three meeting rooms, four offices, two reception rooms and a communications room.

The company was moving into a cellular office that had to be totally stripped out, and quickly. Failure to meet the deadline could cost Independent up to £1 million per day in lost business.

Facilities controller Mike Palastanga and his team decided to bring in a relocation partner, GL Hearn FMS, to help with the move, and together they drew up a relocation plan. Both Palastanga and GL Hearn FMS’s Jenny Haig-Prothero agree that good communication was the key.

Success is all talk

‘You have to have good communication for a successful relocation and we had that with the planning teams from day one,’ says Palastanga. During the relocation, Palastanga’s team made a point of setting up strong communication channels with all the staff that would be affected by the move.

First, the facilities team contacted all their service suppliers and invited them to attend a meeting to discuss Independent’s requirements. The companies in attendance included GL Hearn FMS, which carried out the space planning and design, fit-out company The Interiors Group, furniture company Flexiform, computer and IT cabling contractor DACC, removals specialist Business Furniture Services and a number of in-house staff.

‘We rang around the suppliers and said if you want to be in on the move there is a meeting on Tuesday,’ says Palastanga. ‘In the end we had three managing directors at the meeting. The support we received from suppliers was incredible.’

He also says that it was important to set deadlines with each supplier during the initial discussions. At this stage the facilities team also talked through storage requirements for the general files, personal and departmental items during the move, and how they would transfer IT systems from number 3. These were loaded onto a lorry while IT specialists moved the network cabling and data trunks.

Liaison staff

During the seven week period communication channels between the planning teams and underwriting staff were maintained through a liaison officer who would meet with staff and raise any problems they had at the relocation planning meetings.

‘If staff hadn’t known what was happening, it would not have been a successful move,’ stresses Haig-Prothero. ‘It is also a combination of talking to both the staff and management to find the right balance,’ Palastanga adds.

The facilities team set up guided tours of the new office so staff could familiarise themselves with their new environment and personal work areas before moving. They also gave staff instructions about the move the weekend before it actually took place. All staff and customers were issued with an A4 drawing indicating where people would be located. A colour map board was left at reception showing the floor plans and highlighting the different work areas.

The facilities team also set up an emergency help-line to take calls once the move had taken place so any outstanding problems could be ironed out as soon as they arose – but it was hardly used. ‘There were only a couple of IT issues and a call asking to fix the coffee machine,’ says Haig-Prothero.

The communication strategy also involved Minster Court’s landlord, Prudential Portfolio Management. ‘We had a good relationship with our landlord,’ says Palastanga. ‘We had them up here discussing what we would need, when would need it, and generally asking for their advice.’

Throughout the relocation the facilities team held many of its planning meetings on-site to allow them to get a feel for the relocation. Meeting times were also kept flexible, with most lasting 45-50 minutes and held on an as-and-when basis. All meetings were documented so every member of the team had access to a written back-up copy.

‘Smaller projects can be run with a once-a-week project meeting, but we would have a project meeting as soon as a problem emerged. Within five minutes we were working on a solution,’ says Palastanga.

Other issues that had to be addressed included keeping staff fully informed of potential health and safety issues, and providing the building’s security service with the full details of everyone who would be coming in and out. ‘At Minster Court we had to give 24 hours’ notice and a full list of the contractors’ names and registration plates,’ says Haig-Prothero.

When the time came, the move was completed over a weekend.

Creating a new environment

Since 1990, BT has relocated more than 5,000 staff from central London to various locations outside the M25. As a consequence, property costs for the London estate have fallen from £1.2 billion in 1991 to £750 million.

But these cost savings tell only one part of BT’s relocation story. Under its much publicised Workstyle 2000 programme, BT’s aim has been to change the working lives of its employees by creating an environment that they want to work in. BT argues this adds up to an environment that is more productive. This includes bringing the workplace closer to where people live. ‘Our strategy is not to move the people to the jobs, but to move the jobs closer to the people,’ explains manager of workspace development at BT, Peter Cook.

Above all, says Cook, the relocations from central London have been used by BT as ‘a catalyst for change’.

BT’s Brentwood site, which became operational this March, is a prime example of this strategy. Feedback to-date from employees at the new Brentwood building has been good. ‘The managers on that site believe it is improving the productivity of their people because they enjoy coming to work,’ says Cook. ‘By moving people closer to where they live we are improving their life and reducing the costs to the company,’ he adds.

Features of many of the new properties developed to meet the Workstyle 2000 strategy include cafés for informal team meetings as well as more formal meeting rooms, and a mixture of short-stay flexible space, which can be pre-booked, as well as fully allocated desks.

BT’s Westside building at Hemel Hempstead has 1,500 people but only 1,200 workstations, with the emphasis on flexible teams. The company also aims to get more than one person using any workstation. ‘We are trying to make it so people can work where they want to work, at the time they want to work,’ explains Cook.

First principles

According to Cook the same principles apply to large scale relocations as smaller moves.

The first is to be clear about why the company is moving. He adds that, as an occupier, it is crucial to be decisive about what you want from the new building, since it is likely to have a life of 15 years.

He also stresses the value of balancing the needs of the business and the needs of the occupier: ‘You have to marry up the corporate objective of reducing costs, with the occupiers’ business support needs, which mean more costs.’

And, of course, allow plenty of time to plan.

Progress reports

During the move to Brentwood, managers were brought onto the site while the existing building, formerly St Faiths Hospital, was being demolished and throughout the early stages of construction of the new building. These managers reported progress to their employees.

At a later stage, quarterly visits were arranged for the management teams’ employees. Photographs of the site and the new facilities were also passed on regularly.

‘The managers then set up a team within their group of employees and that became the focus for any issues that the employees had,’ says Cook.

This group had 12 customer representatives who liaised with employees, two of whom reported back to the relocation team. This was an important process in weeding-out problems and suggestions that were not strictly a relocation issue.

‘The involvement with the occupier is fundamental to make a relocation successful. It is as much about the management of that group as about the physical building you provide, because the building entity and the costs are only two of the parameters,’ says Cook.

When the time came to move into the new Brentwood building, the relocation was phased, with priority given to the parts of the business that were essential to keep it running. ‘At Brentwood, we have a 24-hour group of customer service staff and we wanted to make sure their facilities were working as well as they possibly could be,’ says Cook.

Small ‘test’ groups were brought in and their progress monitored. ‘If anything goes wrong there is the fall back of keeping some people in the original location before solving the problem at the new one,’ explains Cook.

At most sites, the relocation took place over a weekend so as not to disrupt the business, and no more than 100 people were moved at a time.

‘Get a good team around you in terms of architects, surveyors and external contractors who understand what the business drivers are,’ advises Cook. ‘You must also be prepared to be unpopular as a client. You can not suit all the people all of the time.’