Condeco Implements Office Return Solution
A multinational food manufacturer was looking to partner with a workspace solutions provider to quickly implement a post-pandemic return to office solution across ten offices. Ideally, employees could continue to work from home if they wanted but would have the facilities readily available to work from the office if required – Condeco had the answer.
Kellogg’s is one of the world’s biggest food companies and is the owner of household names like Corn Flakes, Pop-Tarts and Pringles. Founded in the US state of Michigan as the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company in 1906, it has expanded to become a cereal and convenience food giant that makes and sells its products in more than 180 countries. Its European operations are spread across ten offices and employ around 2000 people.
The workforce of Kellogg’s was suddenly forced into remote working in early 2020 due to the restrictions put in place to respond to COVID-19. As those restrictions were gradually eased over the summer, Kellogg’s needed to find a way to bring staff back into office working, in a way that maintained business operations but did not compromise employee health or well-being.
Kellogg’s was seeking a workspace booking solution that would give their employees full flexibility over their working arrangements. Ideally, employees could continue to work from home if they wanted but would have the facilities readily available to work from the office if required. Importantly, Kellogg’s was looking for a fast implementation to meet a reopening date commitment that the management had made to the workforce.
Kellogg’s turned to Condeco as, in its view, the only provider that could implement an integrated workspace booking solution within the desired timeframe. Initially, a pilot scheme was run for 60 employees at its facility in Manchester, UK, and after the success of this, the solution was rolled out to all ten offices. Condeco provided weekly support to Kellogg’s throughout the process to ensure the implementation stayed on track.
Within the workspace booking system, employees were able to reserve workstations in the office in advance, for the days and times which they needed them for. This runs across the web and a mobile app, with the usage of the two options, split approximately 50/50 across the Kellogg’s workforce. The Condeco solution has each office’s floor plan mapped out with reduced capacities for social distancing taken into account, with the ability to vary arrangements and responses to suit each individual site. With offices spread across different countries, each office was subject to its own rules and restrictions. The flexibility of the Condeco solution allowed Kellogg’s to respond to these differences and make changes as governments adjusted regulations on an ongoing basis.
The Condeco solution has helped Kellogg’s put a flexible work policy into place that has been very well-received by the workforce. As well as inspiring confidence among employees that they can work from offices safely, it has made them feel that they can be productive when they attend, to the extent that the majority of staff have continued to work from the office.
At two particular offices, in Paris, France and Hamburg, Germany, Kellogg’s reduced its workstation capacity to 50 percent, only to find that demand exceeded supply and more employees wanted to return to the office than were desks available. Not only did this give Kellogg’s confidence that employees were happy with the new arrangements, but it gave them valuable data on reshaping their office designs in the future to match demand.
From Kellogg’s perspective, the information within the workspace booking system has helped underpin their COVID-19 response, in terms of any incident reporting or management requirements upon them should an employee become infected or show symptoms. They have reported positive feedback from employees at every stage of the user lifecycle, from experienced employees to new recruits. They are evaluating how analytics can help them manage office occupancy better in the future. The success of the implementation is such that it has led Kellogg’s to not only consider rolling out the Condeco solution to its offices around the world but also to consider how working arrangements and real estate can be reshaped long-term.