Does Workplace Experience Really Impact Business Performance?

Transcript

Claire: Hello and welcome to the Power of Possibility. I'm Claire Ward, Chief Innovation Officer here at SPS and I'm delighted to be joined by Debra Ward and Keith Seymour. And today we're going to be talking about the most important part of a modern workplace and that's its people and their experience. But before we dive into the subject, I just wanted to give a little bit of background on Deb's and Keith. Deb is a true entrepreneur.

and she's an internationally recognized leader in culture, people and workplace experience. Her career spans three continents and began remarkably early when she launched her first business when she was just 16 years old. Her roots are definitely in five-star hospitality and a high-profile restaurant management. She's backed by a degree in commerce, she has an MBA, she's qualified as an executive coach, also in workplace psychology and in digital marketing. And what's really interesting is Deb's the founder of yet another business and that is Live, Love, Learn, where she gets to work with global organizations to help them create, nurture and project strong corporate cultures. This is really important in the context of what we're going to be talking about today. She's been an award-winning speaker, and I'm really delighted to welcome you, Debra.

Keith and Deb are no strangers. They've worked together for many years, latterly at MITEI. But Keith is our Solution Director here at SPS. And he's built his career across workplace services, facilities management, records management, with senior experience, I say, at organizations like ISS and indeed MITEI. I can say at SPS, he's known for his highly analytical approach to data-driven solutions and is always keen to solve complex challenges. So, I'm really, really happy to have Keith on the panel today.

I would actually say you're also an active member of the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management. So, Keith sits on the many of the judging panels. So, it's worth looking out for him on LinkedIn in future. It's great pleasure to have you both here.

So back to today's topic, that's the modern workplace. But before we dive in, one of the things I've written down here is, let's be honest, the workplace isn't just an office today.

It's anywhere that work happens. And I can say from my own expectations that the expectations have shifted since the pandemic. And people have higher expectations from the workplace, intuitive systems, technology that works, and an experience that supports them rather than slows them down. People no longer tolerate the handbrakes.

And I think the other thing that's really interesting is the cost of the commute today: cost of living's going up and people are feeling that and often it's the people that they're expected to be in the office every day are often the ones that are on the lower salaries. So, the workplace or the office has to earn its place in today's equation, and that's the kind of things I'd really like us to explore today when we stop talking about the workplace experience and the importance of it.

Let's go back to the real point in question is how do we actually define workplace experience and how has it changed over the past few years? And I'd like to put that to you, Debra: your career spans a significant amount of time, and you must have seen some changes over the last few years.

Debra: Absolutely. Thanks for that question.

It has really changed and I think that the clue is in in what you actually said: workplace and experience. It's not just office and it's not just the job, and so those two words themselves are unique to today's world. We didn't have those before and, you know, you think of the battery farming of a desk where you just had row after row after row, and people just showed up, and if you don't want the job there's 20 people behind that are gonna put up with this kind of thing.

So, experience it's not like I said, it's not just a job anymore. It's actually what transpires during that time. As you said, you know, post COVID, when people had to work from home, everything was at their fingertips, right?

The coffee was the way they liked it. The lighting was the way they liked it. Their seat was adjusted to the way they liked it. They didn't have to fight for a desk. Their monitors were always positioned just for them. The temperature in the room was right. They could have as many or little plants as they wanted.

And I think that then having to come in and be dictated to, as to what your environment looks like, I think has shocked a lot of people. And as you said, the commute is expensive, and we do have to earn it.

Leesman put out a great survey: they have the Leesman index, which actually is a subjective monitor of how productive you are in your work environment, and they ask you how good it is, and then how important it is to your productivity.

Claire: I'm just going to hold you there. Some really interesting things to unpack there.

The two things that struck me there are firstly, the workforce has agency now because it's demonstrated that actually work doesn't have to take place in one environment, so the power has shifted.

And the second thing that strikes me is one size no longer fits all, and that we've got people that have created their own micro workplaces. That must be a real challenge for anybody who's in workplace planning to now deal with.

Debra: Yeah, absolutely.

Claire: Specially, you start to infer some of the things you then went on to talk about.

Debra: Well, the Leesman Index not only did, so they had that index before COVID and then they started to do the home index. So, they measured your home environment and your productivity, and they compared it to actually what was going on prior to COVID. And what they found is yes, the average office is worse than home.

Keith: About 10 points worse. In terms of your overall satisfaction with the physical space, and do you have everything that you need to do your work in the office, I think the average was about 69. At home It's something like 79. It's just because you can control, you know, you've got the screen you want, the temperature you want, you can do your focus work, you can have the privacy that you need for calls. And when you come into the office, there is that trade off, isn't it? And that tradeoff is often worth it because what you get is those spontaneous conversations and knowledge sharing and collaboration and socializing.

Claire: That idea, that concept that one size doesn't fit all. How are we having to plan for these new experiences then? So, what are organizations, workplace planners, what are we doing about that to adapt to those different needs? How do we accommodate people?

Debra: Well, Gensler did a study that said that 80 % of employees felt that having the different types of spaces created more productivity in the workplace. that's really significant because before you get the one size that fits all, here's what we are doing for you, take it or leave it. And now what we see a lot of big organizations and companies that really are focusing on employee experience are creating spaces, as Keith said, that are adapted for the types of work you do.

So, you'll have a concentration space, you'll have a collaboration space, you'll have a celebration space, you'll have a connected space, you'll have a correspondent space. And so, you can go to the right space for that work. Like I know for myself, if I'm reading a contract: A, it has to be first thing in the morning, and it has to be very quiet. So, I can't be in an open plan area to look at a contract.

So, I can pick up and move. And I think that's why the home has been so successful because you can be in your office or if you're reading a document, you might flake out on the couch and read your document there. And I think what we're doing is kind of learning from that as organizations and creating spaces that actually have that flexibility and variety that people are looking for.

Keith: Yeah, exactly. In terms of how knowledgeable we are about activity-based work, we've all learned what works for us. I know the times of day that I write best. I know the times of day where if I need to go through a spreadsheet when that works, if I'm going to have calls. So, I think we've just become much more self-aware in terms of what works for us. And then we've taken that into the office, and we've come with a different lens and thought, well, why do I have to work with this? Why do I have the same space for all of these very different functions?

Debra: Including the hours. Like, you know, they've done a lot of work now about teenagers and when their brains work. And some studies have been done about not starting school actually until 10 o'clock instead of 8.30 because teenagers take longer time to kind of kickstart their brains. They're not ready. And so, some people are better at, you know, burning the midnight oil. Other people are early risers.

Claire: I just, that becomes interesting because that then requires a mindset shift in leadership because leadership in the past was all about if I can see you, I can measure you, I can know what you're doing. What we're saying is actually I need trust. You need to trust me to get on and do my job, which is gonna bring me onto another thing. We talked about the place and the environment that I need to work in, but the thing is that really, there's a couple of things I wanna come back to. One is this productivity piece, investment and return on investment, which we'll kind of come back to.

But the other thing is around tools to be able to do the job and technology.

Keith, have you got any views on that? it's something we've talked a lot about?

Keith: Absolutely, I think it comes from the same place in terms of how willing we are to accept things that don't work particularly well? A really good example is you can you can book an Airbnb and you go you've never been there before you've never switched that TV on before when five minutes you're logged on to your Netflix and your Disney right you can do that really easily yet you come into an office that you've been into a hundred times before and you still can't connect to the meeting room screen, so I think these are the things what we do things have to be intuitive and they have to be simple. I think that's the key.

You come into an office that you've been into a hundred times before and yet you still can't connect to the meeting room screen. These are the things that need to be intuitive and simple. That's the key. Keith Seymour. Solutions Director, SPS 

Debra: And I think what's interesting is that what you said, it's also about a shift in leadership. That trust aspect is really important now. I mean, it was really important during COVID because you couldn't see anybody, right? You just, you know, we heard the stories of people attaching their mice to their dogs so they can go out golfing and their mouse was moving. So, it looked like they were actually available and things like that. But the reality is what we did is we trust people into a situation and primarily that middle management wasn't trained in output.

They were trained in presenteeism, as you said, you know, and we've all heard like people leaving their coats on the back of their chair. So, everybody's things are still there, and they've already gone to the pub or whatever it is. And so, I think that there's been a shift in how we lead people and trust, you know, if you look at Lencioni's calibers of trust, calibers of leadership, trust has to be first.

Claire: Bedrock. Just staying with that. We'll come back to technology. Let's stay with this idea of measuring performance because I'm fascinated by me. We are the least, as the UK is, the least productive it's been and we're becoming less productive in spite of innovations in technology and methodologies. Why is that? But we could go down a different rabbit hole there. But this idea of return on investment, investing in buildings and spaces. This isn't about putting more beanbags in. This isn't about creating slides. This is about creating workplaces with purpose. But again, that costs money and it requires an investment. So, when we talk about workplace experience and investing in workplace experience, whether that's policies, environments, technologies.

How can we measure the return on this investment? And I love the idea of linking it to outcomes rather than inputs. What's your view on that?

Debra: I mean, I've always said, and I think I said this to you previously that, you know, we've moved on. We used to be all about production, right? And we were really focused on how to make the production line faster, slicker, quicker, cheaper. Then it was all about processing and lean Six Sigma and you were nobody unless you wear a black belt and lean Six Sigma. And then we moved on to property, and it was rack pack and stack and how do you sweat the asset. And now we're on people. And the reality is that, you know, we've discovered that for every dollar spent on L and D and investment in people we are getting $7 back, right? That's huge. And you can see that when people are more engaged at work, there's higher productivity.

We've discovered that for every dollar spent on L and D and investment in people we are getting $7 back. That's huge. And you can see that when people are more engaged at work, there's higher productivity.Debra Ward

In fact, Forbes said that it was 21 % more profitability because you've invested in your people and they're more engaged. And that comes from creating that experience first.

Having a great, a positive employee experience first leads, so Forbes said that experience leads to engagement, and engagement is the key metric in increasing productivity, reducing absenteeism, reducing turnover, sickness, promotions go up, you know, so why wouldn't you, it just doesn't make sense, 21 % is a massive number in profitability. You know, instead of throwing more salespeople at it or slash it, burn it, pave it and cut costs, why would we not invest in our people?

Keith: There was another study, Business in the Community brought out a similar study but it was looking at it from a national level, was looking at it at GDP, so all the things you just mentioned, absenteeism, retention, productivity, and that was talking about numbers of between 6 % and 17 % on GDP. So, I think whether you're talking about a company's bottom line or the nation's line, it's like, the proof is there, I just think.

Claire: One delivers the other. This is what love, so what we're saying is the office is the physical in place that creates experience, then there's the technologies, the policies of the enablers, but the key thing I'm hearing from this is culture. It is intrinsic, isn't it, as part of workplace experience is the culture, fortunately, unfortunately comes from leadership.

Debra: Absolutely. Yeah, and it's a never-ending quest. During this whole, when the pandemic happened, 86 % of leaders said that their biggest concern was their company culture, because where's the loyalty if people aren't coming in? How are we infusing our culture into our people if they're actually not coming in to collaborate and to work with us and blah, blah? And so that's where technology comes in more into play. How do we connect with people? What if the office dies? Like, we keep thinking like, we keep thinking like we have to have an office and Keith, and I work a lot with FM people and they're always about promoting the office. Is that promoting the office because it's the right thing to do or promoting the office because we're afraid, we're not going to have jobs? So, let's take the extreme and say, what if there's no office? Where's FM's place in that? Where's, you know, employee experience in that? Where is corporate culture in that? And actually, going to the other extreme to learn that lesson about how we connect with people? It means, the social aspect of the office is massive.

They said that there's a 50 % increase in retention in people staying if they have one good friend at work. Isn't that amazing?

There's a 50 % increase in retention in people staying if they have one good friend at work. Debra Ward

Claire: That doesn't surprise me because the world is a very un-psychologically safe place at the moment and if you can find that tribe in the workplace then you are going to want to align to it. And that links back to something you said earlier on, Keith, and that that moment of serendipity when you meet somebody in the office. I go on three, four days a week, four days a week normally because I have these unplanned, unintentional meetings and conversations and it moves my projects and my work much faster, much further, and it's a deeper experience.

Debra: And what's interesting is that good design enables that. Putting a restaurant, the staff restaurant in the middle of a building, right, where people have to come together. When we look at dead spaces, you know, if we look at sensors and stuff and we look at the red zones and where people are congregating, where they're not, it's like they're often around coffee machines, right? That's where or collaborative spaces or kind of relaxed spaces where people can just sit and chat.

Claire: Yes.

Debra: And so, when we look at dead zones, it's like what's missing from that to create those serendipitous relationships and moments.

Claire: Interesting, I'm going to come back to technology. I'll come to you, Keith, on that. How have you seen technology accelerate in the last couple of years as an enabler?

Keith: Huge, I mean if I look back 10 years ago, all of the FM companies had kind of identic marketing videos showing somebody coming into the office with their phone, having, through the barriers, being told that their coffee is waiting in their room and it's 19 degrees in the room and their host is on the way, right? And they were all the same and none of them were deliverable at that time. They were all theoretically possible, which is why they all had them, but they weren't deliverable. But I think now where we're seeing IWMS software and smart building software and ticketing and Cavim all come together. I think that was almost a 10 year too early trailer for what's actually happening now. So, I think this is a really exciting time for workplace experience technology, and not only in terms of being able to integrate that from a user point of view, so you do actually have that experience, but also from the data analytics that sits behind all of that building data, all of that customer experience data being in one place, you know, and being kind of assessed and served up to people in a way that's usable.

Claire: I agree with you and technology is my thing, I love it. The AI opportunity is only accelerating now. Yeah. As we start to see the, you know, the agentic AI moving into the workplace and the ability to, as you say, bring all of these data points together and really start to understand or ask questions, get answers to questions that we've never been able to get answers to before, because the data sits in silos or the information sits in silos. So, to see all of this come together and know, that's what's exciting about SPS Nexus about how got these MCP, these hooks into various different technologies across the piece that allow an individual to really get a view of the operation. I'm going say operation, not just building, that they've never really seen before.

Debra: I think the key though is that it all has to tie back to the individual, right? All of that data, all of the things that we're doing to tie back to people. Biophilia, for example, they're showing a 15 % increase in, in, well-being as a result of having plants, so again, it goes back to how is the tech enabling our people to feel better, do more, be more productive, be happier, and be more engaged. That's the essence of human beings. Like, if we're just gonna be on a kind of conveyor belt of work, nobody wants to work in that environment. Nobody's gonna be as productive as you could be. And I think what's interesting is bringing the tech with the design and the service all in one place, which SPS does beautifully in so many locations. It really is an opportunity for us to showcase to our clients that we're actually having a material impact on their core business because of the way that we're treating and we're serving their people.

Claire: And on that basis, what I'm really interested to explore next, we've talked a lot about employees and leadership. But whenever we think about experience or workplace experience, it blends into guest experience or this guest services piece about the other people that come into a building like customers and suppliers. The lines have blurred. How has the whole guest experience world moved on?

Keith: I think, if I look back to some of the larger kinds of what we would have termed front of house contracts at the time, they were, even then they were probably 75 % back of house, half house, right? It was mainly kind of floor managers, floor hosts, and people serving the internal customer. And the people serving the external customer were always the, probably the smallest part of those. It gets a lot of attention, but it's actually not the biggest part of those contracts. But it's incredibly important, right? Because the people who are... running those desks, running your events, answering the phones, they are literally the first point of contact for your guests. So, they have, from an FM point of view, a much higher degree of interaction with the guests and much more ability to impact that person's perception of the overall company.

Debra: which is huge because if you look at things like the war for talent, right? And you look at some of the tech companies or some of the big four consultancy companies, they're fighting for the top talent. And so, if somebody comes in and they're not treated properly or they're not welcomed or they're not made to feel relaxed and they're coming in for an interview and they go somewhere else and they're treated beautifully, or if you're coming to invest your money. We've had experience of that right from the first contract we won together. And it was really what sold it to them was that when somebody with high net worth comes in and they have a choice of where to put their money on they're treated with dignity and respect and warmth and caring, then you're going to choose that firm over somebody else who treats you like a number or a cog in the wheel.

Claire: That's really encouraging to hear, so what we’re saying is that the role of Director of First Impressions, that role is being elevated, and actually it's risk management, isn't it? And I think there's three jobs to be done, aren’t there? There's the job to be done in the eye of the partner or the lead, you know, the senior leadership team. There's the job to be done in front of the employee. And then there's the visitor and there's the guest, the VIP guest that comes in and the flex that those individuals that are welcoming those cohorts in has to be quite huge and therefore the training and the investment in those people should not be underestimated.

Debra: Absolutely. Training is key. Training is we're not, you know, an experience in particular, you know, we have a, in SPS, we do a raft of things, but in the experience realm in which we do, we're not producing anything tangible. We're not producing any physical. What we're leaving with people with is an experience. And the only way to capitalize on that and make sure it's a great one is through learning and development and by showcasing the very best of what, how people should feel.

Maya Angelou, her famous quote was “People may forget who you are. They may forget what you do, but they're never going to forget the way you make them feel”. That's about emotional intelligence, right?

That's about EQ over IQ and being able to read a room, read somebody who's in a hurry, somebody who's nervous because they're about to go through an interview for a big job. Somebody who's flown in from overseas as a top client and wants to freshen up first, or somebody who's coming in to pitch a product. I mean, being able to read that is really an intuitive and empathetic way to read a room and to understand.

It’s super important because you have to be able to adjust, as you said, the raft of what we're doing with those people, clients, colleagues, companies, communities we serve is really important to be able to make sure you hit the right mark.

Claire: And on that note, Keith, you mentioned that you've seen that the way that they will call them the contracts, but the services have changed, and actually the majority of the work takes place on the floors. So, we talked about these internal customers, the ambassadors. I'm intrigued just to see how that's changed. Because in my view, it's not that you don't want more smiles. You want more smarts. And how the profile of those individuals has changed over time. Certainly, in some of the big contracts that you've been working on recently.

Debra: Just to be clear, Smarts and Smiles aren't mutually exclusive. [laughs]

Claire: [laughs] Yeah, I know. Where I'm going with that is it's the welcome and the hospitality side is important, but it goes beyond that. I've seen that in your training.

Keith: When we used to work for the FM companies, whenever those roles would come up, and those roles come up on almost all large contracts, right? They call the raft of different things, but they're essentially doing a similar thing. And all of the different parts of the business want that role. And they've all got a really valid reason as to why they should have that role. Like technical services want them because they can be handymen. The cleaner will want them because they can be executive housekeeping and they can keep on top of that. Document services will want them because they can look after the MFDs, they can do the station restocks and then the front-of-house teams will want them because essentially, it's a very experiential customer-facing service. And in reality, is they're all, no one's wrong and no one's right. You do actually need some of all of that. They absolutely have to have that kind of front of house customer-facing skills, but they need to be useful.

Claire: Just on that point, think, you know, if we're about allowing employees to do their best work, enabling employees to do their best work, removing the handbrakes, for me, there's also an additional cohort and that is individuals who understand the customer's business, that really understand what it is if you're looking after deal room or you're looking after a team or you're looking after a tax team or you're looking after you know a customer, whatever. They really need to understand how that operation works.

Debra: And that's when they become valuable.

Claire: Exactly. So, it goes beyond the soft service of cleaning and filling photocopiers. And that's what I mean by when I talk about more smarts, so they need that hospitality and capability.

Keith: To understand the business. I think there's been a lot of examples of where a company has launched that service as a new service that didn't exist before. And it usually comes off the back of a building move or a refurb, and I say, all right, we're going to bring these in.

And often, it doesn't work. Six months later, those roles are no longer in place. And it's because they weren't bringing value to the people on the floors. And it's interesting, in one of our legal contracts, a few of the floor managers came from the records management department. I first knew that I'll admit I had an initial thought that is I don't think that's the right background for this role. And then when I went and spoke to them, I saw what they did and I understood how much they understood just the ebb and flow of the business, the personalities, the politics, the dynamics of a law firm. And they were indispensable. And people were clamoring, oh no, we want one, we want one. And it just exploded at service. And it was all, like you said, it was because they just had the knowledge of the business.

Claire: And then to combine that with the hospitality mindset, I think becomes incredibly powerful. You know, that's what I've watched you do at SPS. It's incredible when you see that combination.

Debra: And that's having a genuine curiosity about who you're serving. Yeah. And if you have that childlike curiosity, you know, I can think of one, welcome experience host and she's amazing. She knows everything about the client, everything about what's going on. She follows, you know, deals that they're doing so she can actually contribute in a positive way and, a really intellectual way with our clients about, I just heard, or I just read. You know, they're always surprised.

You know, it's not just another pretty face, right? Like it's not just somebody with a big smile to your point. They have smarts and smiles.

Claire: And I think what's interesting as well, when you start talking about people and this contribution, the value add, in a world where AI is gaining momentum and there's real concern around the future workforce, the impact it's going to have on jobs, on roles, what I'm hearing here really is that the value add is around relationships and engagement and in-person experiences and human judgment, which then takes me onto talent and skill.

So, there's a real unauthenticity. So, we're starting to see this shift in the jobs that people do. So how do we attract and then retain this talent that we describe so eloquently? I mean, in your experience over the years, finding them is one thing, training them and keeping them, how do we go about that?

Debra: I don’t think it's changed. I mean, I have hired thousands of people over the years and it's the same thing. You don't hire for skill. That's easily trained, right? And now with AI, knowledge and intelligence isn't even that required because you click it into ChatGPT or, you know, Claude or whatever, and you get back the answer. It's about human beings. It's about relationships. It's about authenticity. And if you look at some of the big tech firms right now or Amazon or Meta, they're hiring storytellers because what they're seeing and you and I have commented about this the other day is that we're seeing is that when we get responses back from people who use AI it's very generic it's very samey it's not authentic and it's there's no feeling, you know, how people make you feel and so companies are hiring people who are great storytellers and who can connect on an emotional level with other people: people want to be seen, and they want to be heard.

Companies are hiring people who are great storytellers and who can connect on an emotional level with other people: people want to be seen, and they want to be heard. Debra Ward

Claire: So, that's how we identify them, we hire them. How do you keep people who are genuinely creative, you they're heart on the sleeve, probably more sensitive because they have to be because of emotional intelligence, how do you keep individuals like that engaged and retain them?

Keith: I think you have to have a culture of internal promotions. If you look at it, I was looking at how things are outsourced. If you take the legal sector, for example, I think only 40 % of the house, 40 % of firms outsource their front of the house, whereas 95 % will outsource cleaning and M &E. And I think wat you've got there is you've got really talented people who've got all those skills we just talked about earlier: computer literate, resilience, problem solving, teamwork, communication, and all of these skills that will succeed anywhere, but there's this immediate ceiling when you're in an in-house role in that position.

So, I think one of the benefits of outsourcing when we do so is when they come, they can really fly in terms of their career, in terms of them being able to develop. I mean, we've seen people come from roles like that into managing, divisional managing directors, account directors, like really senior roles. And it's because they have a huge amount of soft skills that they bring with them.

Debra: And they're the opportunity to develop them. So again, in-house, you're kind of, you can only go so far, but when you outsource and you outsource to a company who is specialized in this, like SPS does.

It's really, you can see all the career paths, right? I mean, CIPD says getting them is easy. It's retaining them that is key and actually learning and development and reward and recognition and being seen is what keeps people.

And that's all about, again, going back to your culture, reward and recognition, right? And whether that's just a simple thank you, a handwritten card, or an award that has a monetary value, it's actually rewarding people for their greatness and seeing them for what they do, giving them an opportunity to grow, right? Giving people an opportunity, not just within your own firm and real leaders.

You know, I always say this, I always say that if you look after the employee, you may win or you may lose. But if you look after the human being, you're gonna win every time. So even if somebody is not happy where they are in your firm or in your particular building, saying, okay, what do you want? And how do we make that happen for you? That person's gonna fly and they're gonna remember you. I mean, lot of our team members now, our old team members are now clients of ours. So, that's amazing

Claire: It's true. I that's one of the reasons I joined SPS. I found my tribe and I love the fact that we've got low churn, but we see people fly. I mean, our CEO was started, you know, within an account. He was an account manager. And in fact, most of my colleagues on the leadership team came up through the business and we're starting to see that, especially with so many more women moving into management roles. It's wonderful to see. And I think there is that opportunity. And we do see it where people move from client to client. And they bring the experience with them along the way. I really do see that and I do hear that.

Keith: It's a big step. It takes a lot of bravery to leave a client you've been with for years and you're not leaving the company; you're going to another client. It still takes to step out of that kind of comfort zone.

Debra: And I always say to people, do you want to have the same experience 20 times, or do you want to have 20 different experiences? Because life is short. And so why not have those growth opportunities where you can go and these skills are transferable.

Claire: So again, it comes back to culture. I think the other thing for learning for me is innovation. Of course I'm going to be into innovation, but this idea of trying something new … and Debra, you and I have spoken about this before about try something, fail fast, but celebrate failure and create this psychological safety and this environment. I'm really interested in your thoughts on that.

Debra: This is a big bugbear of mine right now, as you know. I just feel like as a society, we've become very blamey, very blamed culture. And so, what happens is when you're in fear, right, which blame culture creates, you don't put your head above the parapet. You don't innovate. You are afraid of trying something and taking risks because if I fail, somebody's going to point it out and I'm going to get chastised and blah, blah, blah.

You don't support your colleagues because all you're doing is looking for number one. Like, I just don't want to get in trouble today. That's your number one concern. Your elbow's out. There's no discretionary effort because you're thinking, forget it. If they're going to treat me like this, I'll do the bare minimum. I'll clock in, clock out, jobs done. It is. It is quiet quitting. In the book Gung Ho!, right at the beginning of that book, it says, “if you're going to, if you're going to quit, and leave then go, but if you're gonna quit and stay, those days are over.

And it's a really powerful thing because you can see the quiet quitting, you can see the people who've given up and that psychological safety. Leaders, real leaders aren't there to point out when somebody does something wrong. Anybody can do that. You can bring a five-year-old inn to tell you what you're doing wrong, and they'll tell you 20 things.

A real leader is there to help you navigate through it. Growth happens in failure. It doesn't happen in success. Debra Ward

A real leader is there to help you navigate through it. Growth happens in failure. It doesn't happen in success. Yet, I find leaders now are managers. I don't even call them leaders. They're managers. Managers are like, you did this wrong, and you did this wrong…. You know, how is that helpful? That's not helpful.

Claire: Again, it us back to this idea of culture and this psychological safety and I think that's something we have in bucket loads at SPS.

Debra: Absolutely.

Keith: That's completely cultural, because everybody has to buy into that. You can't do that on your own. You have to be in that environment where you know, I'm going to admit to this because it hasn't gone as planned and I know I'm going to be OK. Everyone has to buy into that.

Debra: And I think what you said, though, at the beginning was that this has to start from the top. And as much as culture is everybody's responsibility as is health and safety, but if the leadership will call out other leaders for not managing that process properly, I think that's really key.

And having somebody, you know, Gary's great at that. Like he's really good at providing that. And Charlie, they do that naturally. They say, you know, that's not cool. Like, you know, we're gonna fail, we're gonna make mistakes, and that's okay. And I love that. I mean to your point about finding your tribe, I do find that at SPS, that culture of give it a go, right? Like, okay, well, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. But not working isn't failure, it's one step closer to success.

Keith: Do you think that the wider society kind of younger people see that? it feels to me like you're only ever now one error away from getting cancellation again, you know, and I think that kind of pervades people's mindset, because everything's so public and everything feels so unforgiving. Whereas we're probably from when your mistakes were a little bit less public

Claire: I think, that goes back to as people who are further down the line in their career, it's our responsibility to throw the arm back for the generation that's coming behind us, knowing that they will be better than us. But in doing so, that's why we need to have an environment like the office, where we can spend time with people and we can coach and we can give reassurance.

And it's all part of this corporate culture. What I'd like to move on to say is we've talked a lot about what good looks like. We don't need to talk about what bad looks like. It happens all by itself. But when we get it right, and the workplace experience, the experience is good, the culture is good. What impact does that have on the customer?

When you've got an organization that's highly engaged, the experience is good, they've got the tools to do the job. How does that translate into the customer’s thoughts?

Debra: The thing that instantly came to my head when you said that was the Seattle fish market. You know what I mean? Like it's the fish philosophy, right? Be there, make their day, like choose your attitude. Those are all of a sudden, you have people who are getting up at 5 30 in the morning to throw, you know, to, load in stinky fish and on ice in Seattle, which is rainy and cold anyway (much like here).

And yet people come out of their offices to watch, and to be part of that because they get geed up by the environment and it's tangible. You can feel it, right?

When you share space with people, you wanna be where people are happy and excited. You're gonna be there for nine, 10 hours a day anyway.

Claire: But we're back to the employee experience. So, what impact do you think it has on the bottom line?

Debra: Well, 21 % more profitability. That's definitely, you know, you want to buy, you've got an 18 % increased productivity, 12 % increase in customer ratings. There you go. There's the, the stat you need. So, customers actually find that you're better.

They believe in you more by 12% because you've got this engaged, involved, excited workforce, right?

And who doesn't want to be? I mean, if there's two restaurants side by side each and there's one that's got a queue outside the door and the other one's empty, you always stay in the queue because you're like, I want what they're having, right?

Whatever's going on in there, I want to be part of it. And I think the same is true for organizations.

In our past, our last company that we worked together, it almost became the point where we didn't have to go out and search for work. People came to us because they heard about how we were just having fun.

And people wanted to be part of it.

Keith: And I think you can hugely impact the customer. I had a really early experience when I was first in outsourcing and I worked. We ran the digital print for a pharmaceutical company. And it was mainly around clinical trials…It was about the phase one of the safety trials, then you've got all the efficiency trials, then you've got the applications to market. The safety trials are about numbers; it was about getting people through quickly so you can move on.

We developed a system that allowed different countries when they had gotten through their numbers, they'd use their allocated 100 or whatever it was, they could order the next batch and the ordering system and the variable data system meant that we could then give them pre-numbered patients things really quickly.

What that did is it changed how that pharmaceutical company ran phase one physical trials, they introduced something that was called competitive recruitment. So massively sped up the phase one. Now that company's biggest selling drug last year was 3.6 billion pounds. That's 10 million pounds a day. So, if we even if we took a week off the process, 60, 70 million pounds.

And that was such an early experience for me that it really made me hate the term non-core services. I hate that. It's so dismissive, and so reductive of what we do. I think if you've got the right kind of partnership mentality and arrangement, you can hugely impact the boss.

Claire: That's where I'm going with that. What I see is when teams are thoroughly engaged or totally engaged, they innovate, they problem solve, they really take time to listen and understand the customer's challenge, not just the problems that they're trying to solve, but their ambitions. And when you really take time to listen and understand the business, the customer's business, then you can actually make a big impact, and it becomes very addictive.

The more successful you are, the more addictive, the more you want to do it. And seeing teams come together to achieve that is fabulous to watch. And I see it with you and your colleagues.

Debra: Was it Formula One? When they did that whole thing and they found out that people in the shop with designing the cars and fixing whatever it is, - I'm not a car person, but, you know, doing all these things-. And they said, well, what'd think of the race? They said, oh, we don't watch the race.

Keith: Yeah.

Debra: They were just doing that piece. It was the IWFM conference and he spoke. And so, what they did is they changed the entire thing. It was actually the racer that was like, what do mean you don't know?, like you didn't watch the race.

So, they actually started to have family days. And so, on race days, they would put up these big screens and have big picnics, and everybody would come. And again, reinforcing the culture, reinforcing community. And they would watch the race and there would be this conversation about, can you see how he took that turn? I think if we just tweak this a little bit, we could make that a little bit faster.

And people started to get into it and they understood their purpose. But maybe they're only on tires, right? Maybe before this, all they were doing is focusing on tires, but now they understood how the tires had an impact on the time and the time had an impact on their placing, and that they are a little piece of the pie, right? and how it had a massive impact on the end result.

And I think that, for me, was one of the great speeches that I saw.

Claire: But it's true when you've, I mean, I've been part of that. When I worked in newspapers where I started my career in local press and our printing press was actually on site. And from the minute you close off the deadline to when the ads were being produced and you came off stone, you went on the press, you got off the press, the papers went into the van and they hit the streets.

For every 10 minutes you were late off press, it impacted on the number of sales.

And you can work it all the way back. So, if you were late for your ad deadlines, it had a knock-on effect. And so, we absolutely worked as part of a team. And it's amazing, you know, there's that feeling when you know, we published a daily newspaper, but there was the euphoria when we hit the deadline and everything was off press again, we could relax.

Keith: Until the next time. You're in that rhythm.

Debra: I go back to the production days. We go, you know, production process, property people in production days. I think that's what the legacy is, the negative legacy is because you were only given your little piece of the pie and just do your piece of the pie and that's it. And you didn't understand.

Claire: Well, it's like, yeah, bricklayers and cathedral builders, isn't it? What are you? It's this idea of being part of something bigger.

Debra: And the famous, you know, Mr. President, I helped put a man on the moon. Yeah. Right. The janitor knew that by doing what he does very well, then the scientists and the geologists and the engineers didn't have to focus on making sure the bins were empty and making sure the floors were clean and making sure there's toilet paper in the bathrooms.

They could focus on things that were really important. And he understood that janitor understood that his piece of the pie had an impact on helping people, you know, get to the moon.

And what's even more exciting for me anyway is he's gonna be there for 10 hours a day anyway, or nine hours a day anyway. Now he could either be there as somebody who empties bins and polishes floors and refills toilet paper, or he could be there as someone who helps to put a man on the moon.

Claire: But it is, but again, it comes back to leadership because somebody had taken time to explain to him. He was important where he fitted in.

Debra: And that's not just leadership; it's about training and getting people. Because until I saw it, didn't know. You know, you have to be shown the light almost to be a bit evangelistic about it. But you kind of have to understand, what does that look like? What is that?

You know, when we first did that, we did a bid together and we walked in and they had their five values etched in stone on the wall. I mean, every letter was like three feet high. And I remember walking in and thinking, if it's that important to them, it should be that important to us, putting a client first.

Will Gadara, with Unreasonable Hospitality at 11 Madison Park, it's about being present. He quotes three things, and being present is one and taking what you do seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously. And that one size fits one. And that service design and food are just the ingredients in human connection. It's one of my favorite lines. And human connection is what gets us out of bed in morning.

It's certainly not factory work. It's certainly not making sure the lights are on.

Claire: which kind of brings us back full circle to the role of the office. You know, it is about human connection first and environments that allow us to then, sorry, do the tasks that we have in hand at the moment.

Debra: And what's so sexy about that, in my opinion, is the environments can have a material impact on wellbeing, on productivity, on retention, on innovation. I mean, there's been studies done in NICU for babies and they found that if they change the lighting to reflect natural lighting.

So, when the sun comes up, when the sun goes down, turned off all the beeping and all that bloody noise and kept it at the ambient temperature that actual preemie babies matured 21 % faster as a result.

And that's just changing the environment. That's a human life that's growing there. And that's the power of what we do in FM, in workplace. And that's extraordinary.

Claire: I've met some people who are so passionate about workplace design.

Debra: But design is only design, it's still just a building. It has to be matched with service. And service is about people and having people come to work with purpose every day and understanding, as we said before, that big picture.

Claire: Which is where, you know, I think there's an optimum size for organizations where that can happen naturally and as organizations are getting bigger, managing that becomes a challenge.

Debra: It does, but it's not impossible. We got criticized a lot about that. Do you remember? It was like, well, once you get over 250 team members, you start to lose that familiarity and that's the number.

Claire: I’m not thinking about 250, I'm talking tens of thousands.

Debra: That's my point. If you look at the Googles or the Coca-Cola's or they have that culture Nike, but they have a culture.

Claire: Where I would go with that is that it's in the simplicity of the values and the brand in the vision. So, simplicity. That is something that's easily communicated, easily understood.

Debra: and difficult to replicate.

Claire: But the challenge we have is that most organizations are run in silos. You have the people team, you'll have the operations team, you'll have the workplace experience team maybe, you'll have the finance team. You'll have compliance and each will have its own agenda. And it's how you bring all of those pieces together to create this culture that you talk about where everybody really understands their purpose, where they fit in, why they're valued. Where you create that psychological safety for people to bring themselves to work, to be who they want to be, whether you give them the freedom to make mistakes.

I mean, that is a challenge.

Debra: And I think it starts with understanding, to go back to your point, you know, SPS has three values and a great strap line, know, unleashing the power of possibility. And our three values are very simple and understood by everybody. It's client first, deliver excellence, innovative thinking.

Once you can sow those into your everyday and your decisions are made based on those values and it becomes the criteria by which you measure yourself. if every single member, to your point, it's simple, right? It's not these long paragraphs and people sound like they swallowed a dictionary and marketing's gotten ahold of it.

Like it's very simple. And I love that about what we do because every single person can see themselves in that. And that's key is understanding their place in the big picture.

Claire: Wow, that is a really interesting. Keith, do you have any final thoughts on that? There's an awful lot to unpack.

Keith: Huge amounts of them. I think it's in terms of workplace experience. I think it's really good to see that become front and center. think when we first worked together, we were kind of seen as a bit of an outlier, quite maverick. Why do they have the overheads? Why do they need that many trainers? Why do they need an internal comms person? And we weren't invited particularly to that big transformational business. We weren't really part of it.

And then over the time we became central to it. And if you look now, the messaging around the whole FM industry is about workplace experience. And that's great to see.

But at the same time, FM and Workplace Experience are not the same and we mustn't dilute the message. we're gonna keep that messaging, we have to also invest in the structures and the things you need to make that happen and to give people the skills and the confidence they need to deliver that to customers.

Claire: Yeah, I genuinely feel it's a very exciting time. It's a very exciting topic. This idea about creating environments where people are allowed to thrive, be their best, feel a sense of purpose and enjoy coming to work. And some of the things I've learnt from working with you, Debra, over the last six months. Yeah, it's brilliant to see. So, I just want to thank you both very much for your time today and talking so passionately about this subject. We're so lucky to have you in the business and yeah, great conversation.

Debra: Thank you.

Keith: Thank you.