< Previouswww.fm-middleeast.com20 November 2021 FM CONFERENCE 2021 REPORT The Elusive World of FM Tenders and Contracts The first panel discussion at the Facilities Management Middle East Conference 2021 was titled “The Elusive World of FM Tenders and Contracts”, which had Jennifer Peltenburg, Facilities Management Consultant, Tarek Nizameddin, senior executive director – commercial at Ejadah, and Mohamad Abou Laban, chief executive officer, Deyaar Facilities Management, as panellists. Prabhakar Kesavan, regional general manager, Voltas – International Business Operations Group, who was the moderator of the event, started off by asking about the existing ambiguity in FM contracts, to which Abou Laban responded: “FM contracts are complex in nature. The RFP (request for proposal) is not written in a good way. Sometimes somebody copies it from a construction contract template. You need a proper FM consultant to actually draft a proper contract that has the relevant SLAs and KPIs.” Abou Laban believed that clients need to be educated regarding this. Nizameddin agreed that in principle there needs to be proper FM templates and that the FM community needs to come together. He said: “We understand that we are friends and we are competitive, but at the end of the day, we are from the same community. We can create a template, but how are we going to convince the clients to use this template? This is the challenge. Our role as FM service providers is to keep discussing and educating our clients on this subject.” Kesavan acknowledged that it’s a challenge and he turned to Peltenburg on possible solutions. She said: “It’s one thing to actually win the business, it’s another to control that business, which means in my experience, if you don’t have a strong project manager or a facilities manager, you will ultimately lose. You need to have a facilities manager who doesn’t just understand maintenance or self-services, but also the full gamut in terms of commercials and contract management. We need to really start focusing on the facilities manager.” Kesavan agreed and said: “I think improvement starts at home and we need to get our house in order, and PANELLISTS AT FM CONFERENCE CALL ON THE COMMUNITY TO RESOLVE FM CONTRACTUAL BIASES L to R: Prabhakar Kesavan, regional general manager, Voltas – International Business Operations Group, Jennifer Peltenburg, Facilities Management Consultant, Mohamad Abou Laban, chief executive offi cer, Deyaar Facilities Management, and Tarek Nizameddin, senior executive director at Ejadah.www.fm-middleeast.comNovember 2021 21 FM CONFERENCE 2021 REPORT ensure we manage the contract and project correctly.” He asked further as to how one can go and educate the clients and try and get the contract templates modified to be more fair and equitable. Abou Laban responded by saying that he has himself guided clients in drafting contracts and RFPs. “It helps a lot when you build a rapport with the customer. Personally I’ve always succeeded to put MCTs (minimum contract terms) agreed with the customer, because you need to cap the liability.” Kesavan asked Nizameddin as to how he prices the risks into a contract. Nizameddin replied: “Each tender will have its own risk assessments. We try to understand if we can handle this risk or not; also some tenders are important for us to enter a new market or a new segment. All these elements are evaluated, and we have a risk evaluation metrics and the decision is taken based on this.” With the aim of winning contracts, service providers will often undercut each other in the market. Kesavan asked if there was something that could be done collaboratively as an industry to reach common ground where certain basic terms are insisted by the FM industry collectively, so as to educate the client. Peltenburg said: “I think there should be a collaborative effort in terms of having a minimum number of mobilisation days. Part of the negotiation [with clients] is often about mobilisation costs. Clients need to understand that it costs us a lot of money to recruit people, and purchase materials and vehicles. We all should look in terms of collaboration by saying that, for instance, any client should be paying 50% upfront.” Relating to mobilisation, Kesavan pointed out that when FM companies are taking over from an existing service provider, one of the requirements is to attend to snagging works, and how would the best way to deal with that be, he asked. Abou Laban said: “It depends on the size of the company. If you have a sizable company, you will have a separate mobilisation team that ensures carrying on the activities from project to project. If you have a smaller team, you need to have an SOP which is clear and you need to have also some people that have done the exercise more than once. The key thing is to have the right people doing the condition audit or doing the snagging by collaborating with the client, the incumbent or the previous service provider.” Nizameddin added that the challenge today is a disconnection between the client operation and the client procurement teams. He elaborated: “The operations team write the technical side of the RFPs and give it to procurement and the client don’t get the technical team involved in the technical evaluation. They give them the minimum information just to qualify, disqualify or provide comments, but in many cases operations are not even involved in the discussion and negotiation. It is done by procurement, who are usually from construction background that follow the construction guidelines.” It is important to look at FM as an investment as a protection for the assets, said Abou Laban. “You are in a building and you want the price to appreciate. A client might say that they have the DLP and so a facilities management company is not required. We have to explain to them that preventive maintenance is essential so that the warranties are not voided. So there’s an education process which needs to go on. We need to educate them and try to get his buy-in as early as possible. We should also find the right people to help in putting the right information in the RFPs. A good business development manager will go to the customers early on and try to influence as much as possible. The tender is for his benefit and the benefit of the other competitors as because it is FM-related. In the end, it’s a beneficial for the facility itself.” Peltenburg concludes by saying that the general perception for FM is that “it’s money wasted”. And that needs to change, she said. She said that the attitude in this region is “why bother to maintain when the building is looked at only for only 10-15 years”. She says: “If you go to Europe, it’s about maintaining the culture and the buildings. But I think things are turning around and UAE is no longer just a place in the Middle East, It’s becoming what a city should be and that needs to be preserved.” YOU NEED TO HAVE A FACILITIES MANAGER WHO DOESN’T JUST UNDERSTAND MAINTENANCE OR SELF- SERVICES, BUT ALSO THE FULL GAMUT IN TERMS OF COMMERCIALS AND CONTRACT MANAGEMENT. JENNIFER PELTENBURG, FACILITIES MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTwww.fm-middleeast.com22 November 2021 FM CONFERENCE 2021 REPORT Body and mind At the Facilities Management Middle East Conference 2021, in the second panel discussion titled “The Importance of Worker Welfare”, the panellists included Saima Ahmad, group director, human resources, EFS Facilities Services, Prabhu Dharmarajan, director – human resources, Dulsco, Marwan Othman, executive director – Human Capital and Administration, Imdaad, and James Smith, general manager, Emrill. The moderator Prabhakar Kesavan, regional general manager, Voltas – International Business Operations Group, started off by asking the basic question on what worker welfare really meant. Othman responded by saying that at the moment there appears to be some misunderstanding on what worker welfare ought to be. He elaborated: “Unfortunately, when we talk about welfare of an individual or an employee, it only means salary or accommodation. If you ask me, there is no limit to the initiatives that covers the welfare of an individual.” He said that we should put ourselves in the shoes of the workers and others to understand worker welfare. “Welfare does not only cover just one part; it should cover both the physical and mental aspects of that individual. We need to list all these aspects. I think you can have one list that you can follow regarding welfare but that needs to be updated as per the needs of the individual.” At Emrill, Smith revealed that the firm involves the workers in all the decision making process. He added: “Once we do that we’re going to get a happier workforce. We’re going to get people engaged. And we’re also going to see the staff retention levels increase. You need to look after your people, and there will be greater loyalty. They need to be part of the process.” Kesavan brought the conversation back to the point where worker welfare should be about both the physiological and psychological well-being. Ahmad took a step further and said that it is about paying attention to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Explaining further, she said: “The FM industry is a people’s industry. Worker welfare in an FM industry WORKER WELFARE NOT JUST PHYSIOLOGICAL BUT ALSO PSYCHOLOGICAL WELFARE, EXPERTS SAY AT FM CONFERENCE 2021 L to R: Prabhakar Kesavan, regional general manager, Voltas – International Business Operations Group, Marwan Othman, executive director – Human Capital and Administration, Imdaad, James Smith, general manager, Emrill, Saima Ahmad, group director, human resources, EFS Facilities Services, and Prabhu Dharmarajan, director – human resources, Dulsco. .www.fm-middleeast.comNovember 2021 23 FM CONFERENCE 2021 REPORT should be at its core. We need to start from the foundation of an organisation by setting up values, culture, policies and procedures, and ensuring that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is met for our people.” She said that this meant starting with shelter, food, safety and security, to the sense of love and belonging. And finally to aspirations and self-esteem of the workers. Dharmarajan appreciated that the FM industry is bringing important aspects like worker welfare to the fore. What worker welfare was 10 years ago is dynamically changing year-on-year. Citing Expo 2020 as an example, he said that there was a lot of emphasis by Expo 2020 on worker welfare. “When we won our waste management contract, around 50% weightage was on worker welfare. So this is where the industry is moving towards, and this is the importance given to worker welfare.” He also added that worker welfare is also dynamically changing in terms of Dulsco’s approach towards a diverse workforce. “The mindset has to be dynamically shifting towards managing different diversity here, that’s where I see a gap and that needs addressing.” Chiming in on diversity, Othman added: “In Imdaad, we have more than 33 nationalities and we ensure that we treat everybody exactly the same. It’s not about race, colour or religion. One of the most important things that we need to do is employee analysis. It’s not about what we think they need. It’s what they really need. We should be carrying out employee satisfaction surveys so that we can identify the needs of individuals.” Emrill too boasts a diverse workforce. Smith added: “We also have a lot of blue collar workers who live together. We also need to understand that they’ve got families back home and they want to keep in touch. So we give them additional WiFi broadband speed. They’re our workforce, our assets, and we need to make sure that they’re looked after.” Dharmarajan also added that one has be culturally sensitive when it comes to diversity. He said: “It is the organisation’s responsibility to educate the team who is managing the blue collar workforce to understand how to manage different cultures.” The topic of subcontracting was also broached by Kesavan and how companies can ensure work welfare is being adhered to by the subcontractors. Smith said: “We’ve got subcontractors that work with us, and we want to make sure subcontractors follow the same standards that we follow. There’s nothing worse than two workforces working on the same job, and one team’s getting nothing while the other is getting everything.” Ahmad concurred by saying: “We need to first set standards for ourselves and implement them on the ground, evaluate ourselves, look at the impact analysis, and then engage with the subcontractors and show them the impact on resulting productivity. We need to make the subcontractors understand how these benefits that we give to our people help the business in the long run. So you need to set the standards and ensure that these standards are met. You have to walk the talk.” Othman reminded that trying out initiatives is a cost only if there are no returns. “If what you spend has returns, then it’s no longer a cost, but an investment, because for every person that leaves, you have to invest in terms of recruitment. So it’s really not a cost if it has returns and we need to focus on the returns that are coming from these employee welfare initiatives.” Othman left the audience with a quote from Richard Branson, “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough, so they don’t want to.” The Facilities Management Middle East Conference 2021 was held on 29 September in Dubai. IF WHAT YOU SPEND HAS RETURNS, THEN IT’S NO LONGER A COST, BUT AN INVESTMENT, BECAUSE FOR EVERY PERSON THAT LEAVES, YOU HAVE TO INVEST IN TERMS OF RECRUITMENT. MARWAN OTHMAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – HUMAN CAPITAL AND ADMINISTRATION, IMDAADwww.fm-middleeast.com24 November 2021 FM CONFERENCE 2021 REPORT Time to train Tthe third and final panel at the Facilities Management Middle East Conference 2021 spoke about education and training in the FM industry. The panellists included Prakul Tewari, business planning manager, AG Facilities Solutions, Eng. Fahad Mohamed, director – Dubai & Northern Emirates, Adeeb Group, Stuart Harrison, CEO, Emrill Services and Uzair Bhamji, assistant manager HR Training and Development, Farnek Services. Prabhakar Kesavan, regional general manager, Voltas – International Business Operations Group, and moderator for the event, asked the panellists how people can develop within an organisation. Tewari said that the culture of an organization should be conducive towards an individual’s personal development. “We, at Al Ghurair, firmly believe that it’s the culture which drives the entire organisation forward. You may have the best strategy in place, you may have the best operation models in place, but somewhere if the culture is not aligning with your strategy, then things won’t work. You need to align one’s purpose with the culture and the strategy of the organisation.” Mohamed agreed and added: “If a person has the ambition to grow, then there has to be a culture in the organisation that allows that employee to grow over a period of time. And it’s up to us as industry leaders and companies to offer them that facility to train them or give them that opportunity to develop themselves.” Emrill claims to have an environment that encourages development and career progression. Citing his own example, Harrison said that he joined as a director and now is the CEO. Bhamji who has built his career from training people for around 10 years, said: “I’ve dealt with training everyone from cleaners and technicians to C-suite staff on different topics, be it vocational, soft skills, or leadership courses. It’s about finding the right talent to fit into the right place and giving them the opportunity.” Farnek has something called as Farnek Career Centre, where every year, it runs an assessment centre for finding its internal talent in cleaning, maintenance, or security. “It’s a fairly comprehensive assessment centre, where we’re not only assessing their technical skills, or how well they’ve absorbed the basic vocational training, but we also look at their management skills, computer skills, and so on and so forth. Out of the 400-500 applicants per year, we usually ORGANISATIONS MUST CREATE A CULTURE OF GROWTH THAT FACILITATES TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, SAY EXPERTS AT FM CONFERENCE 2021 L to R: Prabhakar Kesavan, regional general manager, Voltas – International Business Operations Group, and moderator for the event, Prakul Tewari, business planning manager, AG Facilities Solutions, Eng. Fahad Mohamed, director – Dubai & Northern Emirates, Adeeb Group, Stuart Harrison, CEO, Emrill Services and Uzair Bhamji, assistant manager HR Training and Development, Farnek Services.www.fm-middleeast.comNovember 2021 25 FM CONFERENCE 2021 REPORT pick the top 10 or top 20. Last year for cleaning, we actually picked up about 70. We then put them into a very structured programme, where we’re delivering different sets of courses, different sets of activities, and working them through the level so that they move from a cleaner to a team leader, or in case of a technician from an electrician or an AC technician to an MEP technician and then to a team leader.” In the case of Emrill, Harrison says that the firm runs apprentice schemes for schools. “We’re trying to set up a proper accredited apprenticeship scheme for students who leave schools. Now, this happens in more mature markets such as Europe and America. Kids leave school at 16 or 18 and they start as technicians or trainee engineers. It’s not graduate scheme because that comes later. It’s an apprenticeship scheme. We are trying to get those young people a start in life, because that’s very difficult to do.” Tewari pointed out the importance of soft skills in training for workers on the ground as well. “You need to check if people have the right communication skills, the right attitude, and is well groomed to be able to address what the end customer or the interim customer is expecting, and this will come by instilling a certain amount of confidence in your people to take ownership.” Harrison agreed with ownership and that it comes through empowerment. He said: “If you make somebody feel part of a team, and you empower that person to make decisions, and then they take ownership of things. If you force somebody to take responsibility and ownership, the moment you turn your back, they’ll avoid taking responsibility. You make someone feel valued, give them choices, and then they’ll take responsibility.” Bhamji had a differing view and believed that ownership is something inherent in an individual. “There are people with natural leadership abilities. Everyone goes through the same set of training, the same soft skills, and the same hard skills. It’s very important that you recognise at a very early stage who takes ownership by themselves. There are leaders and there are followers.” Going back to the subject of training, Kesavan asked if the effectiveness of training can be measured by an organisation, to which Mohamed responded: “If you probably do a half- day training session and if your staff members are not going attend, then it’s not productive. We have to relook as what we do and relook at the materials that we are offering. We have to try and create bespoke training materials that is relevant to the organisation and to its culture.” The other aspect of training is taking the time out to train workers. Tewari admitted that this is the biggest challenge. He said: “Most of our employees work long hours and the last thing you would want them to do is to come on their weekly off and attend training. So there has to be a humane approach to providing training.” Tewari said that the pandemic helped in the way AG Facilities imparted training. The firm explored the option of gamifying training and making it more interactive, where workers got to choose various outcomes. “People can actually immerse themselves in interactive training modules which has various outcomes and every time they go wrong, they have to start from the beginning and decide the right way forward. If you can gamify training, you can make it interesting for the worker, and I think they will find the time to do it.” Towards the end of the panel, Kesavan spoke about involving people of determination (POD) in the workforce. Harrison said that this fell under the purview of equal opportunities and that an organisation must remove all barriers that prevent PODs from applying. Simple steps to prevent such barriers will be installing ramps in the office building. Mohamed added by saying: “PODs also have a purpose and on this planet. They may have some extra skill. We need to identify the skillset that they have and use those speciality towards the benefit of the organisation.” Bhamji added as an information that there is Zayed Higher Organization based out of Abu Dhabi that provides a range of services that aims inclusion of POD into the community. He said: “We’re actually working with them to create a workshop for FM. They already have a carpentry workshops. So they’re working at getting skills for PODs and trying to integrate them into work.” Prakul concludes by saying: “I think we are in the business of managing people. There should be a humane way of doing businesses, across all levels. How well you treat your people, goes back to the culture and purpose of the organisation. The purpose that each employee determines the success of any organisation.” FM @ EXPO 2020 26 November 2021www.fm-middleeast.com Insights from a few FM companies catering to Expo 2020 Dubai FM @ Expo 2020 FM @ EXPO 2020 26 November 2021www.fm-middleeast.comFM @ EXPO 2020 November 2021 27www.fm-middleeast.com FM @ EXPO 2020 November 2021 27www.fm-middleeast.com FM @ EXPO 2020 28 November 2021www.fm-middleeast.com What does it take to prepare 3,000+ employees to support the “World’s Greatest Show”? Dr. Greg Ward, managing director, Transguard Group, reveals the company’s journey to 17 pavilion contracts and off ers insight into what is next on the horizon S eeing the global reaction to Expo 2020 Dubai has been exhilarating; it is even more poignant for us at Transguard because we have been an active part of Expo’s infrastructure since 2017 when we were awarded the Consultancy contract for the security design of the Expo site, which was swiftly followed by a contract for physical security (600+ security guards) during construction. These early wins allowed us to gain valuable intelligence about not only the event, but also about the organiser and the site itself, which in turn has enabled us to provide best-in-class services across our entire portfolio for the iconic event. Fast-forward to 2021 and as of press time, Transguard has contracts with 17 pavilions, is providing security in many high-profile locations across the event and AMPLIFIED AGILITY has deployed upwards of 3,000 employees in various designations and capacities. In short, we are playing a strategic role in the success of Expo, and it is thanks to the hard work of our passionate teams that we are meeting and every day we are exceeding expectations for both Expo itself and for its pavilions. WINNING TRUST = WINNING CONTRACTS While Transguard’s involvement with Expo began in 2017, our efforts began to gain traction in 2019; winning the New Zealand pavilion was our first major Expo announcement that year. As Covid-19 forced a temporary pause on the event itself, our teams did not stop winning work; on the contrary, they made a concerted effort to continue aligning with our partners at Expo and in the pavilions and offered creative, agile, customisable solutions as required. With the global pandemic and its associated flight restrictions temporarily halting overseas recruitment, we WE’VE CREATED A 360-DEGREE TRAINING EXPERIENCE TO ENSURE THAT EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF OUR TEAM, FROM THE MOST SENIOR MEMBER OF PAVILION MANAGEMENT TO AN ENTRY LEVEL CLEANER, IS EMPOWERED WITH THE SKILLS AND KNOW-HOW TO PROVIDE EVERY VISITOR WITH AN UNFORGETTABLY POSITIVE EXPERIENCE. Transguard Security in front of the UAE pavilion.FM @ EXPO 2020 November 2021 29www.fm-middleeast.com redoubled our in-country hiring efforts while simultaneously cross-training upwards of 5,000 current employees so they could be utilised across Transguard (including Expo). In parallel with these efforts was our keenly felt responsibility to ensure that our workforce was vaccinated, not only for their own safety but to help protect the citizens and residents of the UAE. Within three weeks of starting this programme, more than 16,000 Transguard employees had their first dose of Sinopharm and within six months an impressive 94% of our site-based staff (including those working at Expo) had received both jabs. This has since become a requirement for not only Expo but other worksites throughout the country, and we are proud that we led the curve with our proactive efforts. EMPOWERING TEAMS ACROSS OUR PORTFOLIO Now that Expo is well underway, you will find Transguard employees in Security, FM, Hospitality, Catering, Guest Experience, Logistics and more, all of whom have been specifically trained not only to support their specific location, but also in advanced customer service training, health and safety skills, first aid and in some cases, pavilion-specific emergency evacuation procedures and fire drills. Our teams also produced and delivered bespoke training courses and other documentation to support these efforts. In other words, Transguard’s support of Expo is about more than dropping staff at an event site and picking them up at the end of the day. We’ve created a 360-degree training experience to ensure that every single member of our team, from the most senior member of pavilion management to an entry level cleaner, is empowered with the skills and know-how to provide every visitor with an unforgettably positive experience. A WIDE SCOPE FOR INNOVATION Innovation and efficiency are two of the hallmarks of Transguard, and our approach to Expo 2020 is no different: Whether it was installing facial recognition Time and Attendance systems on client pavilions, issuing specialised smart watches to allow instant data capture and alarm triggering, utilising web-based radio applications that can transform the functionality of a normal smart phone into what is essentially a walkie talkie or relying on other technological advances, Transguard has utilised a number of market-leading solutions to ensure optimal support for Expo. Of course, technology has not been our only avenue for innovation; one major example is our purpose-built accommodation for Expo employees. Our employee training has also been developed in the spirit of innovation, with a core team taking on the objectives of each pavilion and then cascading that knowledge to the on-the-ground teams through specific training we created for each pavilion. EXPLORING NEXT STEPS To be sure, there has been a fast learning curve for every company involved with Expo 2020 Dubai. As a global event, it sets a new standard not only for the UAE, but also for the world – all with the added complication of Covid-19! Expo has provided us with a remarkable opportunity to arm our team with not only a new appreciation for other countries and cultures, but also with new skill sets based on even higher expectations of customer service. Expo has also amplified our agility and challenged us to respond and react with greater speed. As a company, this puts us in an enviable position of being able to actively demonstrate that we can deliver large-scale event solutions on a global level. In fact, Expo has served to further enhance our events capability to the point where we will be adding an additional business to our portfolio (so watch this space!). Finally, it is important to note that we have always viewed Expo as a remarkable, though finite, opportunity, meaning that our involvement has always had one foot in current deployment and the other in future contracts. We are already setting relationships and contracts in place to ensure that as many of our Expo staff as possible smoothly transition into new employment once Expo concludes. Dr. Greg Ward, managing director, Transguard Group. Spotlight on Security Responsible for the health and safety of all Expo visitors, the Transguard security team in the Al Wasl Zone and Sustainability Zone (Terra Pavilion and Districts) is perhaps the most visible element of our Expo workforce. In addition, we’re providing site surveillance with 80 SMS/CCTV operators and are responsible for checking, verifying and approving Access Accreditation passes for all contractors and other partners. Transguard’s security team was also actively deployed to the Expo site during the UAE’s lockdown at the height of the global pandemic: Working in a strictly controlled environment, with extreme att ention paid to health and safety protocols, our team’s commitment to the safety of Expo was as unwavering then as it is now. Not Your Average Assignment Just as Expo 2020 Dubai off ers visitors once-in-a-lifetime experiences, our teams have also added new (and in some cases, unexpected) responsibilities to their daily tasks. These include: • Giant ball pools • Swings • Slides • Elevating theatres • Mushroom farms Next >