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movePEP
Professional Services Company
This case study outlinesthe implementation of movePEP before an organisation physically moves its offices, and quantifies its benefits.
Background
Organisations typically suffer from extended downtime when they move their offices from one location to another. Sometimes, it can be three or four days before the knowledge worker is “up and running”, with severe consequences for customer service and other ongoing work. And occasionally, important information is simply lost during the move, meaning it has to be recreated or actions taken in its absence.
This case study amalgamates the experience of movePEP implementations within the regional offices of five large companies: DHL, Ernst and Young, Ford, Hewlett Packard and NCR. In every instance , the organisation’s primary objective was to minimise the downtime inherent in moving, and to save money through greater efficiencies and by discarding waste.
An additional objective for each client was to take advantage of a physical dislocation - moving office - to effect cultural change amongst those moving, introducing better ways of working and agreed protocols around information handling and retention, and interruptions in the new work spaces.
What was happening?
Each organisation had a settled workforce with unexceptional, but superficially efficient and effective work practices among its people. In each instance, a large regional HQ was moving more than 500 people to newer, improved offices, and updating furniture, fit out, equipment and software. Each was concerned to minimise the impact of the move, and to effect it as smoothly and inexpensively as possible.
Our approach
We implemented PEP with those moving offices before they moved. On the first day of the program— which typically deals with work organisation, filing and efficiency—we added components designed to make the move easier.
Our objective was to have every knowledge worker working productively again within an hour of getting into the office after the move.
We also aimed to eliminate waste, leading to direct savings in moving and storage costs.
Our results
The movePEP programs with these five organisations resulted in a Paper Discard Rate* of over 50 per cent, which translated to:
- 86 kilos of paper discarded per person = A$283.50 savings (It cost approximately A$3.30 per kilo to move paper).
- 2.7m of filing space per person = A$275 savings (Filing cabinet space cost A$1 per filing cm).
- .28 square metres space reduction per person = A$110 per year (lease cost averaged $400 per square metre per year).
- Total direct savings were A$668.50 per person
This was in addition to the indirect savings which PEP always delivers, such as time savings per person of al least 1.5 hours a day, at least 25 per cent more time spent on planning, and a 30 per cent increase on the time spent on the strategic and operational imperatives of participants’ jobs.
Also added in was the loss of downtime: typically, movePEP resulted in a saving of at least two days per person. Eighty per cent of those moving were up and running within an hour of arriving at work on the day following the move. The total indirect cost savings attributable to movePEP were estimated at A$1900 per person**. In the case of the professional services organisation, meetings with billable clients were scheduled as normal on the Monday following the move to the new location—that is, the business operated immediately as if the move had NOT in fact taken place, resulting in more indirect savings of over A$3500 per person***.
*The Paper Discard Rate was established by physically measuring the throw away volume of many participants in the programs.
** An estimate arrived at by cutting the downtime by two days, based on an average salary of A$75,000 (the clients’ experience of downtime in previous moves was two days) .
*** Based on the clients’ own conservative estimate of one days billable time by their professional staff.
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