Background

Global health care company Johnson & Johnson had outsourced facilities management (FM) across Europe to a global FM service providers. That company now delivers integrated FM services for tens of thousands of people across Johnson & Johnson’s estate across 10 countries in EMEA.

Client’s issue

Although the FM service providers had been delivering well against all key performance indicators (KPIs), something about the contract just wasn’t working for its stakeholders at both companies.

Kentish and Co suggested doing an extensive diagnostics piece to understand what the key issues were. Stakeholders across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) were asked for feedback.

The findings of the diagnostics piece pointed to there being issues around three pillars:

• Governance: people on the ground in both organisations did not understand the governance process especially how work should be managed at a site level.
• Output-based contracting: many people did not understand output-based contracting, so did not appreciate how the FM contract was meant to be operating.
• Collaboration: trust between staff at Johnson & Johnson and the FM service providers was generally low. Pockets of relationships were good, but it was the norm rather than the exception for interactions to be strained, and for collaboration to be poor between counterparts.

The Kentish and Co solution

Kentish and Co carefully constructed a bespoke, ongoing behavioural change training programme that was based on targeting the three pillars of governance, output-based contracting, and collaboration.

Kentish and Co built the programme in close contact with numerous stakeholders, to ensure that the course was delivered in the language of Johnson & Johnson and the FM service providers.

The training had to happen face to face, and not via WebEx, to ensure that people were fully engaged with the process. The course content featured compelling, impactful material, which helped to interrupt old habits and ways of thinking.

The training also factored in that facilities people don’t like to sit still, and was designed to encourage people to make tangible step changes.

Client benefits

The results of the training have been exceptional. As verified by the post-course survey, people now have a good understanding of output-based contracting; they have an improved understanding of governance and their responsibilities; and their relationships have improved.

The full benefits are summarised below:

• A 30% reduction in monthly escalations requiring management attention, globally;
• 76% of sites are now jointly developing innovation to drive strategic benefit to both organisations;
• 1% increase in KPI performance in Q1 2016 across EMEA. This is substantial when you take into account that the contract was already running at best in class;
• Governance meetings now happening with precise regularity;
• Better relationships resulting in a truly collaborative partnership approach;
• Better strategic alignment and clear understanding across the FM service providers and Johnson & Johnson;
• Behaviours from all parties are now aligned with the Johnson & Johnson culture;
• 97% of attendees learnt something new and will apply it back in their work.