Some of the Questions Raised from the Investec Forum 4th of August 2022
Investec Forum. Our 74 FOH Managers attending joined in with their points of view.
Q: Do you provide free lunches and/or breakfasts for employees each day?
-Our busiest day at the office is Wednesday – so we provide a free lunch and cakes for all staff.
-We do not provide free lunches but sometimes we offer free ice-cream, free fruit smoothies, special offers, etc specially on hot days!
-Free food daily such as: fruit bowls; jams, peanut butter, Nutella etc; bread (for toasts); selection of milks (plant based and regular) and cereals (both healthy options and those rather sugary!). As well – coffee machine & tea selection.
-All food served in our restaurant is free for everyone coming to work in the office, a good incentive.
-After coming back from lock down, we have started offering Breakfast and Lunch in the office as an incentive to come back. Breakfast is different types of granolas, porridge, yogurts, fruits, orange juice and small pastries. For lunch we have a Platform called Feedr where staff can order from different vendors each day. The company gives a Credit of £10 per person per day, but people can spend more and pay the difference themselves. Feedr is available as web app and mobile app and once ordered lunch is delivered by bicycle to the offices. If of interest happy to make induction/ give more details.
-Yes we do
-In the past few months we are encouraging our employees to come back on site by doing weekly events on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdayj, such as:
Tuesday – Breakfast
Wednesday afternoon tea ( with cake / ice cream/ high tea etc..)
Thursday drinks – various theme such as Gin Bar/ Beer tasting / Wine tasting / Bubbles trolley
Various activity such as lunch time walk / sports clubs / picnic in the park/ BBQ roof terrace event also included. (the employees required to be on site 2 days a week)
-No we do not. We decided it against it as we could not make it fair toward the rest of the business support providers.
-No
-Free breakfast is provided every morning between 7.45 and 8.30. In addition once a week free drinks (bar) for everyone!
-No we don’t but we do provide a subsidised café. Past experience, if you provide anything for free everyone will take it. If you make them pay (even subsidised) only a 1/3rd of people will take it up.
Q: Recommendations for any high-end florist who will work with a corporate business account and invoices for bouquets as gifting and celebrations.
-Same, we would also be very interested in knowing this so we do not have to keep paying on a credit card.
-We use Hayford & Rhodes for our bouquets and NB flowers for our weekly reception flowers
-McQueen Flowers are nice, we do not use them here, but I worked with them in the past.
-High end flowers bouquets- we have account with Moyses Stevens they are great – https://www.moysesflowers.co.uk/
-My personal suggestion is Bloomsbury Flowers – https://www.bloomsburyflowers.co.uk/
-we only use Exubia plant and flower arrangement as we have a contract with them. We have recently renewed the contract as we are happy with their services.
-Here they used Flowers Online | Order Flowers Online for Delivery in London – McQueens Flowers
-We use Shaftsberries http://www.shaftsberriesflowers.com/ – contact Bernie – he’s great!
-We use M&S for bouquets but for flowers in reception and dining rooms we use a small independent florist India Jess Flowers who we pay via invoice
-We had a similar experience with our florist pre-Covid. We used to use one for our Reception flowers and then a separate company, Planteria, for our external plants. We recently reintroduced flowers at events and decided to use Planteria – we were really impressed and they also do gift bouquets etc at reasonable prices – https://www.planteriagroup.com/gift-bouquets/ they are a family orientated Firm and service is excellent.
-We use Windowflowers Ltd, very good for weekly displays and bouquets.
-We have a great florist but she is not a big corporate florist and only an individual. We do however pay her on invoice. She also works form a stall in Farringdon a couple of days a week even though she does contract flowers – so that can be really useful when needing a last minute bouquet!
Q: What are people using for successful large hybrid meetings in terms of equipment (so meetings with more than 12 people in person and some joining online).
-We are using our normal Video conference meeting rooms for Hybrid meetings and we are also using a new facility called BYOM – Bring Your Own Device , where our internal clients can plugged their laptop and connect automatically to their hybrid meetings on the big screens.
-We are only working with Microsoft Teams at it works great for us in large meetings of 12, 20 and 100
-Cisco tablets that enable ZOOM connection.
-For Hybrid meeting we use Zoom and Webinar
-We are looking into this and currently we are trialling Lenovo but only had it installed 2 days ago. I can keep you posted on that.
-We are using Zoom, which our AV team then connects to the in-room screen so that it starts automatically for the attendees in the room.
We book all inter-office reservations automatically now as Zoom meetings rather than using our previous VC system.
-Microsoft Teams
-Microphones on desk and then usual connection via Teams on our screens/in-room PC
-Each employee has been provided with a laptop and each meeting room has VC equipment.
-We are using a system called Quick launch to help where the clients have set up the call, have direct dial buttons to zoom &BlueJeans as we have purchased Meeting room licences for both, and we also have another system in a smaller room which is probably the easiest in that you can connect sound and video via an additional cable to your laptop which transfer the sound and video to the screen. Can give more details if required.
Q: Recommendations for a space management solution for external room booking, desk booking and sensor based, automated for internal rooms that are in use.
-We use RRS to book all our spaces ( room reservation system ), It is automatically linked to our Creston panels placed outside each of our Client rooms which will display the meeting information.
-The best system I came across that can integrate with Condeco and other existing systems is Vpod which offers one platform solution that connects technology and people flow (sensors, desk bookings, room bookings, catering, access control, helpdesk system, smart lockers, etc)
-Datacraft/Manhattan/Trimble/MRI Software – they have changed hands so many times but basically the product is the same and still the best out there. We have temps coming in that say they can’t understand why everyone does not have this system as it is by far the easiest and user friendly. It does all the things you are asking but not sure about the sensor based thing although I think it was on the cards. The room panels can be booked either by swiping a card or logging in. Can be compatible with your pass system.
Freespace– Searchafreespace
-We have a self serve room booking system called CSconnect for reserving meeting rooms, alongside the system that our Conference Services team use. We currently don’t hot desk though I know EMS/Accruent have a system in place.
-Nothing in place at the moment, however NFS Rendezvous may be able to assist.
To return to the main client menu – hit Receptionist Needed