With budgets tight, getting the most out of contract services is a must. But with so many options, deciding who should provide which service can be a decision-making minefield.  Whether it be single service, TFM, or the bundled route, each landlord has a preferred means of keeping their shopping centre portfolio operational. And they each have their pros and cons.

For Jeremy Waud, managing director of Incentive FM, who advised CSC on the formation of its Facilities Alliance, total facilities management is where it’s at, although he admits that it can be riskier for bigger portfolios.

“There are a lot of eggs in one basket and potentially there could be too much to swallow,” he explains. “But for 250,000 to 750,000-sq ft schemes TFM will deliver best value in terms of service charge, which is what it all comes down to.

“Shopping centres don’t need to employ lots of people - there are always going to be people who can do those jobs and companies who can package them together, allowing for more flexibility.”

He gave an example. At Crystal Peaks shopping centre in Sheffield, service personnel work as an integrated team. Security, maintenance, cleaning, groundsmen, back office and concierge are all on one pay roll, supplied by a partner organisation so there is very little need for sub-contractors except for lifts, fire alarms and CCTV. “In terms of best practice, that’s it,” says Waud.

Cynics might say that a single company can’t possibly know about each discipline but Waud describes that view as short-sighted.

“Crystal Peaks won Security Team of the Year at the 2011 SCEPTRE awards which is proof that you don’t have to be a specialist to perform well,” he says.

G4S is a multi-disciplined organisation offering a range of services to shopping centres but as a security specialist, it advocates the need to maintain core skills.   

“We recognise that pooling management resource into one central team can provide economies of scale and cost savings through improving synergies between different services for example, cleaning and security,” says Kevin Pickford, sector director at G4S Secure Solutions UK. “However there is still a great need to maintain core skills.”

G4S, which does a significant proportion of retail property work with managing agents, provides an operating model that best fits with the client and advise them as to how they might demonstrate value to the landlords if they are managing a bundled supplier.

“As a service company, we need to ensure we are primarily securing the centres and meeting the needs of our customers. The use of a specialist security provider, with the support infrastructure that a company the size and scope of G4S, gives peace of mind that the shopping centre is always in safe hands.”

And when it comes down to experience, for G4S training is absolutely key.

“From a customer care perspective, we train our teams to communicate effectively through a process of teaching underlying theory which is then enhanced through realistic practical exercises,” explains Pickford.

“These training sessions, which cover how to stand when being approached by members of the public, how to question their requirements, to confirm understanding and then to respond in a clear concise and effective way, are often videoed to provide real time feedback.”

Depending on the location of the shopping centre, G4S will also take account of local sensitivities, and train their personnel accordingly.

As Pickford explains this can range from ethnic and cultural awareness of differing attitudes to personal space to communicating with unaccompanied women.  

Waud believes that integrated service models could be extended to include things like website design and support, something that Incentive FM is able to orchestrate.

“You’ve got the centre manager and their support team, the off-site professionals, the marketing and web team which may be handled by a separate agency and the service delivery company which deals with the people on the ground,” he says. “There’s an opportunity to hook that all together.”

“Contract services is about managing people and delivering performance and applying the right people to the right jobs. The management team and the off-site professionals aren’t about people, they’re about assets and that’s the key issue. Give the things that require people skills to the service provider because they’re going to be better at it.”

Colin Read, head of property at Interserve, believes that landlords have been tougher in the procurement of their FM contracts. And it all comes down to cost.   

“It’s tougher in a number of ways because people are thinking short-term and are more interested than usual in reducing the cost element - there’s been closer scrutiny of numbers and deliverables.

By taking a pragmatic approach we can generate savings and make service sustainable, demonstrating service improvement for the same money or maintaining service levels for less money.

“Working across several different services like cleaning, security and maintenance we have visibility of the whole cost and work closely with our clients on service charges.

“We can make reductions in certain areas and strip out inessentials where costs can be avoided. And those savings can be re-invested.”  

Waud explains that one way to make savings is to re-jig rosters.

“Get people in on the right days, depending on footfall,” he advises. “There’s no need to have a full cleaning team in on a Monday when it isn’t busy. And in terms of security, think about whether there are quieter times when the centre could be un-manned with someone keeping an eye on the CCTV from the control room instead?

“It’s about challenging historic ways of doing things. You don’t need to deliver service when it isn’t needed - think about how it could be done differently.”

Read, agrees. “If you re-evaluate the security shift system you can spend more on cleaning and customer service in peak times of footfall,” he says.

“With the multiple service model there’s flexibility to push and pull on service lines and make sure money is spent in the most appropriate areas. If you only have cleaning it becomes difficult to take the cost out but with a number of services there’s easy flexibility to look at overheads and compromise with clients who have budget constraints.”

But Waud insists that centre management should differentiate between savings and efficiencies.
“If you’re going to spend £10,000 on painting and you don’t do it, you haven’t saved money because that painting still needs to be done,” he says. “Whereas if you have seven security guards and you change the roster so you only need six – that’s taken £20,000 out of the cost of running the business every year.”

Incentive FM have a series of models that can be tailored to fit clients with budget constraints.

“In the procurement process now most clients will reveal how much they’re spending and on what,” says Waud. “If they’re trying to save money, which most are, then we’ll show them a model to assist them in that objective.”

And they have a risk and reward initiative that helps to achieve a high level of performance. If they’ve engendered a high level of satisfaction and operated within the budget, then the landlord pays out a reward bonus, half of which would go to the staff on the ground.

On the flip side, if the score is too low or they’ve spent too much Incentive FM would give that trigger amount back to the client.

“With risk and reward, cost and performance are linked together,” says Waud.

Service delivery companies supplying retail destinations with cleaning and security staff who can provide all-important customer service is one way to secure added value.

And for G4S customer service is a key concern.

“The primary concern for a security provider would always be to ensure that the shopping centre is a safe and secure environment for both the customers and the shop owners; however, customer service is also a key concern for the security team because essentially they are the human face of the centre,” says Pickford. “If they are courteous, knowledgeable and above all helpful, then the customer’s shopping experience is immeasurably enhanced.”

This theory is high on the list when it comes to recruitment.  

As Pickford explains: “There are too many clichés regarding horses and new tricks; but we firmly believe that effective training of shopping centre staff has to start with the right people being trained. The security sector employs personnel with a wide range of skill sets and aptitudes – but if a willingness to look after a customers’ interests isn’t demonstrated, then an individual is not considered appropriate for our shopping centre business.”

Interserve is also big on customer service. According to Read, the high level of training its staff have undergone in order to deliver contracts in government departments are easily transferrable to the retail industry.

And for him, it’s down to the centre management team to make sure staff have a level of ownership.  
“It’s important that our cleaning staff see what’s in it for them to get engagement,” he explains.  
Waud believes that another benefit of FM is that the interests of the client and the integrated service provider are aligned.

“Traditionally cleaning, security and M&E are all trying to achieve opposite objectives which leads to landlords constantly having to re-tender because they don’t trust each other,” he says. “Put them on the same side with an open book and there’s no reason why that contract relationship can’t last for years.”

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