The Missing Audience Among FM, HR & IT - Employees it

Facilities managers are pivotal contributors to employee experience that must address these challenges to deliver an exceptional work environment. In conversation with those close to the issues, some common themes emerge:  

• Controlling costs 
• Maintaining occupancy levels 
• Retaining talent through engineering experiences 
• Managing soft environmental factors (lighting, temperature, cleanliness) 

While these issues are crucial, Sodexo’s partner SHAPE, the world’s first purpose-built product to measure and accelerate employee flourishing, has uncovered a significant insight pointing towards a necessary shift in perspective. 

"Most organisations are in a flourishing deficit." 

What’s the significance of this discovery? The level of flourishing in a company directly influences the outcome of the challenges listed above. What’s more, it also affects several unseen elements crucial to employee experience. 

In addition to this, we found that flourishing is timeless. Its comprehensive nature means it evolves with your people, business, and the environment in which they operate. This means that you’ll only ever need one overarching metric to measure and enhance employee experience. 

So, in 2024, the only question to ask is:  "Are my employees flourishing?" 

But what comes next? How can facilities managers play their part? 

The solution to a flourishing deficit is to build a flourishing mindset across the organisation. This means placing employee flourishing at the heart of the process. The images below reflect what this shift would look like from an FM perspective. Presently, you have a trifecta of FM, HR, and IT working loosely together to manage employee experience. 

Fig 1.1: Current model

The new model advocated by our partner SHAPE places flourishing employees at the centre, emphasizing two key outcomes: 

1. Everything revolves around employee flourishing. 
2. Employee flourishing becomes a common goal. 

This necessitates a broader and deeper understanding of employee experience at work.  

Fig 1.2: Revised model 

Here’s an example from a recent SHAPE case study involving 311 employees situated in a single building. Facilities managers traditionally focus on metrics like temperature, lighting, and noise. But looking only at the surface means they miss the underlying employee experience behind these metrics. Without a deeper understanding of how employees are feeling, you’re shooting in the dark.

Fig 1.3: Data from SHAPE case study 

The new model, backed by SHAPE data, helps facility managers work back from how employees feel about these factors. So, you emerge with a more detailed breakdown of how many employees are struggling, striving, and flourishing. This allows you to measure the size of your deficits and their economic impact. This in turn allows you to take more meaningful actions.

Furthermore, in this approach facilities managers work alongside HR and IT to collectively address challenges revealed by the data. Extending beyond just environmental factors to culture, coworker dynamic, satisfaction, and manager style and beyond. Flourishing deficits in these areas can lead to significant time losses, and collaborative solutions are the only way forward.

The impact extends beyond satisfaction; a flourishing mindset has an exponential effect on employee experience. At Sodexo, backed by SHAPE's data-driven approach, we emphasise the importance of empowering facility managers to make informed decisions with a holistic view of the workplace. Because in the end the building is more than just bricks and mortar. It’s what it houses.

Genuine understanding. Collective effort. Backed by scientific thinking. 

SHAPE is the employee flourishing company. They help organisations address their flourishing deficit, build a flourishing mindset, and do it faster, via 

1. Up to 10x faster flourishing for every employee through personalised guidance, powerful tips  

2. Motivational messages to help build a flourishing mindset 

3. Emerging trends bulletins exclusively for executives to power boardroom decisions 

Step up to Flourishing. 

Get a FREE consultation with SHAPE on how FM can emerge as the transformation architect of a Flourishing Mindset for your organisation.