Preparing Offices For Staff

This past year, the above mentioned insurance company provided every single member of staff with a laptop in order for them to work remotely from home. We were tasked, as mentioned above, with helping their staff return to their offices and in order to do this, it required a complete equipment refresh as well as removing and replacing docking stations for new monitors. This would encompass 4500 docking stations, all of which would need to be tested, as well as 4000 monitors. In all we were required to:

• Disconnect existing hardware
• Install new docking stations at all working points
• Ensure new monitors were compatible
• Test all new equipment installed to ensure the position is ready for the user
• Complete a full audit at each location, identifying all new equipment as well as all redundant equipment – as well as identify each individual desk space

The Problem

While a job of this magnitude would normally take around 5 months, we were tasked with completing this in just 5 weeks. What’s more, this would need to be completed across 11 different sites up and down the country.

Every single site was completely individual too, with all users wanting and needing something different. There was also the difficulty of users dialling in via VPN, which meant we wouldn’t be able to remove these desk tops just yet, as the users were still working from home. This would require us to wait for their return before attending to their desk space. From a resource planning point of view, this task was tricky to say the least however, as always, Capital stepped up.

The Solution

In order to get this job done, we needed to ensure our communication was first-class. This particular insurance company also has collaborations with an FM, Soft Services and an IT company, so communication across all parts of the business were crucial, to ensure there was no effect to the day to day activities. We needed to essentially coordinate 5 different companies across 11 different sites in order to get this done correctly and on time.

To reach our time frame goal, ensuring their work spaces were ready for workers to return by the end of April, we worked around each site’s access times to ensure social distancing protocols were adhered to at all times. We devised an access plan, to allow us to complete works when the client had reduced workforce in operation, providing us and them with safe spaces for both teams to get work safely, whilst ensuring the time on site was cost efficient. While this was a tough ask, as always, here at Capital, we achieved our and our client’s goals and are currently hoping to win another contract for this same company for further work.