Business centres and transport: how the management company can make life easier for users.

Questions of transport and management of business centres intersect in at least three places: access, parking, and provision for electric cars and other eco-friendly vehicles.

Transport access is decisive for the class of a business centre. Convenient approaches for motorists are particularly important, but they are only a part of the story. Users should also be able to reach the business centre by public transport, and there must be safe and convenient pedestrian paths to the nearest metro and bus stops. Ideally, pedestrian approaches to a building should be isolated from traffic in order to ensure the safety of all road users.

A dedicated parking lot is also crucial for a quality business centre. Potential tenants will pay careful attention to parking capacity, both for their employees and for their guests, who will be unimpressed if they cannot to find a parking space. Organization of arrival and departure to the parking lot is also an indicator of quality. Class-A offices should have special access and parking arrangements for executive-class cars.

Provision for owners of electric vehicles, bicycles and scooters is a theme in itself, particularly for business centres in Moscow, where a project is underway to convert transport infrastructure to electric formats. Around 200 charging stations for electric vehicles have been installed in the Russian capital since last year and at least 600 are planned by 2023.

Facilities managed by O1 Standard are already installing fast charging stations for electric cars. In 2020, the first publicly available station was unveiled in the parking lot at the iCUBE business centre. Several more stations are being installed at the company’s facilities this year.

However, electric or not, cars clog the urban space, and the advantages of bicycles and scooters are obvious. This year electric scooters are suddenly everywhere to be seen in Moscow and O1 Standard is working to make provision for them at business centres

The green agenda for commercial real estate goes beyond the installation of charging points in business centre car parks. It is a long list of measures to improve the overall environmental efficiency of business centres. O1 Standard caries out regular audits of engineering solutions and infrastructure at its buildings for compliance with environmental standards.

Natalia Skachkova, commercial director of O1 Standard, explains the differences between management of class-A and class-B office buildings and what it has to do with the professionalism of the management company.

The first thing to say is that boundaries between buildings in classes A and B are increasingly blurred. Some new class-B buildings are approach class A, thanks to rapid advances in construction and engineering technologies. On the other hand, some class-A facilities, built over a decade ago, really belong in class B as regards quality of their engineering systems, and their architectural and planning solutions. But formally they are still in class A.

Roughly speaking, we can say that class A consists mainly of new buildings with sophisticated and modern engineering systems that require qualified specialists to manage them. Architecture and planning is usually superior in class A, and class-A buildings tend to have the best location and more amenities. For example, one of our facilities includes a kindergarten, and that required a rethink of how to use building and grounds, construction of a playground that didn’t’ take away from the architectural ensemble and business style of the building, as well as separation of user flows in and around the building.

Class A offers higher standards of hospitality and front-office communication with clients. Ideally, these should match the standards of five-star hotels: staff should be well-trained and ready to address any issue that a client brings.

Companies renting class-A buildings often work around the clock, and that entails various challenges for the management company. The company must have a service plan that ensures well-coordinated 24×7 operation of all its services (control room, security, duty team of engineers and technicians, etc.).

Another difference is that class-A buildings, particularly new ones, are more likely to be certified to environmental performance standards, so the management company needs special know-how to ensure compliance with the standards. That means responsible procurement policy, RSO, supply chain assessment (carbon footprint), a special schedule and procedure for equipment maintenance, etc.

However, none of these differences mean that a class-B building can be managed to lower standards than a class-A building. Class-B (especially B+) buildings are not much inferior to those in class A and someone who walks into two buildings that have similar décor,but are not in the same class, may not notice the difference, at least not immediately. Service quality and professionalism of management company staff is as important to tenants in class-B office buildings as to those in buildings of class A. Take, for example, this recent example: a potential client, a prominent developer working with class-B buildings, sent a representatives to see to see what service standards our Company provides in class-A offices (business etiquette, requirements for appearance and clothing, rules for business correspondence by staff of the management company, etc.). 

O1 Standard applies the same requirements for the management of class-A and class-B business centres. All of our staff, from security guard to chief engineer, must be familiar with the requirements before they starting working for us. O1 Standard provides its services in 11 class-A business centres and three centres in classes B and B+.

IN BRIEF:

Class A

– Complex engineering, special qualifications of personnel.

– High standards of front-office (reception). Service should be similar to a high-quality hotel – unobtrusive, but clear, fast and with a smile.

– Amenities are often specific and require careful management.

– Use of latest technologies in manager-tenant interaction (digitalization, communication in remote and mobile format, services for tenant staff).

– Positive attitude to technology, readiness to perform non-standard tasks (installation of electric vehicle chargers, etc.).

– Class-A buildings often have a certificate of environmental performance, so the management company must know how to ensure that the building complies with green standards (separate waste collection, environment policy, responsible procurement, minimizing carbon footprint in the supply chain, etc.).

– Class-A buildings usually set higher requirements for maintenance of shared-use zones, separation of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, creation and maintenance of recreation zones, and landscaping.

Class B

A class-B building can be managed just as well as a building in class A. Management quality is one of the top-3 factors that companies consider when choosing where to locate their office, so building owners cannot afford to neglect it. How to do everything in a class-B building just as well as in a class-A building is a key challenge for management companies. 

O1 Standard’s COO Dmitry Sveshnikov discussed new trends in the commercial real estate management sphere, green technologies, new approaches to business and the company’s plans with the Arendator.ru information portal.

Dmitry, please tell us how the pandemic affected the management company market?

In a sense, the pandemic benefited management companies, accelerating industry digitalization and bringing management companies closer to their tenants, who are the end users of their services. A management company now performs significantly more functions than it used to: prior to the pandemic, it was solely responsible for the functioning of the business center as a whole, and the manager’s task was to make the facility operate normally. That was when the word “remote” was not yet a part of our everyday vocabulary, and working in an office was an absolutely natural phenomenon. Then the pandemic started, remote work became the norm, and by approximately the fall of 2020, many companies were forced to realize that their intention to bring at least some of their employees back into the office ran into a lack of understanding on their part. That’s when it became necessary to create a working environment that would not only be more comfortable than home, but also more inspiring. The building infrastructure, the range of services that can be obtained onsite, a variety of recreation areas, leisure opportunities, and simply the building’s convenience and aesthetic appeal are now the responsibility of the management company. Today, the office and the business center space are turning into tools for non-material employee motivation, which is what we mean by the growing role of the management company in the building. The management company should help tenants create comfortable conditions for conducting their business and bringing employees back into the office.

How would you motivate employees to return to the workplace?

Among the arguments in favor of the office is that it has become more than merely a workplace. A business center now offers more than a productive working atmosphere; it also provides additional infrastructure that allows office workers to solve their everyday problems without leaving the building: an ATM, a dry cleaner, a purchase pick-up point… We have already noted that some time ago the concept of a “comfortable office” came to imply a “green” office, but today, a “green” office is not just about the environment – it’s also about a user’s comfort. After all, a person spends 8-9 hours a day at the workplace. How does he feel there? The BREEAM certification system has solved this problem already, while FitWel and Well are even founded on the desire to ensure that a person is as comfortable as possible in the workplace.

I know that your company recently hired a certified “green” standards appraiser. Does the new reality dictate new terms, or do you just want to keep up with the trend?

Green certification and green standards have long been implemented in the West. In Russia, the pandemic forced companies to take a closer look at environmental standards to make the tenants feel comfortable and safe in the office. The O1 Standard portfolio manages the largest number of Breeam-certified business centers, and we monitor the trends in this sphere very carefully.

We have always sought to improve the environmental performance of the buildings under our management, and complying with the “green” standards is only a part of this process. The sustainability agenda of the business sector as a whole is expanding, so naturally, companies, especially public ones, pay close attention to the office and the building in which they operate and the extent of their compliance with international environmental performance standards. The building’s environmental certificate is gradually becoming if not a mandatory requirement, then certainly a factor that increases the attractiveness of a facility for class A and premium tenants. The next step in this direction is to evaluate an office for environmental performance. Many tenants are changing the workspace concept to meet the new sanitary and epidemiological requirements and to make it suitable for partially remote work. When implementing these projects, there is a demand for the introduction of green office technologies. We want to help our tenants solve the maximum range of tasks, and would ultimately like them to resolve all of their problems by working with us under a “one-stop” concept. Hiring a staff certified appraiser helps us both improve our own management standards and work with our tenants to implement projects of this sort.

I received a release from you about the successful completion of the Space 1 Balchug’s Fitwel certification. It became the first project in Russia to receive this certificate. Why did tenants require this specific credential?

Yes, indeed, we were the first in Russia to complete the Fitwel building certification process together with our partner, Cushman & Wakefield. Unlike BREEAM or LEED, it focuses entirely on assessing working conditions and their impact on the health and productivity of our employees. Most of the parameters assessed are directly related to eco-efficient technologies, but this standard assesses their impact on human beings. Thus, a Fitwel certificate can be considered an independent confirmation that people in this building will work in comfort and have a variety of food service, sports, leisure and recreation options, as well as that all temperature and acoustic standards will be met. All this helps to reduce stress and increase the level of employee satisfaction with working in the office.

Could you please tell us about how the company is doing in general?

We feel confident. In 2020, we started working with service offices – this requires an individual approach to drawing up a service plan. In January 2021, we took over the management of Tower A of the SkyLight business center, and prior to that, we successfully carried out technical due diligence in the process of selling the facility to a strategic investor. We also signed a contract for the maintenance of the multifunctional complex “Legend of Tsvetnoy.” We are actively expanding the business of servicing individual tenant offices: we won 43 tenders and received 2.5 times more client applications for additional services. The growth rate is preserved this year: the first quarter brought 7-8% more additional work than we had planned. However, the growth of our portfolio was mostly warranted by specific offices, rather than by whole buildings. We also plan to try our hand at managing premium residential projects with our partner – we have sufficient competencies for that.

You are called the “internal” management company of O1 Properties, how do you feel about that?

We often hear that everything came easy to us, since a major proprietor of class A office real estate transferred their entire portfolio under our management. But for some reason, everyone forgets what a colossal responsibility it is. We do remain a strategic partner of O1 Properties, but our portfolio is not limited to the properties of a single owner. A company’s success should be judged by the results of its work and the level of satisfaction of the owner and tenant companies in the building. In our case, 2020 results demonstrate that the tenant satisfaction level has increased in all our buildings, which is the biggest victory for us. Today we are developing as an independent company and, given the wide range of our team’s competencies, we can compete with many market participants. We believe in the success of our strategy, which is to work for the benefit of the building’s tenants, or even their employees, rather than for the building’s owner: if they are satisfied, then tenant loyalty grows. And, as you know, that increases the building’s investment value – the main KPI used by proprietors when choosing a management company.

Interviewed by Anastasia Kremenchuk

Source: www.arendator.ru