CLIENT BACKGROUND

Axis Bank is the third-largest private sector bank in India that offers the entire spectrum of financial services to customer segments covering Large and Mid-Corporates, MSME, Agriculture, and Retail Businesses. The Bank has a large footprint of 4,528 domestic branches (including extension counters) across the country as of 31st March 2020. Axis Bank is one of the first new generation private sector banks to have begun operations in 1994 with its head office in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

CHALLENGE

Axis Banks’s facilities were solely managed by their admin team locally with no online FM solution in place. As all the industries were grappling with whether to re-open their workplaces or stay closed with the mounting signs of the COVID-19 spread, Axis Bank took their baby steps towards reinventing their workplace re-entry strategies and manage their workplaces smartly during the global pandemic. They were focused on designing and implementing strategies for contactless services and operations in their corporate locations while also considering the interventions that will help mitigate health risks to their employees and customers.

As a part of Axis Bank’s new 2D-3D-5D (D denotes ‘Day’) with only 60% of the total employee rostered to be in the office on any working day. The challenge was to implement a people focused space management solution that will list all the available facilities (workstations, meeting rooms, cafeterias, parking spaces, etc.) on an online platform in a visual format where employees can view and book workspaces & common spaces with spatial distancing norms applied. They wanted the system to take care of the aspects of employee’s return-to-work that included employee pre-entry, at work, and common space usage with technology-enabled capabilities at their corporate offices.

SOLUTION

During their extensive market research and deliberations for a scalable and technology-driven space management solution, Axis Bank found eFACiLiTY® to be the perfect choice for their wide scope diverse space planning and managing requirements. In a nutshell, a unified platform for their admin team to manage available spaces and also let employees book workspaces & common spaces/resources with the flexibility of managing the same with a mobile app was the need of the hour. eFACiLiTY® was deployed on-premise on July 2020, across 7 hub locations of Axis Bank in Mumbai, India serving 10,000 users as a part of their Phase 1 requirements.

eFACiLiTY® offered two of its most innovative software with a smart mobile app to implement Axis Bank employee’s safe return-to-workplace policy seamlessly.

eFACiLiTY® Space Management System

Implementing eFACiLiTY® Space Management System meant that the admin team can now track, monitor, & allocate spaces i.e., workstations, cabins, cubicles, hot-desks, micro break areas, etc. with social distancing norms applied. Employees can reserve their workspace as per the roster i.e. 2D/3D/5D/6D policy when they are at the office on a first come first serve basis considering their comfort factors. With the automation of the hot-desking, employees now have a seamless experience reserving their workspace in a shared/common space or during unrostered walk-in’s. This has also increased the visibility for the admin team to trace potential contacts by identifying employee wise space occupied.

SMS and Email notifications with QR codes triggered on booking confirmation are used as entry badge/pass for contactless check-ins. The ability to restrict time-slots in the bookings to disinfect & deep clean work areas and restrict location/department wise total space allocations to limit the number of people in a particular area or on a rostered day has enabled Axis Bank to execute their space planning strategies with the utmost ease.

eFACiLiTY® Facility Booking System

Implementing eFACiLiTY® Facility Booking System meant that all the bookable facilities are being displayed in an intuitive interface for the Axis Bank employees to reserve i.e., meeting rooms, board rooms, conference hall, training rooms, dining areas, parking spaces, etc. in a visual floor plan with capacities applying social distancing norms.

The comprehensive view of the occupancy status at a glance & configurable time interval between the meetings enables the admin team to view and organize disinfecting & cleaning activities to reduce infections after the end of every booking. Integration with MS Outlook enabled users to invite attendees for meetings easily.

The facility admins have the ability to override bookings or suggest alternate meeting rooms in case of non-availability of rooms at any given time, view the occupancy statistics to plan/optimize area wise meeting rooms, future requirements, etc.

eFACiLiTY® Smart Facility App

eFACiLiTY® Smart facility App, the extension of eFACiLiTY® CAFM/IWMS for mobile devices was integrated into OneAxis App with SSO authentication to facilitate enhanced user experience for employees returning to work.

eFACiLiTY® Smart Facility App lets the employees view the space availability, occupancy status, and reserve desks/meeting rooms, or any other facilities in the Axis Bank premise on the go.

Using eFACiLiTY® Smart Facility App the guard at security checkpoints can scan the dynamic QR codes from the user’s booking to validate their entry into the premises ensuring recommended employee social distancing norms in the workplace is not compromised and unrostered walk-ins are addressed.

KEY BENEFITS

  • Social distancing in the workplace implemented seamlessly
  • Configuring all the spaces and facilities available in the Axis Bank premise by city, location, floor, department, etc. on a unified platform
  • Visualized indoor maps of every floorplan across the facility
  • Workspace usage and real-time availability data & visualisation of workspaces and meeting rooms
  • Visual occupancy dashboards for space utilization analysis and optimization
  • Optimized workspace usage with real-time contactless headcount tracking without any additional hardware

PROJECT ROADMAP

  • Phase 2: eFACiLiTY® implementation in 4,200 branch offices pan India
  • Automation to integrate turnstile gates and boom barriers with QR scanner to validate bookings facilitating hands-free and complete contactless check-ins
  • QR code-based flag barriers in targeted locations

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for return-to-workplace plan but at its core Axis Bank’s decision to reinvent workspace planning with a greater focus on people, and the technology-enabled capabilities of eFACiLiTY® has allowed us to co-create spaces that work, and be a part of this next generation agile workplace.