Hygiene Has Become the No. 1 Priority for Corporate Facility Management Teams!

At Auum, as you may have seen recently, we took advantage of the lockdown period to meet with CSR Managers… but also Facility Managers. Today, Cécile, Head of Facility Management at UBS France, talks to us about workplace well-being and hygiene, as well as her vision of environmental responsibility within the company. Once again, thank you Cécile for taking the time to speak with us.

Cécile, could you briefly tell us about your background?

Before joining UBS France, I already had 20 years of experience in facility management. I first worked as Health, Safety and Environment Implementation Manager at the Palais des Congrès de Paris, before joining Maison Hermès as Facility Manager. I then became Director of the Customer Contact Centre, an internal telephone platform created to improve customer support for the Hermès brand, which I developed with the full support of the company. After that, I spent three years heading Facility Management at Maison Céline. And today, with all that experience behind me, I am now at UBS… where I feel very aligned with the company’s vision of facility management.

Can you sum up the purpose of your role in one sentence?

To ensure employee well-being and provide the technical resources they need in the workplace, while remaining behind the scenes.

Do you have your own independent CSR budget?

We have our own budget, based on a history of fixed expenses. Unexpected and/or unpredictable expenses are reviewed and approved by the Executive Committee.

How are you going to adapt your spending after lockdown?

The situation is unprecedented, so we need to be particularly careful. Our objective is simple: to support employees as effectively as possible when they return to the workplace and help ease any concerns they may have. We have ordered masks, hand sanitiser and information signs displaying the guidelines to follow. At the same time, we have had to suspend certain services, such as client lunches in our reception rooms, fruit basket deliveries and breakfasts delivered to meeting rooms.

What is your number one priority as employees prepare to return?

More than ever, corporate facility management teams are under the spotlight. Hygiene is our number one internal priority. We have brought in external companies to disinfect the premises; toilets, work surfaces and coffee machines are disinfected several times a day. Our usual cleaning products have been replaced with highly effective disinfectants. Our objective is to guarantee clean premises and ensure employees can return safely.

Will hygiene remain a major concern after September?

There is no doubt that hygiene will play a more important role at UBS. We are going to adopt small actions and new habits that we will maintain over the long term and that will prove useful in many other circumstances. We will need to think about introducing new hygiene standards across all areas of the workplace and for all shared objects. Many things will have to be reconsidered, including break areas and coffee rooms, for example. This period must serve as a lesson for the future: no one will forget it… least of all Facility Managers.

Can you tell us a little about sustainable development? What achievement are you most proud of in this area?

UBS is very committed to environmental issues and sustainable development. We still have a long way to go, but we are moving in the right direction. We sort and recycle batteries and have established a “zero-waste on site” policy. We carefully monitor the use of lighting and therefore electricity consumption. We have removed plastic cups and water cooler bottles. We now use connected water fountains and have purchased dishwashers and mugs for our employees. Paper consumption is carefully managed, and every day we look for new ways to improve further.

Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to another Facility Manager, what would it be?

In my opinion, success comes down to common sense and simple, accessible thinking about environmental and hygiene issues. These are crucial topics today and will remain so tomorrow, not only for Facility Management teams, but for every company, every employee and every citizen, each at their own level.