Customer story How Sodexo addressed COVID-19 challenges with Proxyclick

Sodexo Singapore office — Sodexo's APAC office in Singapore (Source: FMIndustry)

Industry

Facilities services

Locations

5+ buildings in APAC using Proxyclick

Average no. of visits

25 daily in APAC (pre-COVID-19)

No. of employees

400,000+ worldwide

Sodexo initially relied on Proxyclick to securely manage global visitor flows, but when COVID-19 hit, they needed to quickly rethink their processes. That’s where features such as visitor screening questionnaires, and the ability to adapt visitor guidelines to local regulations, helped Sodexo keep its people safe and secure.

When thinking about quality of life, we’re likely to picture some of the services provided by Sodexo, a multinational food services and facilities management corporation.

Sodexo is one of the world’s largest employers. Their team of approximately half a million staff plays a front-line role in keeping facilities clean and operational around the world while ensuring that their staff & guests are well looked after in the process.

Despite its magnitude and its emphasis on leveraging digital technologies to support its clientele, Sodexo is committed to the duty of care that it has to its staff, its customers, and the people they both serve.

Sodexo APAC office Singapore — Sodexo's APAC office in Singapore (Source: Sodexo Singapore)

Sodexo & Proxyclick: a need for a truly global visitor management system

With such a scale, you can imagine the level of automation and site-by-site flexibility required to serve a brand like Sodexo. When Sodexo went to market for a visitor management system (VMS), it was important to select one that could not only be adapted to enough languages (30+) to serve their 60 country footprint but also that was:

intuitive to new users, with a clear and straightforward set-up process
readily available support to troubleshoot issues, and
complete with a customizable framework

And as Sodexo sought to be a proactive leader in combating the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, they also needed a digital VMS that could help support their duty of care to employees, visitors, and customers by reinforcing workplace safety.

The emergence of a pandemic and the importance of workplace safety

Sodexo has adapted its own operational management globally to better distribute manpower and resources during the pandemic

Within their own offices, they had to be quick and agile in implementing processes to keep its employees and clients safe.

Patrick Foong, CIO of Sodexo Asia-Pacific (APAC), based in Singapore, explained that safety has been the “number one priority,” with the majority of staff working fully from home. Those who needed to access the office during lockdowns were required to take their temperatures three times - once in the morning at home, once when they first arrive, and once before they leave.

Employees are also separated by at least one cubicle, creating more than the 1.5-meter distance mandated in Singapore. During lockdowns, coming to the office on weekends was forbidden in order to facilitate deep cleaning. Meetings between staff members outside of the office for social purposes were also forbidden.

Another challenge Sodexo needed to solve was how to maintain safe spaces in their constituent institutions through visitor management. For the business-critical visitors who needed to go to the office during the quarantine period, Foong explained that Sodexo APAC has leveraged Proxyclick’s technology to further facilitate robust safety efforts.

“Since we’re not just using Proxyclick here in Singapore but also in other countries, we can push out largely similar questions, though they will be localized from country to country,” Foong says. “At least this will be easy to manage and control - everything can be pushed across various locations on the fly, via the internet.” - Patrick Foong, CIO, Sodexo APAC

How Proxyclick helped shape Sodexo’s COVID-19 response

For Sodexo, Proxyclick’s visitor management system supports a host of features that enable better protection and limit COVID-19 health risks for staff and visitors.

Before any visit, country, state, or city-specific health and safety information can be shared with a client via an invitation email. This email can include relevant instructions that a visitor may need to know in advance; for instance, Sodexo informs visitors that they will undergo a temperature screening upon arrival. (This could also include instructions to wear a mask, or to maintain six feet of separation.)

Temperature Screening Instructions Proxyclick

Upon arrival, the check-in process serves not only to alert staff that a visitor has arrived but also to raise accountability and awareness about possible risks. Instead of simply requiring visitors to take a COVID-19 questionnaire, as many businesses are currently doing, Sodexo has combined the standard COVID-19 survey with their check-in process on Proxyclick, so that all responses (including temperature checks) are captured in the system.

The check-in process also includes conditional questions, such as whether or not a visitor has traveled outside of the country in the last 14 days or has flu-like symptoms. If the visitor’s answers reveal a risk of infection, he or she may be denied access to the premises.

Visitors’ email addresses and phone numbers are collected through the VMS; this allows not only constant availability of contact information outside the office but also easy retrieval of information by health authorities to perform contact tracing in the event that a visitor was exposed to the virus on the premises.

To help with data privacy regulation compliance, Proxyclick has an automatic data deletion feature that ensures sensitive data is not held for longer than necessary.

Benefits of a flexible VMS during a volatile time

With the daily operations of global facilities management and catering services changing dramatically as a result of COVID-19, it has been imperative for companies in that sphere to formulate Business Continuity Plans (BCPs). For Sodexo, which provides more than 100 types of services to clients from diverse industries, this meant devising a BCP that is both adaptable and scalable.

A BCP must also be flexible, as Patrick Foong is quick to point out.

“For our business, it’s not about just us - we are serving food to clients, for example. This relates to keeping both staff and clients safe. What I can see here is that things will evolve, and will evolve very quickly. We can be talking about one scenario today, but tomorrow it may all change."

Proxyclick has been instrumental in helping to facilitate Sodexo’s BCP. “The great thing about Proxyclick is the custom screen feature,” Foong reports. This feature allows for the visitor check-in experience to be customized with questions, messages, images, and videos.

“In the past, we relied on our receptionist to remember specific rules [to be presented using custom screens] set by local authorities that change every day in some countries.” - Patrick Foong, CIO, Sodexo APAC

But, Foong explains, trying to keep track of the COVID-19 safety regulations for businesses can be difficult when everything is in a state of flux.

Sodexo has also benefited from Proxyclick’s global scalability.

Sodexo Singapore office meeting rooms — Sodexo's APAC office in Singapore (Source: Sodexo)

Looking ahead

At the moment, visitors go through three levels of safety procedures facilitated by Proxyclick: signing the agreement, receiving safety instructions before coming on-site, and answering the questions in the “health quiz” before coming into contact with people in the workplace.

When welcoming visitors in the near future, the company may opt to take advantage of Proxyclick’s Touchless Check-In features. Using a remote registration process, sending visitors’ questionnaires in advance of a visit will help organizations screen individuals before they come on-site and potentially expose employees to the virus.

It may also opt to have visitors scan QR codes directly at front desk tablets so that no physical interface is necessary upon check-in - a true “touchless” entry. All of these solutions will strengthen safety and lower health risks for those returning to offices or facilities.

Proxyclick’s cloud-based technology fulfills a paradoxical role of delivering a system of visitor management that is truly global, serving people millions of people around the world, while at the same time providing a welcome that is truly personal, curated to an individual’s location, language, and health and safety needs.

See how Proxyclick helps companies facilitate a safe return to work.

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