External costs reduced, fewer aborted contracts, and sick leave down as well. The key? More meetings!
Our work with B&O Service, a leader in the construction industry, is a "soft" transformation case with hard KPIs, completed by our Change & Transformation team. In recent years, B&O Service has perfected technical optimisations: efficient processes, tour optimisations, and an app specifically built for its workers. One of the side effects: rare buffer times, no meetings and the workers rarely ever encountered other trades- or foremen. But for a company whose core product is manual labor, this was becoming a problem. "Leadership means personal interaction," was a motto issued by the board during our project. B&O Service commissioned us to ensure that the expected innovation has a sustainable positive impact at the employee level and thus truly advances the company.
In some instances, what seemed like high efficiency ended up causing unintended setbacks. Without proper interactions, employees struggled to understand their colleagues' work and needs. For example, a demolition worker, focused solely on completing his task, left behind a large hole and debris. When the tiler arrived to start his work, he found the site unprepared. As a result, he had to bring in an expensive external team for cleanup, leading to frustration and dissatisfaction. These issues translated into costs for B&O Service.
Ray Sono intervened at multiple points simultaneously to strengthen the core of the company: the workers themselves. The vision we shared with B&O Service: motivated teams who can rely on structures, rituals, and IT tools that make them more successful. We gathered feedback, developed solutions in co-creation, and promoted communication across silos and hierarchy levels. Even an office tool, chosen by installers themselves, achieved remarkable results. Finally, we proved that meetings and efficiency are not antitheses: while the time spent talking to each other increased, productivity on the construction site remained consistently high.
