easyJet Plans the Future of Working with Ricoh

easyJet uses RICOH Spaces to support flexible hybrid working, enabling a safe return to work and facilitating greater employee collaboration and a more cost-effective use of space.

Ricoh continues to be a great partner to easyJet. Ricoh offers truly agile service delivery, and RICOH Spaces will form a central part of our workplace model moving forward as we refine and develop even more effective and collaborative ways of working.

— Charlie Rainer, Head of Corporate Technology, easyJet

An Overview:

easyJet is Europe’s leading airline offering a unique and winning combination of the best route network connecting Europe’s primary airports, with great value fares and friendly service. The airline flies on more of Europe’s most popular routes, and carried more than 96 million passengers in 2019 – with more than 16 million travelling for business.

Low fares, friendly customer service, and an unrivalled European network have made easyJet, Europe’s leading short-haul airline. For much of its 26 years, the airline’s Luton headquarters has been a hive of activity, with around 1,500 employees spending much of their week working in the Luton Campus head office.

The Challenges

Meeting the increasing demand for flexible work arrangements

Simon Cunniffe, People Services Director for easyJet, explains: “Our Luton Campus offices have traditionally been thriving with our people, to the extent that finding available meeting rooms or desk space was becoming a challenge as we grew. Even prior to the pandemic, we were exploring whether we could adopt smarter working practices and make more effective use of our office environment to encourage greater collaboration.”

To achieve this, easyJet planned a hybrid working programme to enable greater work flexibility. The new approach involved changing the workplace and agreeing on core principles: would people change their working patterns when in the office? How could easyJet help its people make the best use of time in the office? And would the airline still need the same fixed office space? The success of the project would depend on easyJet listening to its people and making changes to suit the evolving needs of its teams.

As soon as our people were able to start returning to the workplace, we were keen to ensure they had the opportunity to spend time back in the office. That meant we had to think fast about how to manage and enable a new way of ‘hybrid’ working, with an emphasis on conversations within our teams around flexibility, while also following guidelines to keep everyone safe.

— Charlie Rainer, Head of Corporate Technology, easyJet

The Objectives

Enabling new ways of hybrid working

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic gave added impetus to easyJet’s hybrid working programme and the changing needs of its workspace and people. But even while easyJet was unable to fly, its people remained busy helping impacted customers and ensuring that operations were ready to resume when restrictions lifted.

As an airline, safety has always been easyJet’s highest priority. The airline identified managed desk booking as a key component in bringing employees back on site safely, and looked for a solution that would allow employees to request a flexible desk space, while enabling its dedicated biosecurity team to redefine safety standards. This structured, safety-first approach, would instil confidence among employees about safety and flexibility.

The Solution

A robust workplace enhancement platform: RICOH Spaces

To select the right strategic partner for the project, easyJet issued a request for proposals with clear technical requirements. Along with desk and collaboration zone booking, the ideal solution would provide high levels of accessibility, integration with the airline’s Microsoft environment, and allow for building space usage to be understood. After assessing various options, easyJet decided to work with RICOH Spaces to deliver the right solution for its people.

Simon Cunniffe explains: “Given the importance of our hybrid working programme, we were keen to work with a partner with a proven track record of delivering time-sensitive projects. We have a long relationship with Ricoh, and they have already managed several successful programmes for us.”

RICOH Spaces is a comprehensive workplace enhancement platform beyond desk booking, meaning we now have the inbuilt potential to support many future projects, from using IoT sensors to room booking.

— Charlie Rainer, Head of Corporate Technology, easyJet

The Benefits

More effective and collaborative ways of working

Using RICOH Spaces, easyJet achieved a safe, secure return to work. The approach inspired confidence among employees, who recognised that robust measures were in place to minimise risk and protect their wellbeing. For example, as well as managing numbers of people on site, easyJet can use RICOH Spaces to block out desk space to maintain social distancing.

RICOH Spaces proved to be a robust solution during our benchmarking and analysis. As a relatively new solution, we also saw a unique opportunity to influence the roadmap. Most importantly, RICOH Spaces is a comprehensive workplace enhancement platform beyond desk booking, meaning we now have the inbuilt potential to support many future projects, from using IoT sensors to room booking.

— Charlie Rainer, Head of Corporate Technology, easyJet