Vico Homes

Collaboration

Overview

Vico Homes (formerly Wakefield District Housing (WDH)) is a leading provider of homes with a positive impact. The housing association has over 32,000 homes across the north of England, providing homes for tens of thousands of people. Vico Homes’ vision is to build better futures and vibrant communities.

They set out an objective in their Corporate Building Plan 2018 – 2025 to rationalise and transform their office portfolio, to make it fit for the future and a workplace they could be proud of. One of the key objectives of the plan was to create a collaborative working environment, using state of the art equipment, which allowed colleagues, contractors and customers to connect and work together seamlessly. Along with the need to upgrade IT equipment, Vico Homes identified that they needed a progressive partner that could deliver a robust and easy to use video conference system, that would complement their use of Microsoft Teams.

Challenge

Vico Homes had introduced a flexible working policy, which supports their 400+ employees in completing work at the most effective time and place to the get the job done. This combined with them reducing the number of corporate offices, had led to a need for an AV environment with increased flexibility, allowing colleagues to meet up and collaborate virtually, whether they were in the office or not.

To support user adoption and system stability, Vico Homes wanted a system that was easy to use, integrated with their current IT systems and that benefited from strong Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for servicing and fault rectification.

Solution Overview

Vico Homes chose to partner with Visavvi, an SCC company, to deliver new Video Conferencing (VC) meeting rooms into three offices, with a total of 21 VC enabled rooms.

At the outset of the project, Visavvi worked closely with Vico Homes to draw up a specification based on their room size requirements, including small, medium and a four-screen option. All options included touch screen capabilities, sound bars or ceiling mounted microphones and speaker systems, which used Barco Clickshare as the operating system.

Following this, Vico Homes visited the Visavvi showroom to demo and trial different equipment options, before agreeing on a technology to proceed. Prior to the rollout of the equipment, Visavvi delivered a Proof of Concept trial to Vico Homes, which allowed the Vico Homes colleagues to become familiar with the technology.

To ensure continuity of service and minimise disruption, the program for the full implementation was based around the Vico Homes office transformation works that lasted four years. Throughout this time, Visavvi have worked successfully with both Vico Homes and the office fit-out contractor to ensure installations were seamless and met the various completion dates for each stage of the works.

The technologies delivered have included Biamp DSP, with Parlee in ceiling microphones, and speakers in key boardrooms and larger meeting rooms. This ensures the highest standard of audio quality for both those in the room and those attending via VC. A number of the rooms are also fitted with wireless Sennheiser speech specific microphones, which allow users to have more freedom in where they present from and allowing for a very light voice lift when combined with the ceiling speakers.

Training Video Wall with Repeater screens

The solution delivered to Vico Homes benefits from an SLA which ensures that the equipment is well maintained and updated as new technologies, applications and software updates are released. Vico Homes also has assurance that should a fault occur they have service support at hand to ensure the fault is quickly rectified.

On working with Visavvi, Gary Lindley, Head of Workplace and Commercial Property at Vico Homes said: “Visavvi listen to your requirements and provide a full brief to meet your expectations, provide a full turnkey service with a detailed scope of work and quotation and the installation is carried out by professional installers. A Service Level Agreement for each installation is also prepared for peace of mind. I would recommend working with Visavvi as a trusted partner.”

Outcome

The VC facilities have transformed how Vico Homes communicate both internally and externally, as it makes meetings and information sharing more efficient, particularly for meetings with a large number of participants, such as those delivered by the learning and development team.

Since the new systems were installed, there has been a steady increase in use as colleagues, especially new starters and university graduates, take advantage of technology they are already familiar with. Feedback from users has stated how seamless and easy to use the equipment is, from the initial connection to managing the screen content, audio settings and peripherals.

Giving their customers a voice is very important to Vico Homes and as part of the continual improvement services delivered by Visavvi, a microphone system was specified which would support customers in being heard during Vico Homes’ customer panel meetings at their head office. This was a simple but effective solution which ensures the meetings continue and flourish.

There have also been hidden sustainability benefits from the VC implementation, such as reductions in commuting mileage, CO₂ reduction and reduced mileage expense claims.

The video conference and display equipment has also allowed Vico Homes to hire out the conference facilities to external organisations, which has created an alternate income stream.

It has been great to work with Visavvi – an SCC company – to transform our use of technology in our offices. Since installing the new equipment, it’s been easier to support colleagues to meet whether they’re in the office or remote, as well as making our events with guests and customers more interactive.
Gary Lindley, Head of Workplace and Commercial Property, Vico Homes