Facilitating top athletes

NOC*NSF supports athletes with TOPdesk

When it is your passion to support athletes, then you want to be able to facilitate them at the top level. The Netherlands Olympic Comittee*Netherlands Sport Federation (NOC*NSF) does exactly this at the Papendal centre in Arnhem, the Netherlands. We visited the NOC*NSF to find out more about how TOPdesk is used to help support those athletes at the top of their game.

It is a warm summers day in leafy Papendal, Arnhem where the NOC*NSF is situated. The complex accommodates a range of facilities, including rooms full of fitness equipment, a brand new athletics field and training rooms for every type of sport thinkable. Athletes, from amateur to professional, can be seen training all around you. Sport education, sporting associations, company fitness, playing fields and professional sport all make up part of the NOC*NSF. The 90 allied sporting federations throughout the Netherlands together represent approximately 30,000 associations with around 4.8 million athletes in total.

Range of services

Gwendolyn Koldenhof and Henny Kroon work at the Service point where all facilities services are taken care of. The Service point makes up part of the Facilities department of the NOC*NSF and is the first registration point for Facilities department clients. The department offers services ranging from catering and copy shop, to leasing cars and reception.

The Service point is not only intended to offer services to the 160 NOC*NSF employees, but for the sporting associations and sport related organisations which are also facilitated at the Papendal complex. These organisations rent out rooms for example, or make agreements concerning cleaning and, health and safety issues. The Service point also oversees the hiring and leasing of projectors, laptops and suchlike equipment.

TOPdesk and the Service point

NOC*NSF was one of the first TOPdesk clients to use the application for facilities services. Gwendolyn explains how this came about: “The idea was to set up a Service point, from 1st January 2005, to look after all facilities matters. We went about finding an appropriate service management application.” NOC*NSF was already familiar with TOPdesk, as the IT department has been using it since 2002. “A plan was devised to set up the TOPdesk application, which was already being used anyway, and appropriate it for the Service point of the Facilities Service.”

Reducing ambiguity

The advantage of one central registration point for facilities questions became apparent immediately after the setup of the Service point. Henny explains: “Employees now know exactly where they should be, namely at the Service point”. One clear registration point now also exists for external clients.” Gwendolyn: “The advantage is that colleagues and clients only have to remember one number to call for all their facilities needs. This rules out any ambiguity.”

Yet positive results have not only come about for colleagues and clients, but also for the facilities employees themselves. Gwendolyn: “In the past questions were directed straight to the facilities employees. When there was a complaint about the cleaning, then the senior employee of Housekeeping was called, and Maintenance was contacted as soon as a light bulb needed replacing. When you wish-ed to reserve a particular sporting facility you were put through to a person from the Sports department. No overview of calls or complaints existed. The average time until a call was resolved was also unknown, as was the status of the question.  Nowadays the back office can concentrate better on carrying out their tasks, without being interrupted in the meantime by telephone calls.”

Introducing the Service point

Putting in place a new concept such as a central registration point is one thing, but how do you alert your colleagues and clients to your existence? Henny: “We had flyers and laminated cards printed with our number and services. Much attention has also been paid to this on our intranet.” “And on the opening day of the Service point we handed out petit-fours printed with the tele-
phone number as a celebratory introduction,” adds Gwendolyn.

The Service point was introduced at the same time as the internal reorganisation within NOC*NSF. This made introducing the Service point easier and increased the enthusiasm for it. Henny: “Many changes were taking place throughout the entire organisation. The introduction of the Service point was thus well-timed and plans for this new concept could be immediately taken on.”

In retrospect

How do you regard the implementation process when you look back on it? Gwendolyn: “As the IT department had already been using TOPdesk for quite some time, we first needed time to adjust ourselves to their working methods. The TOPdesk consultant helped us to fine-tune the application to the requirements of the Service point.” Henny: “What you do sometimes notice is that different terms are used for ICT than for facilities. For instance they’ll be discussing an ‘incident’, whilst we’ll be referring to a ‘call’. We also make less use of processes like ‘Configuration management’.”

Gwendolyn: “Our schedule was fairly tight; TOPdesk needed to be implemented and used within three months. This needed to happen in amongst all the regular work activities. I would now put aside more time for that. We’ve had to leave certain things behind, such as the Web interface and the standard solutions, because of this. If you do not immediately put the possibilities to good use, it will become increasingly difficult later when you then get back into the routine of your daily activities. It’s also easier to report when the processes are straightforward.”

Zeal

Many organisations that have implemented a central service point experience increased pressure. This was also the case at NOC*NSF. Gwendolyn: “It seems that we are meeting a requirement. It’s also a sign that you are becoming better organised.”
How do you measure the success of such a Service point? Gwendolyn: “At the beginning you of course get asked what the point of such a Service point is and why an extra link in the chain is necessary. Yet in a client satisfaction survey conduct-ed in November 2005 the Facilities department scored 7 out of 10 for the Service point. This met with our expectations. All departments with-
in the Facilities section scored an average 7 out of 10, so the relatively new Service point is going well.”

ICT & Facilities remain separate

Yet those colleagues who wish to log calls concerning ICT need to contact the IT department and not the Service point. Why is this division necessary? Henny explains “it was certainly originally the idea to have just one registration point for employees so that the Service point would respond to both facilities and ICT concerns. In practice however we have kept the two separate.” Gwendolyn adds: “ICT is a specialised field. The Service point does not have this sort of knowledge. The question is then whether it is actually useful to assist colleagues with their problems or questions with regard to ICT.” Henny: “The Service point is kept occupied with reservation requests for sporting venues. At crucial moments however, we do answer the telephone of the other departments.”

Working at NOC*NSF

What makes working at NOC*NSF so enjoyable? For Henny, who has worked in the sporting world for years, it’s clearly his passion for sport. Gwendolyn lists the numerous sport-ing facilities at the complex which as an employee you are allowed to use. Henny: “Above all it is the diversity of the working environment - you are concerned with the quality of the fields and the contact with the associations and coaches.” Gwendolyn concludes: “Most of us here have the sport virus.”

This Sporting Nation:

To realise the ambition of seeing the Netherlands become one of the top ten nations in the international world of sport, the NOC*NSF Elite sport policy focuses on the optimum conditions for top athletes and top coaches, a professional organisation of Dutch elite sport and the marketing and financing of elite sport. If the Dutch world of sport, the government and the business community make better use of sports, Dutch society will benefit to a much greater extent than it does at present. NOC*NSF would therefore like to make the Netherlands into an authentic sports nation. If everyone joins in, we will all win!

Source: www.nocnsf.nl