GUEST BLOG: Contract crisis! Could staff living conditions be a threat to your business?

When David Beckham first went to play football at Real Madrid, he and his family set up home in the city’s lavish AC Santo Mauro hotel. Team Beckham took two suites for 80 nights, and it’s said the bill came to £430,000.

Living in a luxury hotel for a few months with your family, enjoying unlimited room service, sounds, well, pretty marvellous! But take away the luxury, the family and the room service and you arrive at a hotel experience much more recognisable to the typical sub-contractor. 

Small rooms, limited space, endless take-outs, and living life out of a suitcase for weeks on end can be pretty demoralising, not to say unhealthy.  But there are other implications too, such as the risk of poor productivity and falling motivation – even staff burnout; all of which have consequences for contract delivery and fulfilment.

Happily though, there is an alternative that is more practical, better value, and better for workforce wellbeing too. Offering living spaces, kitchens, storage space, laundry facilities and weekly cleaning services, the serviced apartment has rapidly become the go-to solution for sub-contracting teams around the world. 

Typically costing 20-30% less than standard hotel accommodation, serviced apartments are an option not to be sniffed at, especially where teams live together for extended periods of time.  We’re talking living environments where workers can relax in their own space, cook, entertain and even host friends and family.  The benefits for health, harmony, wellbeing, and the bottom line, are many.

In a world where projects are increasingly time sensitive and contracts are subject to penalty clauses for late delivery, work-life living is fast becoming mission critical.  Get it right and you can reap the benefits. Get it wrong, and the cost could be far greater than you think. 

That’s where working with a specialist serviced apartment provider comes in to play. Here at SITU we work with sub-contractors around the globe, providing cost-effective solutions for everything from apartments for individuals, to multi-occupancy apartments for groups of contract workers. We also provide corporate housing for key staff and their families meaning that whatever your requirements, wherever your project, you can rely on us to deliver to your needs and your budget. 

Phil Stapleton is Founder and MD of SITU, one of the UK’s leading providers of serviced apartments and corporate housing for contractors domestically and internationally

·    Phil Stapleton will be talking about the core role that accommodation has on contract team productivity and staff wellbeing in Theatre 2 on June 4^th at 15:00.

·    Visit SITU on Stand G24 for the opportunity to win up to one week’s accommodation for a team of up to four.

SITU provides properties for stays of three or more nights in over 500 locations internationally, with over 15,000 apartments on its books in the UK and over 36,000 globally; www.situ.co.uk

This post was written by Phil Stapleton, Founder and Managing Director at SITU. SITU is exhibiting at Subcon 4-6 June 2019 - register now for free at www.subconshow.co.uk/register