I am a devoted fan of Surfy. It’s the idea of the century for the workplace environment.
BlaBlaCar connects drivers with free seats with passengers looking for a ride on Europe's leading carpooling site.
Surfy arrived at BlaBlaCar at the end of 2021. The company had just constructed its new offices in Bastille. The zoning was defined from the start, co-designed by Muriel HAVAS with the architects and 6ème Sens Immobilier. Once the building was delivered, the detailed arrangements needed to be finalised. The challenge was also to keep the building plans up to date and maintain them autonomously. Using a dedicated tool was essential, and Surfy emerged as the obvious choice.
In just 15 days, our new plans were integrated into Surfy, allowing me to design the layout for the 5,000 square metres of our new headquarters, ready for occupancy by March 2022.
- 5,000 m² of a new building, with 700 m² sublet (1 floor)
- 100% Flex-Office allocation (since COVID) with a @Deskare reservation system, interoperable with Surfy
- Capacity for 600 workstations, arranged for 440 fixed workstations
- 500 employees in France, 26% of whom are fully remote, resulting in around 380 hybrid employees attached to the Paris headquarters
- Numerous specific spaces with a strong focus on quality of work life: kitchenettes on all lift landings (each with a different atmosphere), gym, music room, rooftop with a vegetable garden, relaxation areas, etc.
- 3 administrators of the Surfy solution
Surfy allows work on four key areas:
1. **Real Estate**: Check the number of square metres, avoid vacant spaces or, if they exist, repurpose them flexibly to provide pre-equipped, quickly operational areas.
2. **Work Environment**: Make proposals for using available spaces based on Surfy models, managing arrangements independently.
3. **Facilities**: To make life easier for employees, using a digital environment is crucial. BlaBlaCar’s approach is relatively low-tech, limiting the overlap of tools. Surfy serves as a reference base, supporting solutions that meet specific needs, such as using Z#bre sensors for comprehensive data collection tailored to precise requests.
4. **Security**: Work is ongoing to locate fire extinguishers and facilitate evacuation drills, which the company is fortunate to conduct annually with the Paris fire brigade.
Surfy is the Swiss Army knife of the workplace environment and facilities world. It allows comprehensive management.
- Easily arrange new premises and maintain them autonomously over the long term.
- Provide a reliable and accessible base of plans to support various occupant services and service applications. With the flex-office model, BlaBlaCar doesn’t recharge workspace costs by business unit. However, Surfy allows precise calculation of subleased areas. For subleases, Surfy managed exact areas and verified what could be offered for rent, especially for a floor shared by multiple subtenants. The share of building and common area charges is easily recalculated.
Surfy enables modelling different layout projects with the new scenarios feature. This aids decision-making in several ways:
- Verify operational possibilities: available areas? furniture dimensions? arrangements?
- Estimate project costs based on different envisaged scenarios
- Visualise projects in 2D and 3D for a better perception of the final result
We acquired various furniture, including single and double meeting booths, through a company BlaBlaCar acquired. I quickly verified if my installation ideas were feasible and precisely determined where and how to position them for efficient integration into the work environment.
Using Surfy, I can make layout improvements. For instance, for our gym, the dedicated space was identified, but we needed to decide which machines to install. Surfy allowed me to model the number of equipment pieces and how to arrange them. I even made multiple proposals to different equipment suppliers. I knew exactly what I could fit, what I wanted, and the process was much quicker. Surfy saves time by eliminating the need for multiple back-and-forths with suppliers, giving us real control over the project.
Surfy helped prepare the specifications with the cleaning contractor by defining the square metres of different floor surfaces and their types. The contractor appreciated this information and the ability to view plans showing the various surfaces: carpet, polished concrete, etc. Surfy is a shared tool, beneficial to both sides: it allows the contractor to make the most suitable proposal and the client to verify its accuracy. This transparent communication builds trust with the contractor.
For larger buildings, Surfy also serves as a basis for adjusting cleaning frequencies and rationalising costs. There are so many possibilities with Surfy that it's difficult to pinpoint a single use; it serves many different purposes.
At BlaBlaCar, Surfy serves its primary purpose as a digital reference for plans. It forms the base on which various applications are integrated to ease the lives of employees and support the missions of the Facilities and Workplace Environment teams.
At BlaBlaCar, Surfy is interoperable with:
- Z#bre: Meeting room sensors quickly free up spaces for reservation in case of no-shows or early departures, as well as visualising non-reservable spaces like phone booths.
- Deskare: The reservation system’s base plan is provided by Surfy. We can see in real-time where people are seated and where there are available spots. Previously, Surfy was also interoperable with another reservation solution. Switching providers was very straightforward.
Ticketing is currently handled by a Jira feature used throughout the organisation. A solution using QR codes from Surfy plans is under consideration. The aim is to make the user experience smoother by allowing them to scan a QR code instead of writing a long description or locating a defective device or issue in writing.
There’s no need to redo plans. Applications retrieve information from Surfy, and everything integrates naturally. Surfy is the common foundation—its main advantage.
Surfy allows the creation of precise plans that can be shared with various contractors. BlaBlaCar chose to limit itself to exporting digital or paper plans. However, Surfy enables SaaS access for users, either temporarily or permanently.
Effective visual documents are quickly available. I recall using AUTOCAD, which is extremely cumbersome and complex, requiring me to create plans with glue, scissors, pencil, and eraser. Before Surfy, we also managed allocations with Excel, especially during COVID to adhere to health protocols.
With Surfy, I can easily create three different scenarios in 10 minutes. This simplifies life for all stakeholders. I can objectively and quickly respond to requests from various departments, showing what is possible or not with plan support. This is particularly useful as furniture is freely used and moved by employees.
As with many clients, time constraints mean many Surfy features remain underutilised. BlaBlaCar is no exception. In 2024, the priority is to integrate more security elements into Surfy, such as locating ELS. The same goes for all furniture.
In terms of layout, an underused hot desk area will be transformed into an agile training room with easily repositionable furniture to revert to its original use during peak times. With Surfy, choosing and installing furniture for the different uses of this space will be straightforward.
Finally, a new office in Warsaw could also be modelled in Surfy.