How I Work: Simon, Infrastructure Manager at KFC Australia

KFC Australia is a company whose meetings are buckets of fun. Read our “How I Work” series of interviews, exploring the office lives of businesses across the globe. Simon Alexander, Infrastructure Manager at KFC, points out the many places Joan manages. You can find it in meeting rooms, the theatre, the kitchen, anything with a schedule really.

What is the number one advice you could give us when it comes to organizing effective meetings?
 The no. 1 piece of advice is sending out the agenda. Make sure you always provide at least a few points in the invite already so people can enter the meeting with a direction of where the meeting is going to go. People come prepared and it eliminates surprises.

What is the coolest meeting room you have at your company?
 People really like the “Product Theatre,” where we regularly demo new ideas that we’re thinking of introducing. We invite colleagues and members of the public interested in trying our new products to test them. It’s a great space with the feel of a TV Kitchen.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received on organizing meetings?
 Don’t organize a meeting for Monday morning or Friday afternoon. Most people take a little while to warm up to the week and Monday morning is reserved for people to ease into it. On Friday afternoon people are usually tired and already looking forward to the weekend so it’s just a bad way to end the week. It’s better to send an email of what’s coming up than scheduling a meeting that late.

Where do you prefer to hold your meetings at your company?
 Many people prefer to have meetings in a room with a projector or screen. It’s always helpful for people to see what you’re talking about with a tiny bit of a demo or example. It really helps them focus. Visuals are always good.

How do you go about naming the meeting rooms in your company and why?
 We have our rooms named after positive thinking quotes. It’s just a small thing we do to motivate people but it’s actually a lot of fun as well. For example, we go to a meeting and “Take the Hill” or schedule a “Breakthrough.”

If you were to design and name any meeting or conference room, how would it look like and how would you name it?
 If I was to design a meeting room, I would go full out nerd! It would have nerd memorabilia all over it! I would maybe make an “Arnie” room with a Terminator in the corner and huge posters on the walls. And it would definitely need its own toy helicopter on the table as a centerpiece.

If you were to hire an office assistant, what should their personality traits be?
 Definitely somebody positive with great diplomatic skills. Communication skills are of utmost importance and it’s always great to have a sunny personality in the office.

How has Joan changed your meetings?
 We have much less meeting room contention in the Joan era. People can see when a room is booked and can make an informed decision rather than using a room in a sneaky ad-hoc fashion and making everybody angry. Since people are more aware of the room’s schedule, there’s also noticeably less people waiting outside a room for the occupants to vacate. It’s just a great tool for optimizing your meetings and it’s also extremely simple to adopt.

Also, Joan isn’t just for meeting rooms at KFC. There are many other practical uses for anything that might have a calendar. A department or team can utilise Joan to display their schedules. We actually even have a Joan in our “Test Kitchen.” The kitchen is booked by multiple people to cook and test products. It’s managed and staffed by a team of people who aren’t based at a computer. Joan shows them what’s coming up and what to expect throughout the day. Joan’s capabilities go far beyond just meeting room management because it’s so simple to install and run.

Follow the rest of the ‘How I Work’ series here.

About KFC
 KFC Australia operates around 150 KFC restaurants directly and assists the additional 450 franchisee-owned stores throughout Australia. With around 10,000 employees in stores and thousands more franchisees employees we do a lot more than just make great tasting chicken. We’re proud to support the careers of around 30,000 Australians in our system, particularly those of our young workforce — all whilst reducing our environmental impact to create a smarter, more sustainable world.

About Joan Meeting Room Assistant
 KFC has 20 meeting rooms, all managed by Office365, all paired with Joan Meeting Room Assistant hosted on premises.

Photo credits: @KFC, Official Facebook page
 Cover photo, KFC Restaurant photo