Erick Humbser is the Facilities Operations Manager at Cisco Meraki. With 15 years of experience in the facilities management industry, Erick has sharpened his leadership prowess as well as his aptitude for the development and oversight of high-performing, multi-disciplined, and quality oriented teams.
Erick is a creative problem solver who is skilled at discovering solutions for employees, processes, and costs. Before Cisco Meraki, he was the Facilities and Property Manager for companies including Swift Navigation and Walz Properties.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Erick Humbser discusses his predictions for the future of the workplace — and how his company has handled the pandemic’s challenges
- The value of technological innovations in a fast-changing world
- What’s exciting Erick in the future of facilities management
- How Erick plans to accommodate the needs of his team while reconfiguring the workspace
- How does Cisco Meraki’s organizational structure safeguard against disasters?
- Erick’s path into facilities management — and how you can get your career started
In this episode…
What does the future hold for your company? What will happen to your company culture in a hybrid work environment? How will you keep up with the oncoming and inevitable technological changes in the facilities management industry?
Ever since the pandemic hit, companies across all industries are searching for the answers to big questions. For Erick Humbser, one of his top priorities for transitioning back to the workspace is to create an inclusive environment for everyone returning. With people working both at home and in the office, you have to make a plan for reconfiguration while upholding company culture and accommodating the needs of all employees. How has Erick done it?
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens is joined by Erick Humbser, Facilities Operations Manager at Cisco Meraki, to talk about strategies for adapting to workplace changes. Erick discusses his predictions for the future of the industry, tips for leveraging technology, and his ideas for creating a collaborative work environment. Stay tuned!
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Erick Humbser on LinkedIn
- Cisco Meraki
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Probable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of 1000s of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:32
Hello, everyone. This is Greg Owens with the Watching Paint Dry Podcast, where we are continuing our interviewing of facilities managers, property owners and all the contractors and support services to this entire industry. And this podcast is sponsored by my company McCarthy Painting where we do both residential painting in the San Francisco Bay area we’re doing we’re located in San Rafael, California. And we are currently doing a lot of projects in Mill Valley and Sausalito, California. And then we do other projects throughout the entire set San Francisco Bay Area, lots of commercial projects. We are down doing a bunch of work in Mountain View for x bill x Google facilities that have where Google has left and we’re repainting those things, getting them ready for new tenants. And it’s been lots of fun. I am really excited to have Erick Humbser on this podcast with us today. He is the facility facilities operations manager at Cisco America, and we’ll find out what America means in a little bit. Welcome to the podcast, Erick.
Erick Humbser 1:51
Yeah. Hi, Greg. Thank you for inviting me to your podcast. I am very excited about this. So yeah. Yeah, it’s actually Meraki, Cisco Meraki, which is a large business business unit of Cisco. So. So yeah, I mean, I don’t know if you want to ask me some questions. I’m trying to
Greg Owens 2:11
Yeah, well, at first and first, like, because I know, I love getting my news from others and like, what’s going on in the world? How are things for you right now? Are you in the Bay Area, things are tightening up in my neck of the woods companies are locking down again, we couldn’t go into some buildings because of some COVID scares? How are things for you at the moment?
Erick Humbser 2:33
Well, you know, I think the what is happening now is we’re going back to ambiguity, right? We are. About a month ago, we were like working on how to return to office, and we had some deadlines, and we have like the structure of how we are going to we things and then with this new variant, you know, the Delta variant coming around? Now things are being pushed back again, you know, so and now we don’t know, like, well, how soon Are we going to reopen the office? You know, we were having a lot of complications in that in that respect. So but there’s still a lot of things within what we do in facilities that can still move forward. We just have to have all those, I guess, health and safety regulations back, you know, so masking is back, you know, vaccinations or in some cases required in order to come into the office or destiny is also available. But sadly, I think we are just like pushing brakes on some projects, you know, because we still don’t know what is going to happen within the next month or two. So yeah, that is that is the sort of the complications that we are living again, you know, because we had the same situation last year, but I think it’s not as dramatic as last year. But we still have to deal with this, you know,
Greg Owens 3:56
right. And I think the key word there being ambiguity, right? Like it’s Yeah, and we don’t worry, even though it’s not as drastic as last time around, or is it still just that unknowing of like, we can’t give clear present answers of what we are when people will come back to work for that matter, right? And, yeah, we just sort of like in this sort of No Man’s Land of like, okay, we’re going to do our best we can we have to go back to wearing masks, we’re not going to do the openings, like so that’s what we’re seeing is a whole bunch of like, we were getting ready to open a bunch of buildings for some clients. And now that’s pushed back and we don’t know when they’re gonna do it.
Erick Humbser 4:33
Yep. Yeah. So it feels like an entire industry. We’re all experiencing that. Right. So from the facilities perspective, but also from the contractors and vendors perspective, right, because, yeah, I had other contractors coming into work, but then we were like, well, I guess we have more time. We can like, you know, we can start working in a different manner. So yeah, I think we’re all leaving it. I think that maybe on your end and on my end, the year end as a contractor On my NSO facilities manager, you know, we still kind of like asking questions, you know that that, unfortunately, in in a lot of cases, we don’t have the answers to, you know, because of the lack of information is, which is key, you know, and what do we work on leasing facilities? data is king, you know, so
Greg Owens 5:20
that’s true. That is no true. And I think you know, the last time around, we thought it would be like two weeks, and then maybe four weeks, and then we stop making guesses. And this time around, we’re all in this like, I don’t know, when we don’t want to guess this time. Right. But yeah, but I have a feeling in two months. We’ll know a lot. lot more. Right. We’ll know where things because a lot of things will change in the next two months, especially when kids start going to school again, and things open up in that regard, because right now, nobody’s been going to school pretty much.
Erick Humbser 5:57
Well, yeah, well, in Auckland, I live in Auckland, the school district is already open. So kids,
Greg Owens 6:02
they just started Yeah, yeah.
Erick Humbser 6:04
Yeah. So today’s the second day of school, I know that because my kid. And actually, they are not giving you that many options for social distancing, like you can do social distancing. But the caveat is that, basically, you cannot go back to the school where you can use to go, you know, so they’re making it really difficult for parents to make a choice on social distancing? Well, that’s it. I think, I agree with you, I, we are gonna see what is happening in the next two months. I think you’re absolutely right about that. I one thing that I’m looking at is like, how was the behavior of the virus in, in England, because in England, they had the Delta variant coming May. And then they went up, I think in June, and now it’s going down. So the behavior might be similar here. However, there is more people vaccinated in India, in England and here. And that’s one of the problems that we’re having here. Right, that, that we have still a large percentage of people that are not vaccinated. That I think that you’re absolutely right. In the next two months, we’re going to know, for a lot of different reasons what’s going to happen. And I also believe that a lot of companies are going to have to make those decisions. So if I went to open the office, within the next month and a half, because if we actually don’t open until November, well, guess what Thanksgiving comes around? A lot of people shut down in December, right, the holidays come around, and a lot of people I can’t get lazy in the last month of the year, and then you pick up on January, right. I think like if obviously, to start pushing back opening farther than October, my, my guess will be that the reopenings are going to happen in the beginning of next year. You know, which? I mean, it’s a good possibility.
Greg Owens 7:57
Yeah, you’re right on to what I was thinking about to the same thing, right, that it’ll be pushed back to the first of the year, because they we had some bunch of companies that were trying to open in June, like the end of June, and I was like, Who’s, and they were giving the choice to the employees to come back. Right. And I was like, who wants to come back to work? At the beginning of July? It’s kind of like that’s like your summer, right? Like, you really want to start doing all your summer planning and trips and spend time with your kids and that kind of thing. And and that was true. Like, we watched these companies like have a partial they did opening but they didn’t. Nobody was coming in. Now.
Erick Humbser 8:38
Yeah, that is very, very true. So we did phase one, right? And well, and let’s put it this way, phase zero, we only had critical employees coming into the office and emergency employees, so critical employees, or maybe those engineers that you know, have gear in the office or you know, then they have to actually take care of the staff. And you have the porters maybe you have the janitorial crew. I mean, you have to maintain the officers still, maybe some facilities people coming in. So those would be critical employees and emergency employees is exactly what it is. If there is an emergency, there are some engineers that help the government solve the problem. And if so, there was a zero. So now we’re on phase one, and we were estimating the maybe, you know, there is going to be a lot of a decent influx of people coming into the office. Well, basically, that didn’t change. So phase one, phase two and phase one are pretty much the same is the same critical employees are same emergency employees and smart people don’t have access to the office, but they’re not coming and an 18 that is going to that is also dictating what is going to be the next step. You know, I one thing that I’m very curious about is what is going to be the behavior of the employee. Once you really openly say if we fully reopen, what is going to be the behavior we don’t know of employees because we’re given the option of being remote. And you know, the hybrid work workplace. So we have remote mobile and traditional employees and most companies have a very similar structure of how they’re going to handle their, their workforce. And I do believe that it’s going to be very interesting to see next year, how people are going to behave, if they want to be like, well, I’m coming back to the office, and maybe two months later, or a month later, they’re gonna be like, you know, what, I’ve been working from home for a year and a half or two years, I think I want to go back home, you know, I don’t need the office, you know, like sales teams, for example, are doing great in a lot of companies, because they don’t have all the distractions that they have in the office. Right. And and salespeople are very, like, outgoing, and I’m very extrovert and whatnot. And, and I feel like when when they do sales from home, they perform better, you know, so if you bring that workforce back to the office, I’m very curious about how those numbers are going to look at those sales gonna go down because of, you know, the amount of distraction that you have in the office when it comes to sales. You know, also, there is a lot of factors that, that we still don’t know how, especially on human behavior is our employee behavior? How that is going to dictate still the future of the hybrid office and the hybrid environment? You know?
Greg Owens 11:09
Yeah, it sounds you’re you’re curious, like I am into what the human behavior will be. Right? Yeah. Because it’s a there’s a curiosity there. And you guys, you have this great opportunity with Cisco there with all these the the amount of employees, you have to actually see real data, like, I know, in my small office, we’ve got some people that do want to go back to the office and prefer working at the office, and they weren’t doing so well at home. Right, yeah. But then there’s others that are just really, you know, happy Lee doing it at home, and they’re getting their work done. And, and, and even my own sales people, they’re happy, you know, they don’t need an office, they’re like, Well, enough space to come back to, we can just have our quick meetings on zoom to talk about operations and details and things like that, but we don’t necessarily need to be in front of each other as often.
Erick Humbser 12:03
Yeah, I agree, I happen to be one of those people who doesn’t perform well, from home, you know, like, I really want to be in the office, I want to see what is going on, I have to see what is happening the premises, if something needs to be taken care of, if I have to hire a contractor, let’s say to, for painting for electrical, or data or whatever. So I feel like every time I go to the office, at this point, I’m going to the office like three times a week, and sometimes I go the entire week to the office. I feel like every time I’m in the office, I’m getting a lot of stuff done versus when I’m at home, I have all kinds of distractions, right, which is like, whatever it is, I am one of those people. But yeah, going back, I think there are a lot of people that are like, doing great. And working from home, you know, so that is interesting, I would like to see how, you know, I think in this industry on this line of work, we have a great opportunity to rethink the workspace, you know, and we’ve done and we’re working on it, but we’re not gonna see it until the doors are open. And we were like, Alright, this is this is this is what is going to work. And this is where it’s not going to, you know, this is the kind of technology that we can use in order to, you know, integrate collaboration and make it, you know, as smooth as possible. So that there is a lot of things that were and a lot of growing pains, or we’re going to go through within the next year. So, you know,
Greg Owens 13:28
that’s, that’s interesting, you talk about that, because it’ll take some time, right to see what and you know, companies are competitive, and they’re competitive for a reason, right. So Facebook decides to get more beanbags and have more toys in their offices. So does, you know, then Google’s trying to do it. And each company is trying to, you know, do do those iterations, but they’re tracking the numbers of these things. It’s not just done because they feel like this is a good thing to do for the employees. They’re doing it because they see like, we get better results if we have our people together. And now we have this opportunity to see, well, what’s these hybrid plans look like? Or what does an entire like doing? The buildings completely look like? But Erick, like, you know, I think I did maybe five walkthroughs on zoom, where any contractor looking and yeah, that you know, I so much like to go to the building walkthrough. There’s so many aspects of a building, like how I have to think about like, how do the employees get in and out of this space? How do they get past security? Right, what other weather obstacles are in the way for us to get this project done? And it’s nice for me to walk through that building. And I actually like the driving time to think about it. I found myself driving in during COVID. I would drive in some circles sometimes just to get out and think right because that’s the environment that I’m used to.
Erick Humbser 14:55
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know if that was my case, I will call you in because there is no way I will Would you know, depending on on how much square footage showing a pain, let’s say in the case, right,
Greg Owens 15:08
yeah,
Erick Humbser 15:08
I want to call the resource fair as possible, you know, for me for my company, and but also for you. And, you know, I don’t think like working space would, you know, it’s very helpful for either party. Because it’s really hard to actually estimate like, well, if the screen is spinning and or maybe not only painting, but we have to, you know, do some patching and sanding and everything that wants to
Greg Owens 15:32
cover Sure, yeah, yeah, I like to like to actually touch the wall, see what it’s like, exactly. Look on the screen, and they all look good to me.
Erick Humbser 15:43
What What if there is like pain levels in the wall? And you cannot see it through, you know? resume? Yeah. So, yeah, I think in the whole, I don’t think we’re gonna see productivity metrics in a while, you know, like, now we’re guessing. Right, you know, we’re putting estimations. But the real numbers are not gonna come out, I think, with in at least one or two quarters, and we’re gonna be like, Alright, you know, like, for example, it sells, right, like, what if you bring your Salesforce back into the office? And the numbers drop? Well, that is a metric, right? There is like, Well, you know, we were billing records the whole time, right. And now I’m bringing all this workforce back. And now we are not hitting our goals, or when we did? Well, there is a problem that there is something there is some food for thought, you know,
Greg Owens 16:34
so companies and companies care about sales?
Erick Humbser 16:39
Yeah, well, you know, we are, I think in here in tech, we were, you know, again, data is, is king, right? So we need metrics on everything we do, like we even understand like how much an email to entire business would cost, you know, because we understand, like how much time it’s going to take us to click on that email and read it. So, you know, you even have those numbers. So we have to be very careful with that. But in this particular case, that again, we are rebuilding the workspace, I in my my best guess would be like, we have not going to have these these numbers for for at least at least one quarter. Right? And then we can decide the next quarter, like how to calibrate. And then this calibration is gonna take a while, you know, like how, and it’s not only metrics, it’s also like, how can we collaborate? And how can we make a workspace that is also inclusive? For those who are working from home? That is a really big question. Right? Like, and I’ve told when our facilities managers, they don’t know, they don’t have the answer, you know, and I’ve been talking with previous managers in big companies. And, and when I ask this question, they’re like, well, we don’t know, you know, like, we don’t know how we’re going to bring that culture home, you know, because one of the cool things about an office isn’t, you know, you have to work stasia and you have everything that you need, you have people around you, but but then you have for the parents, right, you have the game, you have, I guess, food snacks, and and you have whatever the company offers, and all these problems, where if it’s yoga or meditation, well, how can you translate that to those who are staying at home? That’s a big question mark, you know, how can you make sure that the environment is still inclusive for everybody else, you know, and tech is a very sensitive environment, you know, and, and culture is, is also a huge thing that we have to promote, you know, so, that’s another question. So what how it’s gonna be that the employee experience, how is that going to look, you know, beyond food, and beyond everything else, for example, right?
Greg Owens 18:46
Oh, that’s so true. The culture piece, you know, because I, we’re doing a bunch of painting for some companies where the culture has been, they get an office, right, and they have their own office, and they’re converting a lot of those offices into hotel space, basically, you know, like, a person can rent that room for the day. They home. So it’s a flex space, right? There, they’re removing all of the personal items, right. And I think there’s a lot of people culturally that really like, you know, the business culture, or their own culture or their own personal feelings. They like having their pictures of their kids on their wall, right? They like having artwork there. But now No, we’re sharing this. So we can’t have that anymore. I mean, with your, you know, laptop and set up in this room for the day, right. And that’s going to be an interesting impact on culture that will take time to unfold Really?
Erick Humbser 19:40
Yeah, I think we haven’t seen this, this kind of disruption in in the office environment since we went from cubicles to open spaces, you know, but, um, but unfortunately, the open space came, you know, from companies like Google and whatnot, and they came with this crazy idea idea and then you know, you know, Other companies string typing the same thing. But now we are doing it because well, because of the obvious there was a pandemic, and now we were realizing, well, yeah, people can work from home and all of this, but, but again, how? How do you make all the gears work, you know, efficiently? You know, that’s, that’s, that is stuff, and it’s gonna take some time, you know, and I think, as you were saying, before, a lot of companies are going to be copying what the first innovator will do. You know, and we’ll see, but I think, when more companies are talking about his, you know, collaboration areas, Hotel desking, as you’re saying, and, and all that, but you also have to figure out how to leverage technology, you know, and in order to make this work, right, and in a lot of cases, that technology is still doesn’t really exist, you know, that you have software that is going to allow you to make a reservation for for a desk and all of that. But then, again, we go back to the personal touch, which is, in a lot of cases is going to be gone. And we’ll see how that’s what is going to be the impact in businesses, you know,
Greg Owens 21:13
yeah, no, that’s, that’s so true. It’s gonna take some time, it’ll be it’ll be interesting to see, because I’ve watched companies go through different iterations of, of, of this, but like you said that, at this moment in time, this is the fastest transition of an office space ever, right? And it says, so much ambiguity and so much unknowns in that regard. What do you what are you seeing at Cisco, since you guys are some of the most innovative one of the most innovative companies out there? What are you guys looking technologically towards forward to in the future within the facilities arena,
Erick Humbser 21:50
where we have to figure out how to leverage technology in order to make seamless collaboration, right? So yeah, there are some products again, that basically will help you not only make a reservation for desks, but also to have an interaction through a screen. So Cisco has our WebEx and the access on all that. But I think that as much as innovation Cisco brings to the table, I think we’re still in the entire industry. And this is not, what I think is the industry still doesn’t have a good grip on how to create a technology that is going to bring people together in a more personal way, you know, like, as far as I know, that that doesn’t exist yet, you know, so, but I’m pretty sure that there are companies that are already working in this software and hardware that is going to that are going to bring us a little bit closer to that, you know, the solution is going to take, I believe, a few years, like the real solution of like how to make everybody feel like they are part of a team 100% that’s gonna take a while, you know, going back to what you said, I mean, the change that we’re experiencing, experiencing is, has been so fast, and it basically got everybody with their guard down. So now we have to figure out how to do it, you know, so and I think that’s the positive thing about this is that it’s gonna force a lot of companies like Cisco, or Google or Facebook to to really innovate again, you know, to push these tech companies to come up with really, really amazing products that are gonna, like, help everybody. Kind of like, being able to work anywhere in the world where you have an internet connection, you know, and maybe recites in their real estate, and, you know, the industry might end up suffering a little bit, the commercial real estate industry, but, you know, I think there is going to be a lot of a lot of changes coming up, but technologies, technology is key. And so hopefully, that this big problem is pushes innovation, you know, as it has before, you know, in all circumstances.
Greg Owens 24:06
Yeah, and it did in a lot of ways during this, like, you know, just how fast zoom was adopted as the as the top platform, even though Cisco and other companies had their own products, you know, Zoo made a product that everybody my mom can jump on it right
Erick Humbser 24:22
now. And yeah, I think that this whole user friendly you know, idea is even bigger now, you know, because as you’re saying, my mom for example, you so use my mom as a as an example. She’s, she’s the less technology savvy person in the world, but she can you soon, right, so, and then you have four products that are very, very similar that are doing the same, you know, because they move to they’re basically at the same speed, right, because they’re competing. So, yeah, I think the zoom is a great example of quick innovation and keeping up you know, with the circumstances, I mean, more school districts we’re using zoom or still use zoom for for teaching and Indian kids. My kid is seven years old. They can use it. Oh, you know? Yeah, you know. So that is great.
Greg Owens 25:11
We’re talking about my nephew earlier and my nephew, Andrew, he, he’s figured out like when he’s on a zoom class, he’s mastered having two or three other things around the screen that he’s also doing on same time. Because he’s got such zoom is a hard environment for him to pay attention to a lecture, you know, to a teacher talking or other kids. Right? Yeah. I don’t know, for an adult take some real time to see how that plays out. Right? I keep I keep joking, because I, you know, there’s when, when my nephew, he’s 11, when he’s probably when he’s like, 26 years old, I can just see it he’s gonna be in therapy is going to be like talking to his therapist about and therapist is going to be like, well, let’s explore what was happening to you during the COVID times. And maybe that’s like, an effect on why you’re not doing so great right now. And challenged. But yeah, and what else? Are you seeing, like, any anything else on the horizon? That’s got you excited, in the in the facilities as far as like technology, or new ideas or innovations or anything like that?
Erick Humbser 26:26
Well, in reality, what, again, what I see is technology coming our way, you know, that’s the only thing that’s AI, in my opinion, that’s the only way we can solve this, this bigger problem of collaboration, and, and still making sure that your employees are, you know, motivated, because of this all also a big factor. You know, like, a lot of people are not that motivated to do the job where they are home, you know, where if for whatever reason, and they’re better performers in the office, and they’re better performance from from home. And I think that everything is going to be funneled into technology, you know, I really cannot wait for this genius minds that we have in engineering, to create something that really solve a lot of these problems, you know, because, as a technical minded person, like myself, I just, I wouldn’t be able to create anything like that, you know, like, I understand what the problem is. But obviously, I don’t think I can provide the technical policy I can, I cannot provide a technological solution for the problem. You know,
Greg Owens 27:33
right. I see it, I see that myself, too, is like, I see the challenges, but yeah, no way I can solve some of those problems. I can’t even I can’t even take apart my iPhone, right? Like some, some little little hands put it together, but there’s no way I can pick it apart. Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting, interesting world, we’re living in an interesting times we’re living in with all of this. And tell me a bit about like, your role at Cisco and, and what other challenges that you are facing here at this time, or during, you know, like, I’m super grateful. I was reminded, I went up to Tahoe a week ago, and it’s filled with smoke, right. And I was super grateful to come back here to the Bay Area. And we’re not experiencing that right now. Right, which could change easily. But it’s like, wow, things can get worse, right? And then go really fast. And I forget how I had gotten how I was reminded also of how tough some of the times were, during the pandemic, where we had the pandemic and all the quarantining and all the things we had to do about that, and then smokes, you couldn’t even go outside and enjoy the fresh air and get outside and kind of getting right. And then we also had, like, the civil unrest that was happening. So even that was playing into our roles sort of this time last year. Right. And, and right now, it’s been peaceful. Yeah, I know, runs. What do you What else do you have going on? Are you see as a challenge or opportunity even here?