Facilities Futures seminar: Image problem persists

The low profile of facilities management at board level and the need to recruit fresh talent were the focus of the second Facilities Futures seminar, held last week at Tower 42 in the City of London.

At the seminar, mostly comprising facilities management firms, Citex managing director Martin Pickard said the message that 'facilities management is more than bogs and drains' was still not getting through to the boardroom. The industry needed to attract new talent, he said.

He listed business understanding, commercial awareness, leadership, customer service expertise, management skills and technical excellence as key to raising facilities managers' profile at board level.

Dalkia director Stuart Wood questioned whether enough was being done by outsourcing companies to train new recruits. 'We set the expectation level when we go in with a tender, but do we have the people to back it up?'

Pickard didn't think enough was being done to ensure a high standard of recruits. Although acknowledging the work of industry bodies, he said: 'Academia is five years behind what is happening. The industry expects to source its people from elsewhere.'

Wood struck a chord when he said: 'We expect the competition to train people and then we nick them.'

He called for more collaboration between players in the industry.

The most common recruitment problems identified were the shortage of good candidates and spiralling salaries.

Some delegates suggested that the industry should recruit from the airline, hotel and retail trades, where salary expectations were lower and staff had good communication skills.

The seminar, run by recruitment firm Facilities Recruitment, attracted 43 delegates.

A survey by corporate real estate group Nacore says more than a third of property managers believe there will be more CRE professionals on company boards in five years' time. The survey was released at its annual summit this week.