In terms of career development, the role was often regarded as an elephants' graveyard. 'Facilities management was a sideways move,' says Marilyn Standley, managing director of WSP FM and chair of BIFM in the early 1990s. 'Very few people were putting up their hands to do the job.'
Times have certainly changed. Over the last 10 years, the esteem in which the profession is held has increased exponentially. Employers accept the management of the working environment is their responsibility - and that it affects the bottom line.
The workplace is a much more complex place than it was a decade ago. Companies are obliged to steer their way through increasing rafts of UK and EU regulation and need a safe pair of hands at the helm. Facilities managers are the obvious choice.
The definition of facilities management has also broadened over the last decade. 'The management of the property is just one item in a portfolio of business services performed by the facilities manager,' explains Peter McLennan, course director of facilities and environment management at University College London. He cites tasks such as fleet management and concierge services as part of the new mix of skills. 'General management skills are increasingly important,' he adds.
The issue of life cycle costing has also played a big part in raising the profile of facilities management. For the first time, professionals are being asked to contribute at the start of a building project rather than once the building is erected.
'With the advent of PFI, the opportunities are now there to be involved in a scheme at a far earlier stage and to have some degree of influence over the design and specification of the building,' says Roger Thomson, facilities manager at Gleeds.
A former helpdesk administrator, Thomson is one of the next generation of talented young professionals tipped for the top. Working as both in-house facilities managers and contractors, they are importing new skills to the profession.
'The type of person recruited today has changed,' says Standley, who believes 'people' skills are a must in today's workplace. 'Today's facilities managers need to be able to translate technical jargon to their constituencies and relay their concerns back.'
A decade ago,the majority of facilities managers were recruited from the building professions. Nowadays, an increasing number have crossed over from soft sectors, such as human resources, catering and call centres, bringing 'people management' skills with them.
'Interpersonal skills were not considered critical to the job 10 years ago,' says Standley, 'but this is slowly changing. I'd love to see more facilities managers coming through from marketing.'
Oliver Jones, CEO of Citex, agrees. 'It isn't enough that someone is technically competent. We are looking to recruit people who understand business strategy, have financial expertise and are 'uber gurus' of customer service. A company differentiates itself from the next by its ability to delight its customers. This is something the hotels and airlines learnt many years ago.'
In-house, good communication skills, financial expertise and awareness of business strategy are also important. But the most prized quality is without doubt the ability to get the job done. As McLennan says, at the end of the day, organisations are looking for a facilities manager who can act as 'a safe pair of hands'.
Phil Roberts, head of strategic facilities management at Hertfordshire County Council, enjoys the diversity of background he sees nowadays. 'Today's facilities managers are expected to work for companies spanning different counties and to operate in culturally and ethnically diverse workplaces. There is a real need for people with mixed backgrounds.'
The eight young facilities professionals profiled over the next four pages illustrate in different ways the breadth of skills coming into the facilities sector. They come from diverse backgrounds, yet they share the same professionalism, dedication to the sector and vision to become leaders of the future. They are ones to watch.
Nerida Robinson
Nerida Robinson is passionate about environmental management, though not for any ideological reasons. ‘It’s just common sense,’ she says. The 24 year-old Australian is one of a new breed of young, dynamic facilities professionals who have made the profession their career goal. ‘Ten years ago, facilities management was not an ideal career,’ she says. ‘There was no place for facilities managers to move to.’ She adds that at companies like Citex, there is now ‘a lot for people to aspire to.’ Robinson graduated from the University of New South Wales in 1998 with a degree in environmental engineering. Her first job was for Aussi Aid, working on a landfill infrastructure project in Papua New Guinea. She then joined Symonds in Sydney where she advised on sustainability issues in facilities management before moving to Citex in London. Her clients in the UK include Microsoft and DETR. In Hong Kong they include HSBC and in Europe they include Cisco Iberia. ‘It is really satisfying to come in and develop systems that work fantastically well,’ says Robinson. ‘They take away much of the liability from prosecution, reduce overheads and marketing departments love them.They put smiles on faces.’ Robinson believes there is a common misconception that environmental management serves only to increase overheads. She says this will gradually change as the profession becomes more accepted and the cost savings and good sense of having systems in place become apparent. Robinson believes customer focus and the ability to solve problems are essential prerequisites of the job. ‘Take hotel concierges. The ones with energy and innovation are just the kind of people the industry should be looking to recruit.’ Her own long-term career goal is to follow in the footsteps of her boss, Oliver Jones.
Roger Thomson
Whole-life costing, a relatively new discipline, is raising the profile of facilities management as it becomes accepted as an integral part of new construction projects. Roger Thomson, facilities manager at the Warrington office of management and construction consultancy Gleeds, says: ‘Traditional construction-related professions, such as quantity surveying, recognise the need to look at new services such as facilities management in order to compete in the construction consultancy marketplace.’ Thomson, 29, hopes to be at the vanguard of any new developments in life cycle costing, viewing the development of analysis procedures, data capture and IT systems as essential factors. He joined Gleeds in 1996 as a helpdesk administrator. Previously, he was an administrator at Marks and Spencer Financial Services before joining Lever Brothers as a factory accountant. With the support of Gleeds, Thomson took a postgraduate diploma in facilities management at Reading in 1998. At Gleeds, Thomson heads a team of three, managing through-life cost projects for Sale town centre, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Tanzania and Tidworth Primary Healthcare surgery. He has recently become more involved in PFI schemes. Thomson believes new facilities managers should develop a broad-based skills set rather than specialising in one area. ‘Today’s facilities managers need to communicate sensibly on issues such as finance, IT, law, personnel, construction and performance measurement. They also need to stay calm and to maintain good relations with all their internal and external clients.’ While Thomson concedes some companies consider facilities management as a ‘buzz phrase’, he has no doubt the profession will grow in importance over the next few years.
Maria Kyriacou
Glamour is not a word often associated with facilities management, yet Maria Kyriacou, global head of property services for Symbian, leads a jet set life by anyone’s standards. In any one week, Kyriacou, 34, could be visiting sites in Sweden and America, proving the days of the back-room facilities manager are long gone. Kyriacou joined Symbian, a consortium comprising Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic and Psion, in 1998. Her first job was operations manager for IT recruitment firm Lorien. She moved to the Royal College of Art as projects manager and then to financial software company Inventure as an operations manager. Kyriacou is responsible for a budget of £40m and a team of 17 facilities managers. Part of her role is to identify the implications of providing the workplace environment of the future. One of Kyriacou’s most recent successes was last year’s opening of a new Symbian office in London’s Waterloo. ‘Everyone was invited to contribute ideas,’ she says. ‘I found that what people really wanted was a quiet, peaceful working environment with plenty of meeting rooms. Some did ask for ‘chill out’ areas with fish tanks, which have been incorporated where space allowed.’ Kyriacou believes modern facilities managers need a global perspective. ‘There is no reason why we can’t have outsourced workers in Fiji,’ she says. ‘All you need is a good central base. The way people are working is changing all the time. You have to think outside the box.’ Kyriacou’s experience of facilities management is a very fast moving profession. ‘It’s a challenge,’ she says. ‘People’s expectations are much higher these days and this spills over into the workplace. Employees expect their employers to provide a good service.’
Paul Cooper
Paul Cooper, 32, started his career as an apprentice engineer while studying for a degree in electrical engineering at South Bank University. Following this, he gained an MSc in facilities management from University College London. In 1995, Cooper joined the facilities management team at St George’s Hospital, London, as an engineer. His duties included the smooth running of the operating theatres. After five years as an engineer in the public sector, Cooper joined Haden last year. As facilities business development manager, he leads bids around PFI-type contracts and provides complete business solutions for clients. Although his background is technical, he relishes involvement with many of the softer services, including catering and cleaning contracts. Cooper says facilities management has broken out of the back room. ‘Nowadays facilities managers are required to see the bigger picture, to communicate at board level and to have a much greater understanding of the business.’ Added to this, Cooper believes the profession is now under the spotlight because of a combination of environmental and economical factors. ‘Over the last decade, a bundle of low-level disparate functions have come together under the banner of facilities management,’ he says. Collectively they have brought weight to the profession, elevating it from the cleaner-cum-caterer to a service with real business input. At last facilities managers have got the voice they have been screaming for.’
Simon Young
A carpenter by trade, Simon Young has worked his way up to become a customer business manager for Johnson Controls. Young, 28, took an MSc in facilities management at University College London in 1997, a year after joining Johnson (which supported his studies). At the time he was as an assistant project manager with responsibilities including people moves and feasibility studies for clients such as London Transport and WPP Publishing. Young now works exclusively on the Barclays account. With 12 service lines, including security and gardening, it is one of the largest accounts in the company. Young is part of senior management, heading a team of 25 and responsible for service delivery to Barclays’ buildings in the London area. ‘Barclays is no different from any other financial services company in that it has undergone so much change that the buildings are finding it difficult to cope,’ he says. He enjoys anticipating the bank’s future occupancy needs, often with just a few weeks notice. Young says the perception of facilities management has changed over the last decade. ‘In the early days it was all about offloading risk. Now there is a much heavier reliance on IT, benchmarking and providing ‘real time’ information on what a company’s costs are in relation to competitors’ costs using sector averages.’ Customer service is another area in which Young has seen many changes. ‘Businesses are much more aware of how to keep their staff happy, in the same way as hotels.’ Young says facilities managers need to be honest about the service they can provide. ‘People have very high expectations and you must be realistic in what you can deliver. Good communication is the key.’
Denise Cronin
Although Denise Cronin crossed over to facilities management by accident, it rapidly became her career of choice. A secretary for the City Parochial Foundation, she was given responsibility for contractor issues and customer complaints when her company moved offices. She joined the BBC in 1995 as facilities operations manager, in charge of its 24-hour operation. At the same time she undertook an MSc in architecture and facility and environmental management at University College London. Last year, Cronin, 31, joined Broadgate Estates with responsibility for operational management, focusing on managing the assets and fabric of buildings on behalf of landlords. Cronin thinks there are misconceptions about the profession. ‘At the BBC the perception was that facilities management dealt with conference rooms and annoying fire alarm tests. The reality was managing a 24-hour operation, dealing with some difficult and demanding customers, managing refurbishments and project work, dealing with health and safety, managing contractors, and being able to respond to ‘real time’ because of broadcasting constraints.’ At Broadgate Estates, Cronin enjoys the unpredictability of her job. ‘I never know what array of problems each day will bring and I have to be prepared for any eventuality. It’s all about continuing to deliver a service when faced with the aftermath of a bomb attack, demonstrations, customer assaults, fire and flood.’ Cronin adds good facilities managers must be lateral thinkers. ‘You need to be able to make an instant decision which may involve the safety of 3,000 people. You also need to be one step ahead of your contractors, customers and your staff.’
David Taylor
A graduate in English Literature, David Taylor, 27, joined Jarvis Workspace FM in late May as a decant manager. He is working on the new Army Foundation College, currently under construction in the Harrogate. It is the only one of its kind in the UK and is receiving considerable investment from the MOD. Taylor hopes his new job will broaden his experience in facilities management as well broaden his experience in project and contract management. Taylor started at Racal Telecom in 1996 as a building and facilities administrator. From his York base, he was responsible for the delivery of facilities services to Racal sites across the country with the help of a team of contractors. Shortly after joining Racal, Taylor was given his first major challenge. He was asked to co-ordinate the relocation of 50 staff in York, which involved managing the floor plan, electrical and telecommunications systems. The following year, Taylor took a six-month break to play semi-professional cricket in Australia. On his return, his responsibilities at Racal were increased. In Spring 1999, Racal devolved into three and Taylor became facilities manager for the North England region. At the close of 1999, Racal Telecom changed its name to Global Crossing and Taylor was made the facilities manager and site safety co-ordinator for the flagship building in Reading. Taylor was responsible for the facilities function for 450 staff in the six-storey building as well as managing eight Global Crossing employees. He was also responsible for contracts including catering, security, cleaning and plant preventative maintenance. Taylor established a helpdesk at Global Crossing’s Reading site. This was instrumental in increasing the British Safety Rating of the site from three to four. Taylor is frustrated that facilities management does not get the credit it deserves. ‘Some companies view facilities management as an overhead. This is changing and facilities management will eventually become critical to the core business. Companies cannot afford to have their phones out of action for even ten minutes these days.’
Paul Doyle
Former construction worker Paul Doyle has forged a career for himself in facilities management. Doyle,33, joined Harris and Porter as a trainee quantity surveyor in 1988. Seven years later, he moved across into facilities management, where he was responsible for providing tactical and operational advice to corporate clients. In 1998 Doyle undertook a two-year postgraduate diploma in facilities management at the College of Estate Management, graduating as the BIFM award winner for the best overall performance. He is now an external tutor on the college’s postgraduate course, evaluating and marking students’ coursework. At Harris and Porter, Doyle is regularly seconded to clients. He is currently working directly with London Underground (LUL) as a consultant, providing strategic level facilities management input in connection with the public private partnership (PPP). This involves helping to plan the facilities management operation in the ‘new world’ of LUL. Doyle says he was attracted to the profession because of its diverse nature and its lack of ‘rules and precedents’ compared to quantity surveying. He also enjoys the unpredictability of the job where no two days are the same. Yet Doyle believes there is still some way to go before facilities management is widely accepted as a profession in its own right. ‘There is still a deep-seated perception that facilities managers are caretakers in suits,’ says Doyle. ‘There’s nothing new in the concept of managing space, people and functions, but facilities management allows this to be undertaken in a far more co-ordinated and integrated manner, based on and supporting the business needs.’ As far as the future is concerned, Doyle does not believe that outsourcing is where the industry is heading. ‘Many organisations are insourcing, which could be the start of a trend for organisations in the second or third generation of tendering.’
Source
The Facilities Business
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