Index on the industry

Raising the status of facilities management and the growing skills shortage in the industry are among the key concerns of facilities managers, the first results of an industry survey launched by business management infrastructure company Citex Group show.

When asked how they rated the status of facilities management within their organisation, nearly one in four said they felt it was poor, with 4.9 per cent saying it was ‘very poor’. The majority felt the status of their department was ‘average’. One in five felt it was high, and 4.9 per cent said it was ‘very high’.

Managers’ dissatisfaction with this level of recognition is underlined by responses to the question: ‘What is the biggest facilities management challenge at the moment?’. One of the most common, unprompted answers being: ‘Raising awareness and appreciation of facilities management services’.

But the growing skills shortage is even higher up the agenda for facilities managers, with 47 per cent stating, again unprompted, that recruitment and retention of staff is now the biggest challenge for facilities management. The Citex report argues that two factors underlie this: the relative youth of the industry, and the buoyant UK economy. ‘Both of these factors facilitate the ease with which staff can learn, progress and move from organisation to organisation. The outlook suggests that as outsourced and in-house management of increasingly diverse and complex service bundles increases, this pressure will continue to exist, and salaries of top professionals will continue to rise far faster than inflation alone would support.’

On outsourcing, respondents were divided on whether the trend had peaked. Just under half agreed that it had, while 30 per cent disagreed and a further 21per cent were undecided. Follow up telephone discussions confirmed that two main factors – the quality of service delivered and ‘communicating effectively with suppliers’ – were the principal causes of customer dissatisfaction, the report says. ‘While there are always two sides to every story, as an industry we will only succeed by investing in performance measurement and customer service,’ comment the report’s authors – adding that they expect ‘high attention to detail’ and a ‘new breed of service first supplier’ to become the market leaders as the sector evolves.

Meanwhile, nearly 60 per cent of respondents thought proposed changes to leasehold legislation were to be welcomed – a move that is widely expected to force a rethink among occupiers in the way they occupy property. There was a strong association identified with the move to total property outsourcing, even though views were split on whether ‘corporate PFI’ would take off, with 46 per cent saying yes and 54 per cent saying no.

‘The split is certainly influenced by the fact that few benchmarks currently exist, and that deals have yet to be done in this area,’ the report says.

Costs movements

Detailed questions on both the movement of costs over the past 12 months and expectations for the next 12 show relatively small changes (see graphs). The majority of respondents (61 per cent) say they have seen overall facilities management costs increase, with the average increase stated falling at some 4 per cent. A further 15 per cent saw costs fall while 24 per cent saw them remain static. Over the next 12 months, 67 per cent say they expect overall costs to increase. The largest group, 40 per cent, expect increases of up to 3 per cent. A further 9 per cent expect costs to go down while 23 per cent think they will remain the same.

Cleaning is expected to see one of the highest rises in costs. While 90 per cent of respondents say they expect maintenance costs to rise, 35 per cent – the biggest group – think the rise will be 2-3 per cent. By contrast, 20 per cent think cleaning costs will rise by 5 per cent or more. Meanwhile 33 per cent believe utility costs will rise 5-10 per cent. By contrast the majority of respondents thought costs for stationery, reprographics, post room and internal planting would remain static.

Perhaps one of the most surprising results of the study was that 24 per cent of facilities managers do not use information technology to aid delivery of facilities services. This does ‘little to help promote the industry’s image as forward thinking and modern,’ the report’s authors comment. ‘But it is also for the smart supplier to address this apparent reluctance or resistance by the development of robust, reliable and easy to use and maintain systems,’ they add. Of those who do use IT regularly, the most common usage is for communications such as help desk services and project management.