The pandemic caused a seismic shift that totally changed how and where we work. The fact that more employees are working from home as a result does not mean the world of Facilities Management has escaped this change. Quite the opposite in fact.
Add an energy and cost of living crisis into the mix and you have an environment that demands enormous creativity and flexibility from facilities teams. Consequently, training your future facilities managers to be responsive, agile and, equally, inventive, has never been so important. Going forward, you need people who are not just able to cope with diverse and challenging situations but who also have the necessary skills to use them to business advantage.
What needs are we seeing right now from Facilities Managers?
Managing the building – Many employees have become used to working at home – often only going into the office two to three days per week. It’s become a way of life that, for employers, is proving difficult to change, with Mondays and Fridays being especially difficult. The regularity of knowing how many people a facility had to cater for on a daily basis has gone out of the window; deciding the necessity of cleaning and heating day-to-day has become a challenge with no clear answer. The challenge for the modern facilities manager is being able to draw on, and understand, the skills, technology and processes that already exist, and are being developed, to meet the needs of the modern workforce that now expect to recreate some of the social interaction that they can achieve at home.
Workplace experience (collaborative and social) – While the workforce is staying away, there is a drive by employers to encourage them back into the office. The creation of collaborative and social spaces is proving popular in giving people a reason to come in. We’re seeing a huge trend in the social side of working whereby employees engage in collaborative networking events, social activities which help building team ethos. This has led to a big move toward defining distinct zones within the environment for specific work or social activities.
Workplaces are also increasingly putting in showers, pantries, coffee bars etc so employees can use these facilities while at work to cut down on their home energy usage and cost of living. Not to mention some of the best ideas and collaboration happen around the coffee machine!
All these activities have to be catered for and put new demands on the post-lockdown work environment.
Technology – Sensor technology has been around for many years in monitoring and managing occupancy but is also now being very usefully employed in energy and utility efficiency. New AI systems now exist whereby engineers employ wearable tech to monitor real time conditions and assess up-to-the-minute progress on maintenance projects.
Environment, social and governance – More than ever this has become a high priority. Energy and sustainability managers are increasingly crucial to the control of a facility. The modern business demands it and needs to maximise cost efficiencies and its impact on our planet.
Like all workplaces, within facilities teams, there is a continued focus on building Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. The government has set a target to see one million more disabled people in full time work by 2027 and the female work participation rate is set to increase in 2022-23 to 75.3% and growing further as lockdown hopefully becomes a more distant memory. With soaring costs of childcare it may well fall to the workplace to lay on more creche facilities going forward also.
Putting all this together, the vision of today’s Facilities Team as a proactive and creative contributor to the success of the modern organisation becomes ever clearer as does the importance of the highest standard and most visionary training for your people.
If you’d like to explore further how Learnmore can help meet that demand for your team, call us on 07463 816680.