IFM Expert Perspective: Mental Health and Facility Management

Get a professional perspective of your facility and its inner workings from Flagship experts. Look for Peace, Love and IFM webinars and blogs for an insider’s view of what it’s like to deal with facilities and their assets.

In this edition of Expert Perspective, Flagship’s Mike Thompson, President, Integrated Facilities Management discusses mental health and facilities management. Mike has more than 20 years’ experience in IFM, including operations across regulated manufacturing sites, R&D campuses, distribution centers, retail banking, and data operations centers.

I’m passionate about facility management and mental health. I chair the board of a local not-for-profit that provides mental health services in our community (check out www.counselingforall.org). After seeing our client sessions drop in March and April of 2020, we finished the year with a record number of sessions delivering many of them via telehealth. Many of those sessions involved clients who struggled with the stress of the pandemic . . . and they continue to do so.

And as a special tribute to World Health Day (April 7), I’d like to take a moment to discuss how facilities management can support not only the physical health, but also the mental health of employees, customers and all occupants.