12 March 2015 FM World

THE MAGAZINE FOR THE BRITISH INSTITUTE OF FACILITIES MANAGEMENT | 12 MARCH 2015

FMW www.fm-world.co.uk

How FMs are best placed to inямВuence group dynamics

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VOL 12 ISSUE 5 12 MARCH 2015

CONTENTS

6| ‘Two-tier’ workforce tussle

16| Culture clash

20| Safe and sound?

NEWS

OPINION

FEATURES

06 GMB members to strike over ‘two-tier’ hospital workforce 07 Havant floats combined FM services idea 08 Project of the fortnight: RBS’s flagship building at 280 Bishopsgate 09 Think Tank: What is the future for zero-hour contracts?

10 Business news: Graeme Davies: Plan to devolve NHS funds is a game-changer 11 Joint ventures with local councils bolster Norse Group’s success 12 In Focus: James Howard, head of retail stores at ISS

18 John Bowen on the fine art of communication 19 Five minutes with Paul Statham, CEO, Condeco Software 46 No Two Days

28| Lightbulb moments

16

Culture club: When office ‘tribes’ go to war, FMs would be well armed by being trained to deal with such disparate group dynamics

20

Saving the security industry from itself: FM World sat in at a round table event examining the margin erosion besetting security service providers

22

The Workplace Conversation: The BIFM and CIPD’s workplace change project has generated a lot of interesting insight already. Here’s a taster

26

ThinkFM 2015: This year’s speakers may have a different angle, but the common theme is: how can FM take the lead in providing a competitive edge?

28

In the frame: How can we ensure that innovation – ideas that provide value to the organisation or end user – becomes part of the day job for those in FM?

MONITOR 33 Insight: Market intelligence 34 Legal update: CDM 2015 – what you need to know 35 How to: Gutter maintenance 36 Technical: Using data to reshape the workplace 37 How to: Maintain flow with effective entrance systems

REGULARS 38 41 42 43 44

BIFM news Diary of events Case in point Behind the job Appointments

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Redactive Publishing Ltd 17 Britton Street, London EC1M 5TP 020 7880 6200 www.fm-world.co.uk EDITORIAL Tel: 020 7880 6229 email: editorial@fm-world.co.uk editor: Martin Read ⁄ news editor: Herpreet Kaur Grewal ⁄ reporter: James Harris ⁄ sub editor: Deborah Shrewsbury ⁄ consultant art director: Mark Parry ⁄ art editor: Daniel Swainsbury

MARTIN READ

EDITOR COMMENT

LEADER

ADVERTISING AND MARKETING email: sales@fm-world.co.uk senior display sales executive: Darren Hale (020 7880 6206) ⁄ display sales executive: Jack Shuard (020 7880 8543) / Case in Point sales: Greg Lee (020 7880 7633) recruitment sales: Call 020 7324 2755 PRODUCTION production manager: Jane Easterman senior production executive: Aysha Miah PUBLISHING publishing director: Joanna Marsh Forward features lists and media pack available at www.fm-world.co.uk/about-us

ere’s something about FM that doesn’t get said much. Done well, it demands of its practitioners a great deal of creativity. Indeed, creativity is at the heart of good FM – in how FMs deal with crises, in how they plan to avoid them, in the way they negotiate and liaise with multiple stakeholders.

Innovative dealings with day-to-day issues is part and parcel of an FM’s skill set.

In fact,creativity in everyday business life is not always about introducing new ways of working, or in revolutionising how we think and work. It can of course be each of these things, but the need for creativity of mind is more routinely manifested in something far more prosaic, identified for example in the nature of a response under pressure, perhaps when moving workers in an emergency from building to building.

The problem, as ever, is in the public’s perception of FM. The sector’s famously low profile means that the world beyond FM isn’t likely to consider the work of facilities managers as in any way creative – they continue to assume that it operates in the shadows, its teams comprising dull grey men keeping their buildings going.

How much further from the truth could that be? For a start (and with the recent International Women’s Day in mind), it’s worth pointing out that at least as many women have been voted Facilities Manager of the Year as have men – more women than men have won it in the past five years. As for grey and dull, it would take a matter of moments at any FM networking event to dispel that absurd myth.

The fact that FM is now very much all about people is what confirms the need for a that creative mindset. FM’s move from being principally about property performance to people and their productivity appears unstoppable. An organisation’s CRE portfolio has only ever been the product of its people requirement, but the much closer attention to productivity and team structure that today’s financial demands (and IT systems) allow means that those property determinations – location, size, form and function – are under almost constant review as the size, shape and make-up of an organisation’s people resource fluctuates to accommodate ever more agile ways of working.

Of the speakers who provided insight this week into their forthcoming ThinkFM presentations, perhaps Monica Parker’s was most illuminating. FMs, she argues, are increasingly being asked to determine the behaviours that management can expect to deal with. “It’s part of FM’s evolution,” she says, “now you are behaviourists too.”

Dealing with all those day-to-day deliverables and becoming behaviourists too?

You’ll definitely need to be creative to cope with all that.

It’s a strand of thinking that came to mind after a series of meetings recently with FMs who have adapted to fundamental changes in their organisations’ circumstances. In Newbury, the FM team at a hospital with a unique charitable PFI; in Bristol, a manufacturing facility in which the FM team has overseen the re-mapping of an entire site. The people overseeing these projects didn’t wear snazzy redrimmed glasses or sport sharp haircuts – they just went about their dazzlingly creative work behind the scenes.

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Simon Ball, business development director, Mitie ⁄ Martin Bell, independent consultant / Lucy Jeynes, Larch Consulting / Nick Cook, managing director, Avison Young ⁄ Rob Greenfield, health & safety business unit director, myfm ⁄ Ian Jones, director of facilities, ITV ⁄ Liz Kentish, managing director, Kentish and Co. ⁄ Josh Kirk, facilities manager, JLL ⁄ Anne Lennox Martin, FM consultant ⁄ Peter McLennan, joint course director, MSc Facility Environment and Management, University College London ⁄ Geoff Prudence, chair, CIBSE FM Group ⁄ Jeremy Waud, chairman, Incentive FM group⁄ Jane Wiggins, FM tutor and author Average net circulation 12,744 (Jul 13 – Jun 14) FM World magazine is produced using paper derived from sustainable sources; the ink used is vegetable based; 85 per cent of other solvents used in the production process are recycled © FM World is published on behalf of the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM)

by Redactive Publishing Ltd (RPL), 17 Britton St, London EC1M 5TP. This magazine aims to include a broad range of opinion about FM business and professional issues and articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the BIFM nor should such opinions be relied upon as statements of fact. All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any print or electronic format, including but not limited to any online service, any database or any part of the internet, or in any other format in whole or in part in any media whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the publisher. While all due care is taken in writing and producing this magazine, neither BIFM nor RPL accept any liability for the accuracy of the contents or any opinions expressed herein. Printed by Polestar Stones ISSN 1743 8845

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“Facilities managers are increasingly being asked to determine the behaviours that management can expect to deal with”

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INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

SAM KESTEVEN/REX

GMB members to strike over ‘two-tier’ hospital workforce More than 200 workers employed

by ISS at a London hospital as cleaners, security, ward hostesses, caterers, switchboard operators and porters were due to take strike action earlier this month in a dispute over a “two-tier workforce”.

The workers, who are members of trade union GMB at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, planned to walk out from Monday 9 March to Friday 13 March.

They said they were taking action because they want the same pay rates and weekend enhancements and unsocial hours rates as the staff directly employed by the NHS Trust.

Currently, ISS workers are paid between £7.10 and £7.32 an hour.

The lowest rate for directly employed staff is £7.33 an hour, which moves in yearly increments to £7.51 and £7.69 under the current NHS pay progression system.

GMB says ISS staff who work unsocial hours are paid between 90p and £2.05 an hour. As direct staff they would be entitled to pay of time-and-a-half.

Nadine Houghton, GMB Southern regional officer, said: “Our member’s demands are just and fair – quite simply, why should they get less than their equivalents who are employed directly by the NHS, just by virtue of the fact they work for a private contractor?”

However, an ISS spokesman said: “ISS is disappointed that the single trades union has decided to embark upon this action.

The company has constantly maintained its position and have clearly demonstrated to all the trades unions involved at the

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hospital that all funding received relating to employee terms and conditions have been passed, in full, to their members.

“It is therefore a matter of regret that we still see GMB continue to induce their members to take industrial action, adding further inconvenience for the patients and families that use QEH. In addition, the GMB continue to misrepresent the facts in relation to the commercial arrangements in place between the trust and ISS,” he added.

GMB members have already held five days of strike action

Queen Elizabeth Hospital is run by Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust

on 25 and 26 December, 24th and 25th November and on 8 October last year. The union says it has received support from the community, other trade unions and

local politicians over its action.

Talks on 18 December did result in movement by the company, but as yet no settlement has been reached.

CONTRACT TENDERING

Government launches public sector contract finder The government has introduced its new contracts finder website to help organisations to bid for future public sector contracts.

The government spent £11.4 billion with small and mediumsized enterprises in 2013 to 2014, an all-time high. The figure amounts to 26.1 per cent of all government spend.

The website covers current and future public sector contracts above £10,000 in central government and £25,000 in the wider public sector. It is launched in conjunction with new legislation, which came into force on 25 February. It says: ● Everyone in the supply chain must comply with 30-day payment terms, including suppliers and sub-contractors; ● Public bodies must publish an annual late payment report, making their accountability more

transparent; bidding process is simpler across the wider public sector – complex forms, such as prequalification questionnaires, are now abolished for low-value contracts (under £200,000); and ● The procurement process for public sector contracts will be quicker.

Minister for the Cabinet Office, ● The

Francis Maude (left), said: “As part of our long-term economic plan this government is overhauling public procurement to open things up to businesses of all sizes. I am so pleased that our reforms have ensured that innovative SMEs benefited from £11.4 billion of business last year alone. Over a quarter of our spend now goes to SMEs, but we know there’s more to do, and these reforms show we are determined to finish the job.”

Piers Linney, Co-CEO of Outsourcery and member of the government’s SME panel, added: “This legislation and the new site create a huge opportunity for SME businesses with reduced cash-flow risk. They need to educate themselves on their rights under the legislation and really get under the skin of Contracts Finder to seize that opportunity.”

(Visit gov.uk/contracts-finder) www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 17:41

NEWS

BRIEFS B&ES sees rise in workload

Havant floats combined FM services idea Havant Borough Council has launched a consultation into the way its facilities management services are being delivered.

The consultation, which will see Havant working with South Oxfordshire District Council, Hart District Council, Vale of White Horse District Council and Mendip District Council, has set out to investigate the value of collectively contracting a third-party provider.

Services affected include financial services, IT, legal, engineering, property management, as well as all facilities management services.

According to Havant Borough Council, the proposal could produce further financial savings, sustained or better outcomes for service users, and ‘greater resilience and flexibility’.

Responses to the consultation

can be submitted until 9 March.

The proposal follows Northamptonshire County Council’s agreement to implement its ‘next generation’ council project.

Northants is set to move 4,000 staff to four newly-created enterprises, designed to cut costs and generate additional income through winning external contracts.

GETTY/SHUTTERSTOCK

Northants agrees ‘next-generation’ service model Northamptonshire County Council is to move its service provision to four separate social enterprises as part of a ‘next-generation’ council.

In what it describes as ‘the biggest change to the way public services are delivered’, the new model will see a core council commissioning specialist organisations to carry out services.

The standalone organisations, explained the council, would be free from statutory restraints.

The enterprises would be able to win other contracts to generate additional income.

The announcement follows the council’s budget proposals, which suggest that the cost of providing its services over the next five years is set to rise by £104 million while government funding is to be reduced by £79 million.

The new organisations are to be launched with a view to making services self-financing. www.fm-world.co.uk

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Organisation – to deliver services to protect vulnerable adults; ● A Wellbeing Community Organisation – to deliver health and wellbeing; services; and ● A Place Shaping Company – to deliver services to improve Northamptonshire as a place.

‘Traditional model no longer works’

The council’s plan to transform the services was approved by councillors last week, and it is now exploring possible options for the new organisations.

The four new organisations suggested by the council are: ●A

Children Services Mutual – to deliver safeguarding and other services for young people; ● An Accountable Care

A council spokesman told FM World that a core of 150 employees would continue to be employed by the council, while its 4,000-strong workforce would be moved to the four new bodies.

Council leader Jim Harker, said: “The traditional model of local government not only no longer works financially, but also doesn’t meet the needs of citizens… It is certainly no exaggeration to say that this is the biggest transformation of services in Northamptonshire since the creation of this council 125 years ago.”

A ‘state of trade’ survey of Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES) member organisations has indicated an increase in workload and turnover as well as signs of slowing growth.

The survey, covering activity in the second half of 2014, points to rises in tender prices, labour and material costs. Optimism among participants was down on the first half of 2014, but up on the same period in 2013. Regional variations saw the percentage of respondents who felt more optimistic about prospects in London +28 per cent, and up to +80 per cent in Wales.

A third were employing more people than they were six months earlier, although half of respondents had made no changes to the number of people employed.

Working 9-5 is outdated Research indicates that UK professionals are working beyond their contracted hours more frequently than five years ago.

Two-thirds of UK professionals say they work outside of regular office hours more often than was the case in 2010.

A similar proportion of workers (72 per cent) say that fixed hours are no longer suited to their duties; perhaps offering some explanation as to why so much extra time is spent at the office. 76 per cent of respondents also reported a rise in remote working, further suggesting that the typical 9-5 day in the office is outdated.

BSRIA slams DECs plan BSRIA warns that government plans to scrap Display Energy Certificates (DECs) could see a fall in the levels of information available on the efficient operation of buildings used by the public.

The Department for Communities and Local Government is currently consulting on the idea.

Ian Orme, head of sustainable construction at built environment research body BSRIA, said it was “no surprise that a government that has tried to reduce ‘red tape’ and ensure that EU directives are not ‘goldplated’ has consulted on the idea of streamlining the Display Energy Certificates (DECs) process and making this voluntary, rather than compulsory”.

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PROJECT OF THE

FORTNIGHT NEWS BULLETIN

Leap in office building boosts construction industry

280 BISHOPSGATE, CITY OF LONDON PROJECT: Refinement of heating/air conditioning system and lighting controls at RBS’s flagship building CONTRACTOR: RBS’s in-house workplace services team

CHLOE CRISFORD

RBS energy strategy pays off RBS set out to maximise the effectiveness of the existing building management system at the bank’s flagship office in London, looking to slash its gas and electricity bills at 280 Bishopsgate by £355,000 a year to reach its 15 per cent energy reduction target.

The project focused on doing more with the existing building infrastructure and systems, meaning that the cost of the simple and innovative energy-saving solutions were recouped within two months.

Leased by RBS, 280 Bishopsgate, in the City of London, has 2,700 employees on 12 floors. An out-of-hours building survey gave key insights that were fed into the computerised Building Management System (BMS). Several actions were taken to refine the building’s heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) and lighting controls to make sure that the systems operated in line with when the building is occupied. Another step was to ensure that this specialised system controlled all key HVAC equipment, reducing the chances of manual error. Other measures adopted included: ● Using fresh air to cool the building rather than using air conditioning; ● Changing the office temperature based on occupant feedback instead of outside temperature hold-offs; ● Identifying and repairing any defective HVAC equipment; ● Consolidating the control system to make sure that boilers and chillers are not operating concurrently; and ● Recommissioning the building’s lighting control system.

John Hayes, head of workplace services at RBS, said: “We already had the BMS in place so it was a case of coming up with a control strategy and recommissioning. We’re making maximum use of what is in front of us, which is why it’s so attractive and it’s providing significant savings that will sustain going forward.”

Total annual cost savings expected from introducing these measures into RBS’s top 40 energy-consuming offices would see a saving of £4.1 million.

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A surge in office building is helping to drive growth in the construction sector, according to figures released in February by Barbour ABI. January 2015 saw a 26 per cent increase in the value of office construction projects awarded in the UK compared with the same time last year, accounting for almost three-quarters (74 per cent) of the total value of all contracts awarded in the commercial and retail sector last month.

The award of major project contracts such as the £100 million development of Atlantic Square in Glasgow and the £90 million 70 St Mary’s Axe scheme in the City of London, were key contributors to the surge in activity. The latest figures put together by Barbour ABI, which supplies construction data to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Cabinet Office and Treasury, also revealed that the total value of commercial and retail contracts awarded in January was £823 million – a 22.7 per cent increase on January 2014.

The latest figures put together by Barbour ABI, which supplies construction data to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), Cabinet Office and Treasury, also revealed that the total value of commercial and retail contracts awarded in January was £823 million – a 22.7 per cent increase on January 2014.

Social Value Act ‘not ready for extension’ – Ringrose Adrian Ringrose, chief executive of Interserve, has backed Lord Young’s decision not to extend the Social Value Act to other areas in his major review published on 13 February.

Lord Young of Graffham carried out a review of the Social Value Act, reporting back a few weeks ago having found that there was little awareness of the act, varying understandings of how it should be applied in government procurement – and a lack of agreed standards for measuring social value.

As a result, Lord Young recommended that the Social Value Act should not be extended to goods and works until these “issues of awareness, understanding, and measurement” are overcome.

Ringrose told FM World: “It’s right not to mandate it because that will risk it becoming too much of a box-ticking exercise rather than an intelligent tool that procurers and commissioners can make informed decisions [with].”

Ringrose also remarked that it was “good that the review was carried out by someone who has a clear business head rather than any other kind of head”, as it was vital that there was a rigorous way to measure social value before it became a permanent part of legislation.

He added: “Progress is incremental, but things that matter and things that shape the way people behave take time to take root. The act is only two years old, but could shape public procurement for years to come.”

Savile probe lawyer to lead Yarl’s Wood review Serco has chosen a former barrister to conduct an independent review of its work at the controversial Yarl’s Wood immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire.

Kate Lampard CBE, was selected after a Channel 4 News report broadcast last night showed ‘undercover footage’ taken inside the centre of staff allegedly being abusive and threatening to detainees. Lampard recently carried out the report into the Jimmy Savile scandal at Stoke Mandeville hospital.

Yarl’s Wood – one of the country’s largest detention centres for women facing deportation – is managed by Serco on behalf of the Home Office.

A spokesman for Serco said: “We have not seen the footage, but have been told that this includes recordings of comments made by one or more of our staff.”

The company stated: “Serco works hard to ensure that the highest standards are maintained at Yarl’s Wood. We recognise that the public needs to be confident that Yarl’s Wood is undertaking its difficult role with professionalism, care and humanity. This is why we have asked the highly respected former barrister, Kate Lampard CBE, to conduct an independent review of our work at Yarl’s Wood.”

James Thorburn, managing director of Serco’s Home Affairs business, said: “We work hard to ensure that the highest standards of conduct are maintained at Yarl’s Wood and Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons has found the centre to be a safe and respectful place.” www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 14:51

FM NEWS

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THINK TANK

25% They will be eradicated in due course

29% Their usage will increase

OUR READERS SAID… We asked our LinkedIn and mailing list members: What is the future for zero-hours contracts?

New figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that companies in the UK used 1.8 million zero-hours contracts at the height of last summer – up from the 1.4 million reported on in FM World when figures were first collected in January of last year.

The zero-hours contract model enables organisations to call on a pool of reliable and experienced staff at short notice to cover peaks in demand or seasonal work, but without any obligation to use them.

Critics say this leaves workers with little stability or security. But such contracts allow businesses the vital flexibility to respond to fluctuations in their workflows.

A recent Equality and Human Rights Commission study found that some commercial cleaning employers were failing to meet

their responsibilities to staff. One of its recommendations was longer contracts rather than zero-hours/ short-term/temporary ones to improve working life for workers.

But is this really the answer? And despite all the negative publicity, is the flexibility that zero-hours contracts offer here to stay?

Under a third of respondents (29 per cent) agreed that their use would increase because “there are some businesses that just wouldn’t exist without zero-hours contracts”.

One respondent said: “The workplace is ever-changing and there are always peaks and troughs in demand and increased pressure to deliver on a budget that it is a practice that will invariably have to increase; however, I don’t think it’s always a bad thing or focused on the lowest-paid in the workforce.

46% Growth in their use will be curtailed

I think an increase in flexibility could also work in the favour of high-level executives who want work-life balance maybe whilst they pursue leisure activities, etc.

It also provides an opportunity for employees to pick their employer depending on the offer at the time, whilst employers benefit from the experiences the staff have with other organisations.”

But most respondents (46 per cent) think growth in their use will be curtailed. “Whilst there are clear benefits of convenience for certain employers in the short term; longer term, employees will seek to avoid such employers,” said one respondent. “The particularly disturbing aspect of a zero-hours

contract is that it is just that – a contract to do zero hours unless that employer asks for work to be done.”

But 25 per cent of you went further, believing that zero-hours contracts would be eradicated in due course because they were “a plague on the low-paid workers of the UK”, and “is a highly restrictive form of contract that should be considered unreasonable in law and therefore unenforceable”.

Suggestions from respondents included raising the minimum wage for those on zero-hours contracts to compensate for the earnings uncertainty these contracts create.

Join the FM World Think Tank: www.tinyurl.com/fmwthinktank

SHUTTERSTOCK

FM experiences dip in merger and acquisition activity Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the UK facilities management sector slackened in the final quarter of 2014, following two quarters of robust activity.

A total of 18 deals were recorded over the final three months of the year, says the latest iteration of the Grant Thornton UK LLP Insights into Facilities Management report.

As a result of the slow-down, the full-year total was at the joint lowest level seen in the post-financial crisis period, with 82 deals recorded in 2014, representing a 12 per cent drop on the previous year’s total of 93 deals.

The primary factor behind the www.fm-world.co.uk

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overall drop in M&A activity in 2014 has been a marked fall in the number of acquisitions by trade buyers, both local and international.

The continuing drive towards the outsourcing of services and the resulting shift in FM activity from the public to the private sectors will carry on making

the sector attractive, says the report. Another important factor, and somewhat unknown, is the potential for a knock-on effect on the M&A markets as a result of the dramatic fall in oil prices.

The sharp fall may encourage businesses to take a more shortterm approach, but it could also encourage utilities to be more

aggressive in the FM area, says the report.

David Ascott, corporate finance partner at Grant Thornton UK LLP, said: “The M&A outlook in the FM market in 2015 is undoubtedly clouded by the electoral uncertainty in the first half of the year.

“This will probably put a brake on activity levels as in the wider corporate market, but we would expect a strong recovery later in the year as the fundamentals of consolidation and strengthening service offerings come to the fore.”

The Insights Into Facilities Management report can be found at: www.tinyurl.com/nedenfg FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 09

05/03/2015 16:44

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ANALYSIS

Plan to devolve NHS funds is a game-changer GRAEME DAVIES newsdesk@fm-world.co.uk

Much has been made recently of the funding issues facing the National Health Service as the ageing population leans ever more heavily on our ‘free at the point of care’ system.

For private firms, opportunities have been increasingly opening up as outsourcing expands. And documents revealed in the past week suggest a further change in

funding of healthcare in one of the biggest unitary authorities that could have huge implications across the rest of the UK. It’s been proposed that the government should devolve the entire health budget for the 10 borough councils that make up the conurbation of Greater Manchester to an overseeing authority that would then pool it with the social care budgets of the group of councils to create a

health and care budget worth in the region of £6 billion.

Similar pooling of budgets is happening in Scotland, and in Northern Ireland the health and social care budgets have been unified for decades, but this is a significant testbed for England and, if successful, it could be rolled out across the nation. It also represents the latest lurch towards decentralisation and devolution by a government that has been spouting much rhetoric about creating a ‘Northern powerhouse’ to challenge London’s dominance over the UK economy. Indeed, Manchester appears to be the testbed for wider devolution, having recently been given more control over its transport and housing budgets in return for agreeing to elect a full-time mayor to oversee budgets.

Details remain thin on the ground, but considering the

Contract wins

NEW BUSINESS Carillion has signed rail and aviation deals worth more than £5 million, including a year’s provision of soft and hard services at the Voyager House offices at Heathrow Airport. Carillion has supplied FM services at Heathrow since 2009. It has also extended a contract with London Overground Rail Operations for soft and hard services at 57 stations. A new 18-month contract will see Carillion service another 24 stations on the West Anglia Line.

Interserve has won a three-year, £35 million contract extension with home improvement and retail garden centre B&Q to provide cleaning services across its entire UK estate.

The partnership began in 2006 with Interserve cleaning 182 stores. This has 10 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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now increased to include all 361 B&Q stores in the UK and Ireland.

Eastern Facilities Management Solutions has taken a five-year, £4 million catering contract at Southendon-Sea Borough Council. The company will supply civic catering, restaurant and café services at the council’s HQ and Tickfield Centre, and provide hospitality at the council’s corporate venues.

Axis Security has secured a three-year deal to service 10 Finsbury Square, a new London office building for commercial real estate agent Cushman and Wakefield. The works comprise eight high-calibre security officers delivering manned guarding, CCTV monitoring and loading bay services.

Kier has renewed its repairs and maintenance contract with Barnsley Council in South Yorkshire for another five years. The extension, worth £55 million, continues the Property Repairs and Improvement Partnership (PRIP) with Berneslai Homes Construction Services.

Delaware North will manage catering at the Olympic Stadium in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Under the terms of a 25-year deal, it will carry out event-day hospitality catering, general admission catering, and marketing and management of nonevent-day conferences and functions.

It will oversee marketing, sales and delivery of tours of the stadium when it reopens in 2016 as home to West Ham United FC and UK Athletics.

Ground Control is to provide landscaping and grounds maintenance works at Sainsbury’s 500-plus UK stores. The company has worked in partnership with the retailer since 2006. The deal starts in April, and Ground Control has begun working with Arcus FM and Sainsbury’s to make sure of a smooth transition.

overlap between social care and healthcare, and as diseases associated with ageing such as dementia become more prevalent, the dividing lines between social and healthcare become ever more blurred. In the case of Manchester the budget probably won’t be handed over in its entirety to the local authorities, which already run the social care budgets. What is likely is that a combined group of local NHS managers and local authority care management would control the budget, in theory, allowing for more joined-up thinking and for more efficient use of the overall budget – something that needs to happen, given that the NHS is said to be careering towards a budget deficit of up to £20 billion by the end of the decade.

Politically, the proposed changes are intriguing – a Conservative chancellor is handing over vast swathes of responsibility over a core part of the public sector to a Labour-dominated group of local authorities. But Labour itself has hit back by saying it has been calling for such amalgamation of budgets for years and this is more like another NHS reorganisation on the fly than a thought-out policy. Others say the Manchester boroughs are being set up for a fall and the government wants to shift the responsibility for a struggling NHS onto someone else.

For firms who already supply into the care and health sectors, the merging of budgets could allow for bigger contracts, but it may also lead to increased competition and downward pressure on margins. The scale and ambition of the potential changes are impressive, especially this close to polling day.

Graeme Davies writes for Investors Chronicle

www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 14:52

BUSINESS Joint ventures with local councils BRIEFS bolster Norse Group’s success Norse Commercial Services has announced strong sales figures of more than £37 million.

The group, which is wholly owned by Norfolk County Council, has reported an annual turnover of more than £180 million.

The figures have been announced ahead of the group’s financial statement, to be released in May. Geoff Tucker, sales director at Norse, said: “This sales growth includes 157 new contracts and contract renewals won in competitive tender situations.”

Norse has created a number of joint venture agreements with local councils, such as Newport County Council and Great Yarmouth Borough Council, and this, says Tucker, has contributed significantly to the company’s growth.

Advanced gets new image

Norse says it is “going from strength to strength” wih its joint venture companies

“These joint venture companies are going from strength to strength, adding new business that generates additional revenue for our local authority partners, and representing excellent value

for local taxpayers.

“In the last year they’ve put on an additional £2.75 million of external contract business, which provides significant returns to cash-strapped local authorities.”

PA

Fit Out Division helps Morgan Sindall to feel tip-top Morgan Sindall Group’s Fit Out Division, which includes office fit-out and refurbishment specialist Overbury, contributed to its parent company’s profits.

Preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2014 released by construction and regeneration group Morgan Sindall Group plc also show that its office interior design-andbuild company Morgan Lovell contributed to profits.

Although trading conditions remained challenging, Morgan Sindall Group delivered an operating profit of £26.5 million before adjustments (2013: £16.2 million) on revenues of £2,220 million (2013: £2,095 million). www.fm-world.co.uk

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A significant rise in the refurb order book

The group finished the year with a net cash position of £56 million (2013: £70 million).

“Despite a competitive fit-out market, 2014 has been a good year for Overbury and Morgan Lovell. We’ve seen a significant

rise in our order book, which is up 70 per cent on last year, as private and public sector spending programmes for fit-out and refurbishment projects have come back on stream,” said Chris Booth, managing director of Overbury and Morgan Lovell.

“Our continued focus on operational delivery and being a contractor of choice for projects from £5k to £100 million is driving new growth in commercial office, higher education and government sector projects and also within our framework contracts. Our expertise in refurbishment in occupation is helping us to win more complex fit-out schemes nationally.”

Advanced Security, part of the Cordant Group, has rebranded as Cordant Security.

The company, formerly Advance Security, is also adding 350 staff to its 4,700 workforce.

Edward Macfarlane, managing director of Cordant Security, said: “We are looking forward to bolstering our already highly able workforce with 350 new recruits from across the UK and developing this talent within the business... Our collaborative approach will see us looking at new and innovative ways to deliver security solutions.”

Busy Keir sees profit dip Kier Group has reported a rise in revenues, but a fall in profit before tax in the six months to 31 December 2014.

Group revenue rose to £1.6 billion, an 11 per cent rise from the same period in 2013, while profit before tax dipped 2 per cent to £35.9 million.

Kier’s services division showed a 1 per cent rise in revenues to £569 million, but its underlying operating profit fell 3 per cent to £23.7 million. The group said the figures reflected “an intense period of contract mobilisation”.

Shepherd lingers at Twickers FM provider Shepherd FM has extended its maintenance contract with Twickenham Stadium, operated by RFU. Under the three-year deal Shepherd will continue providing critical mechanical and electrical services to the stadium ahead of the Rugby World Cup in September. Shepherd has worked with the RFU for five years. Its engineering services took part in last year’s infrastructure upgrade.

FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 11

05/03/2015 14:55

FM BUSINESS

IN FOCUS

The interviewee: James Howard, head of ISS Retail Stores The issue: Dry cleaning as a bolt-on service

Concierge-style cleaning ‘to go’ Big-name facilities management providers are to use a ‘bolt-on’ concierge-style dry cleaning and laundry service through Johnson Cleaners in the package they offer clients, FM World has learned.

FM companies such as Aramark, Elior, BaxterStorey, Cofely, Compass and ISS are to include the service as a part of what they offer clients. These clients include Boots, the Bank of England, Coutts, Barclays, Fluor, Bank of America and Zurich.

According to Johnson Cleaners, the model takes advantage of “the desire for a convenient solution to dry cleaning within Johnson Cleaner’s target demographic customer, which tends to be professional office workers who are ‘cash-rich and time-poor’”.

Changing habits Shaun Caddick, spokesman for Johnson Cleaners, says the company carried out market research that revealed that demand for dry cleaning from the public had not decreased in recent years, but that high streets were no longer convenient for consumers. Indeed, many local businesses that once thrived have suffered from the recession’s effect on the gradual decline of high street.

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Caddick says: “Johnson Cleaners had 600 branches and then closed down about 307.”

High street staples such as WH Smith also noticed, which is why they introduced the WH Smith travel offer – smaller shops that fit around airports and offices to appeal to the more mobile and professional consumer.

He adds: “Dry cleaning is still a thriving and positive market, but consumer habits have changed.

Twenty-seven per cent of the UK population still uses dry cleaning [according to the company’s research].

“The number one decisionmaker [of where consumers go] is convenience, location and turnaround time – price is at the bottom of the list of reasons.”

This has been a direct reason why Johnson Cleaners has decided to extend its services to FM providers, which can offer laundry and dry cleaning as a ‘bolt-on’.

Longer working hours and time pressures means a trip to the high street is difficult, says Caddick. “Our solution allows

people to take their dry cleaning and laundry into work where it is deposited in an agreed location in a corporate-style garment carrier.”

Payment is then made through an FM-managed on-site cafeteria or restaurant and the customer receives a ticket as usual. A Johnson the Cleaner van collects the clothing three times a week and takes it to the nearest branch, where it is processed using state-of-the-art green technology and deposited back to site within 24 hours.

Growth strategy Jim Howard, head of ISS Retail Stores, who is also involved with ISS’s FM business, said: “Adding services such as dry cleaning into our existing retail stores’ business is really important for us and our growth strategy.

“It helps us provide our customers added value and services that help with their busy lifestyles.”

Adds Howard: “The service that we will offer will simply be an extension of the services

“Adding services such as dry cleaning into our existing retail stores is really important for us”

that Johnsons‘ offer in their high street locations. Customers who don’t live near a local branch or find it difficult to get into town due to busy lifestyles will now be able to drop it off in one of our locations.

“The customer will drop their garments off at our branch and we will process it for them.

Johnson will come to our site through their local logistics team, take it back to their facility, clean it and then bring it back to our store for the customer to collect.

Really simple stuff.”

Howard says ISS Retail Stores are all in and around military bases serving both RAF and Army personnel. “We also serve general public for the shops that are located off the base in the community.

“We have 29 shops in total currently, but we are looking to grow this number across more military sites and our healthcare division. We have started the trial with Johnson in seven shops with a view to roll out more over the coming months. Early sales have been pleasing,” he says.

Having an established brand like Johnson helps ISS, says Howard “as it is a recognised brand that people trust”.

He adds: “By being able to drive footfall with additional people coming to our shops we should be able to drive additional incremental sales of grocery items (such as milk, bread, newspapers).”

Howard says that having a dry cleaning offer bolted onto other facilities services “saves the customer a trip into a town where parking charges, parking restrictions, and petrol costs are a problem”.

He says ISS has plans to launch more than 30 sites before the end of April.

HERPREET GREWAL newsdesk@fm-world.co.uk

www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:06

“We can’t afford to take risks when we appoint outside contractors”

Robert Marsh, Director (Electrical), Johnathan Hart Associates

All ECA contractors undergo a thorough examination of their financial position as well as their technical skills; and their clients are protected by an insurance-backed warranty and bond.

ONE THING LESS TO WORRY ABOUT. To find an ECA contractor that’s right for you, visit:

www.eca.co.uk @ECAlive

p13_FMW120315.indd 2

/ECAlive

Electrical Contractors’ Association

02/03/2015 12:19

FM OPINION

THE DIARY COLUMN JOHN BOWEN

“THE ONE ASPECT OF CHANGE IN OUR LANGUAGE THAT I LOATHE THE MOST IS THE ENCROACHMENT OF MANAGEMENT SPEAK”

University Local Estates Authority

John Bowen is an FM consultant

THE IM PORTAN CE O F EFFECT I V E CO M M UN I C AT I O N

anguage evolves, but sometimes those developments can get in the way of our understanding of each other, says John Bowen

L

Language has fascinated me for as long as I can remember; to listen to someone speak well or to read something well written is a joy.

But change in language is a natural process as we seek to use the words that we have to express ourselves in different ways. Another influence has been access to the media. The import of Americanisms to the UK was something that my parents abhorred, but the cinema and TV were relentless.

English as she is spoken, or in the way that I was taught it in the 1950s and 60s, was even then a hotchpotch of languages – Latin, French, German, Greek and goodness knows what else.

Technology has had a big impact; SMS messaging and more recently Twitter have moved into the way that we speak and the elegance of letter writing that I grew up trying to master has long been lost, sacrificed on the altar of email, where even grammar has largely gone out the

NHS Trust

window. Is grammar important?

Yes, because it gives a language structure and if we lose that we risk the loss of understanding.

Political correctness has taken away much of the power of oratory. There was a time when we had political speakers who were a joy to listen to even if you didn’t agree. The current crop seem barely able to string a sentence together and even when they can it has to be either written for them or agreed by committee before they utter a word and what they are allowed to say is rarely more than platitudes or regurgitated dogma.

But perhaps the one aspect of change in our language that

I loathe the most is the encroachment of management speak. The parliamentary sound bite can be a wonderfully elegant use of minimalism. But I can think of no such example from the world of business.

We must allow our language to grow, to incorporate new words where we need them and to revise the use of existing words however much the purists might decry this.

The important thing is that we still have a language with which we can communicate and express ourselves. If we can do that and do it well, so much the better.

BEST OF THE WEB Views and comments from across the web Effective maintenance strategies (BIFM group): Alan Taylor: 1. Analyse the business. What it does and how it operates. 2. What the business needs from the building it occupies.

What engineering systems does the business rely on, and at what point will the business be hit by loss of services. 3. Gain a complete picture of the engineering systems and their condition throughout the whole building. This should give you a clear 14 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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understanding of what maintenance will be required and where plant needs to be planned to be replaced. 4. Establish what maintenance must be done out of hours.

Jon Pawsey: PAS55 / ISO 55000 may be worth a look if you are looking for a globally recognised certification on asset management.

Brendan Murray: Before you do anything else seek to clarify the business’s risk appetite! Many of the more adventurous

strategies will (in my experience) be rejected out of hand as the perceived risk is too high, despite the obvious benefits they may have.

Rob Farman: I guess you might have conditionmonitoring in mind, which a few have adopted in FM and is more commonly used where transport fleets (air, land or sea) are operated. But our key maintenance driver is the statutory requirements, which are at least annual and, often,

sub-divisions of a year.

But manufacturers are increasingly monitoring how their equipment is performing. Over time they will move from just being a maker to maker & installer to maker, installer & maintainer.

What do practitioners think the key to great FM customer service is?

Denise Booth-Alexander: It’s your people, their people, customer education and a true understanding and

alignment of customer needs with what you are contracted to do. If your people understand customer needs and the customer understands the abilities of your provision within any funding restrictions the partnership should be great.

Rachael Hall: Working with a well-informed team who can communicate with the building users, provide alternative solutions and encourage feedback is key. www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 16:44

You can follow us at twitter.com/FM_World facebook.com/FMWorldMagazine

BEST OF THE

Distractions and the open office environment Laura Stack, theproductivitypro.com Open spaces and smaller, shared workstations have become ‘the new normal’ in many organisations. Some cite the ability to collaborate they can inspire. I hear just as many complaints about interruptions and noise affecting workplace productivity and privacy.

Such limitation lies in our capacity to process what happens around us. When you’re trying to focus on a task and overhear a hallway conversation, you can lose track.

A study for the International Congress of Noise as a Public Health found that on average staff wasted 21.5 minutes a day on such distractions; that‘s 4 per cent of an 8-hour day. For 100 staff on $50,000 a year that’s $200,000 a year in lost productivity.

Most people try to adapt, adopting actions to ‘distract the distractions’ – like listening to music or wearing noise-reducing headphones. But a library-like environment won’t create a productive workspace either. Low-level background noise in a quiet environment allows noise to contrast dramatically with the quiet.

To reduce noise and create freedom from speech distractions use a signal. If people in your department are having problems with drop-in visitors, agree on a signal that tells others, “Please don’t interrupt me unless it’s an emergency”. It must be one everyone will use consistently. Turn your nameplate around. Wear orange armbands.

A group I worked with found that co-workers respected the signal 80 per cent of the time. Those who said others weren’t respecting their signals never took them down.

They were never available to their co-workers, so their co-workers just ignored their signals. If you use this system, don’t abuse it. Increase background noise to mask sound. Adding sound makes talking less intelligible, and therefore less distracting.

Change the layout of your cubicle so your back faces the door. You’ll focus longer on your work. As a last resort – put on your earphones.

Read the full article at www.tinyurl.com/n7ssnnz

Post-war office buildings stand test of time David Jenkin, AMA Alexi Marmot Associates News that 14 post-war offices, built between 1964 and 1984, will be protected as listed buildings prompts reflections on what makes an office building special, maybe even worth preserving.

The newly listed buildings, says English Heritage, “show how architecture has adapted to recent radical changes in how we work: they show how the open-plan working space for computer-led work came about, and how architects responded to the need for lettable, attractive spaces with ingenuity and a deep understanding of human needs”. (www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/news/Postwaroffice/) Two aspects seem particularly important. How well does the building contribute to a sense of place? Does it enhance its locality or sit in it like a cuckoo?

The second question is how well do they serve the needs of today? Have they proved adaptable and have the interventions made over decades enhanced or detracted the original design?

Some buildings on the list (particularly the Central Electricity Generating Board Building in Bristol and Gateway House in Basingstoke) had strong planning ideas behind them, where the building form helped the organisations structure their groups, provide local identity, share amenities and communicate much more with each other than in the traditional forms of the day.

How many new workplace buildings achieve as much as that?

Read the full article at www.tinyurl.com/oozlo43

www.fm-world.co.uk

15_Opinion.indd 15

FIVE MINUTES WITH NAME: Paul Statham JOB TITLE: CEO, Condeco Software

The way people interact with their office space has shifted fundamentally. By providing the ability to schedule what you need when you need it, companies enable their staff to have a seamless experience in the workspace. Booking the right space for the employee and ensuring what is needed for each meeting, from catering to audio-visual and video-conferencing equipment, can no longer be an arduous task.

Attracting and retaining talented professionals is a number-one priority. Businesses can no longer provide staff with allocated desks and computers and expect them to perform at their best. Collaborative spaces, breakout areas and technological solutions that save time and simplify tasks can be vital drivers for boosting staff morale and can make a real difference in improving employee job satisfaction.

Businesses need to take the next step up.

To remain on the front foot of staff attraction, retention, and productivity, and with technology fast transforming the way we work and experience our office, businesses can no longer run on a steam train.

The visibility of meeting room booking impacts a company’s finances and fellow workers, with external meeting spaces being booked blindly offsite. Bookings go unused as people do not turn up or forget to cancel their actual meeting room at the same time they cancel their meeting.

Businesses will still haemorrhage money unless they have the facts about how efficient their office space usage actually is. The most worrying aspect of this is that businesses are not aware of the extent to which their office space is under-used or their meeting rooms left empty.

Large corporates experience this pain more than anyone else.

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FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 15

05/03/2015 15:07

FM FEATURE

FM AND CULTURAL FIT

rganisational culture is often said to be “the way we do things around here”, and represents the organisation’s sense of identity and the image it wants to portray to the world.

An organisation is made up of people grouped into departments and teams and, as FMs, we have to deal with all of these groups. Some groups can be harder or easier to deal with than others – but why should this be so if we all work in the one organisation with the same culture throughout?

One reason could be that we are seeing the effects of cultural diversity in action within and between groups (departments, teams etc.) in the same organisation. Management science and organisational behaviour studies have increasingly come to accept and recognise the existence of a form of intelligence called ‘cultural intelligence’ and to recognise its benefits for leaders and managers, both in a global sense and within the confines of their own organisations. Given the unique nature of the FM role, it is an intelligence that seems particularly apt for FMs.

O

Understanding culture In our workplaces we expect to encounter diversity among our colleagues – by their sex, ethnicity, age, nationality, sexuality, religious beliefs and so forth. To some extent we have grown accustomed to considering such factors when interacting with people and generally, we like to think of ourselves as being aware of these cultural differences and being able to work through them together for the greater good of the organisation. But this is a limiting view of culture as an idea and, as we shall see, cultural diversity in the workplace goes far beyond 16 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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JOE WHELEHAN

CULTURAL EXCHANGE

When office ‘tribes’ go to war over ‘ways we do things around here’, facilities management can often be caught in the crossfire. FMs would be well advised to train in dealing with such disparate group dynamics, says Joe Whelehan these ‘traditional’ interpretations.

Culture is a characteristic of groups of people.

In his book Coaching Across Cultures, Philippe Rosinski describes culture as a ‘group phenomenon’, representing the unique characteristics of a group that distinguishes it from other groups – that which makes it recognisable and gives it an identity. This identity is derived from the members of the group and their individual values and beliefs. A useful way of viewing culture is as the glue or cement that holds a group together, giving members their sense of identity. Groups can be large or small, national, ethnic, religious, functional, sports-based and so on.

Organisations (which are groups of people) frequently invest large sums of money on developing and promoting a unique organisational culture, and a key role of the organisational culture is to differentiate organisations from

each other. Within organisations, departments and teams will develop their own sub-cultures, reflecting the common beliefs, values, problems or experiences of members. Ideally (from an organisation’s perspective), the sub-cultures will include the core values of the organisational or dominant culture plus additional values unique to members of that department. During periods of change (perhaps after a merger or acquisition, a change in management or restructuring) the sub-cultures can be at odds with the main organisational culture and conflict and resistance will develop. This can also occur when there is a change in senior management and new ideas are introduced along with new work practices and focus.

A culture can be seen as having three elements – one visible and two hidden, described as an iceberg by American anthropologist Edward T Hall.

The visible include the visual symbols and artifacts that

demonstrate the culture and include employee behaviour.

These include decorating public areas with company values, employee of the month awards, dress codes and so forth. The hidden layers are usually considered to have two levels – the unspoken rules and conventions of the workplace, and, at a deeper level, the personal beliefs and values that ultimately guide personal responses to situations.

These unstated, often unconscious, yet firmly held personal beliefs and values fundamentally govern how employees behave in reality.

Honesty and a sense of fairness (or even tendencies to duplicity) are examples of these hidden factors. It is not possible to understand the visible elements of a culture without understanding what lies beneath, so to understand what is really happening in a group we need a framework or similar tool to help us. www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:07

www.fm-world.co.uk

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FM WORLD | 14 AUGUST 2014 | 17

05/03/2015 15:08

FM FEATURE

FM AND CULTURAL FIT

Cultural frameworks A simple cultural framework model is based on the orientation of the organisation’s management. In this particular framework organisations are classified under four orientations relating to how control is exercised, how staff are empowered, decision-making and so forth.

A CULTURAL ORIENTATION FRAMEWORK1 ROLE-ORIENTED: ● Highly centralised; ● Bureaucratic; ● Focus on job descriptions and specialisation; ● Controlled by rules and procedures; and ● People are interchangeable.

TASK/ACHIEVEMENT-ORIENTED: ● Teamwork emphasised; ● Values flexibility; ● Values worker autonomy; ● Task-oriented; ● Creative; and ● Usually offers tailored products.

POWER ORIENTATION: ● Highly centralised; ● Rule-oriented; ● Focus is on respect for authority; ● Implicit rules, favouritism even nepotism; and ● Individual motivation is through loyalty to a boss and/or fear of punishment.

PERSON/SUPPORT ORIENTED: ● Egalitarian; ● Nurturing personal growth of members; and ● Usually found in cooperatives and communities and not-for-profit organisations.

Organisations and the subgroups in them can be examined under each quadrant, building a picture of what the organisation, and its components are really like. The framework can also be applied to individuals to give an 18 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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JOE WHELEHAN

approximation of attitudes and beliefs. Although this is simple, it can be a highly effective source of background information for understanding what is going on when people from different departments, for example, cannot seem to be able to work together.

Curbing clashes The key point to remember when considering cultures is that the group culture reflects a person’s idea of his/her own values and beliefs, the personal sense of identity that we all have. Therefore any attempts to interfere with this could provoke a negative reaction that can be violent or, in the workplace, could manifest itself as opposition to – and resistance to – changes.

Considering the framework, where a power-oriented culture comes into contact with a person/support-oriented culture things are unlikely to go smoothly. Similarly, a person whose dominant beliefs and values lie in the ‘Power’ quadrant is unlikely to relate well to an individual from the ‘Person’ quadrant.

For example, think how effective a technically excellent accountant would be when managing a games designer?

From an FM perspective, how often have you tried to explain to a boss or colleague who deals in absolute certainties that machinery can fail and such failure cannot be predicted?

What is really going on in these situations? The answer lies in understanding and managing cultural diversity.

When cultures interact positively there are tremendous opportunities for mutual learning and development – a true sense of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

Unfortunately, culture clashes are more common and as we have

seen globally, when these involve ethnicity or race the results can be horrifying. The same holds true in the workplace, although the high-profile consequences are usually limited to failing mergers, partnerships and joint ventures or indeed, failure to accept that the air conditioning is likely to fail on the hottest day of the year despite all the money invested in the system.

This is particularly relevant for FMs, who deal with a very unusual client-base – their own colleagues. This particular clientbase is spread across a range of functional departments (or groups), each of which has its own priorities, perhaps its own way of working and its own membership – in short, its own culture.

When dealing with conflict or dissent an understanding of where the others in the group ‘are coming from’ can contribute greatly to understanding the situation and effectively dealing with it. One effective method of doing this is to develop an awareness referred to as Cultural Intelligence (CQ).

Cultural Intelligence CQ is the ability to adapt to culturally unfamiliar situations and to be effective in intercultural interactions.

Whether dealing with a new position in another country or trying to pull together an interdepartmental project team, or an irate departmental manager whose team is complaining about its workspace, an FM can develop skills across four factors or dimensions enabling him or her to understand what is going on behind the person in front of him.

These dimensions are termed the motivational, cognitive, meta-cognitive and behavioural and can be summarised as in the top table on the opposite page.

Although this model was developed with international and expat managers in mind, it is equally applicable to situations involving different groupings within one organisation and even within one building. The good news is that CQ is an intelligence that can be learned and developed and one successful method is through professional coaching.

Developing CQ through coaching Executive or management coaching is an approach used to assist managers and executives to develop management and leadership competencies. It is a helping relationship that aims to help managers to develop the psychological and behavioural skills required for achieving organisational and personal goals. The executive coach aims to support the development of greater effectiveness in those he is coaching while at the same time benefiting the organisation, which is effectively a third stakeholder in the process. If we look at CQ, the consistent thread is the ability to look at yourself, what you are doing, and how it affects your interaction with others. Development of CQ requires self-reflection and self-examination to develop selfawareness, and a personal coach is an effective aid in helping the manager to develop the appropriate awareness and skills.

For the FM, this is an opportunity worth pursuing both to develop personally and also to develop the FM team and its own sub-culture.

As an example, the four-factor CQ model could be applied by an FM in considering his or her relationships within his organisation by thinking about the factors in the lower table.

Where we encounter groups of people, including our colleagues, www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:08

FM AND CULTURAL FIT

we are likely to encounter different cultures and different ways of doing things, some of which may not fall into line with ‘our’ way!

Cultures reflect individual beliefs and values and inculcate a sense of identity in group members.

When cultures clash, individual identities are threatened and these individuals will respond as they think appropriate. These responses can be as basic as resisting space and layout changes or new working practices. Understanding the different cultures that are within his organisation can help the FM understand the source of some of the conflicts and differences he encounters and so provide a basis for managing such situations effectively. Coaching is a particularly effective tool for managers and groups in these situations and one which can and does pay dividends to both individuals and organisations. FM

THE 4 FACTOR MODEL OF CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE FACTOR

DESCRIPTION

Motivational

The interest a person has in experiencing and interacting with other cultures and the confidence that they can function in such situations. This also means that despite setbacks, the individual will have the personal drive and energy to persevere.

Cognitive

Knowledge of other cultural systems including the ways in which different cultures approach concepts such as time, authority, relationships, meeting etiquette, economic factors, etc. This is effectively a mental map of the culture under scrutiny and an awareness of how it functions in reality and reflects the knowledge of “how we do things here”.

MetaCognitive

The ability of an individual to consider his thinking patterns and responses in an objective manner on a situational or contextual basis. There are three elements – awareness, planning and checking. Awareness means tuning into what is happening within yourself and those around you and the situation in general, planning means anticipating how to approach and communicate with people, while checking means assessing what happened with what one expected to happen. This has also been summarised as the ability to understand something previously unknown or unfamiliar and being able to assemble patterns into coherent representations of what exactly is going on

Behavioural

The ability to use appropriate language, gestures and behaviour in multi-cultural situations and the capability to moderate behavioral responses as appropriate.

(From PC Earley & S Ang (2003). Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures) Joe Whelehan is a former naval officer and senior FM who now runs his own training and coaching business. He has worked in Ireland, the UK, the UAE, Iraq and Afghanistan, and is based in Cork. He has recently completed a master’s in personal and management coaching and focused on coaching for developing cultural intelligence for his dissertation. He runs personal and group coaching sessions for both private and corporate clients and can be contacted at joew@jng.ie or on +353 86 8232580.

EMPLOYING THE 4 FACTORS OF CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE FACTOR

THE FM COULD …..

Motivational

• Be prepared to consider what is happening in various departments in the organisation; • Be willing and able to interact effectively with his colleagues to determine their requirements and the reasons behind them; • Be prepared to be the one seeking information, don’t wait for it to arrive;

Cognitive

• Understand the different ways of working in different departments. A Project based approach may be more appropriate for an IT team than for a Finance team. Should desk clusters face inwards for greater sharing of info or outwards for confidentiality and focus?

• Perhaps spend a day or two in each department learning what makes them work? What is their group glue?

MetaCognitive

• What is really going on with this person/s? Is there a fear of redundancy?

Downgrading?

• Am I perceived as a threat or as a harbinger of doom?

• What is the best way to approach colleagues from this department?

• What ways are the winds of office politics blowing?

Behavioural

• What is my body language saying about my views on this person/ department?

• How to frame refusals?

• Am I approachable? Should I be? How do I demonstrate this?

• What team culture am I developing in the FM team?

1

The Role Of Culture Compatibility In Successful Organizational Marriage, Academy of Management Executive by Susan Cartwright, Susan, and Cary L Cooper, 1993

2 Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures by P C Earley and S Ang, 2003

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05/03/2015 15:08

FM FEATURE

SECURITY

MARTIN READ

SAVING THE SECURITY INDUSTRY FROM ITSELF A recent round table event conceived by Incentive FM Group chairman Jeremy Waud addressed the issue of margin erosion among service providers in the UK’s contract security industry. he proposition underpimnning this event was that margin erosion in the UK contract security industry is getting out of hand, with many of the more than 3,000 firms operating in the UK struggling for survival – and it’s a proposition that got the detailed discussion it deserved.

What could be done to address the issue of commodity pricing?

Is the safety of clients’ buildings compromised? And what was the viability of the security industry more generally? Could a new ‘standard’ be adopted to ensure a better way of working?

And, asked Jeremy Waud – was the sector “broking labour as opposed to defeating risks?”.

It didn’t take long for Waud to gain a consensus from participants that the low margins that now the norm in

ALAMY

T

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the sector made it extremely difficult for security companies to survive. But the group was split over whether contract prices had bottomed out, with some panellists reporting a slight upturn over recent months.

That said, Chris Wiseley of Axis Security believed that margins had in fact been falling for 20 years – “and in recent times this has been exacerbated by the economic downturn. It is hard for businesses in the sector to make money and some companies are really struggling”.

Wiseley hoped that clients would be prepared to pay more as the economic climate improves, “in the same way that people will start eating in better restaurants, clients will start to pay for a quality service”.

Craig Pickard, managing director at Incentive Lynx

Security, identified the problem as procurement. “Procurement processes that focus too heavily on price will often result in contracts that are underfunded and do not achieve best value.”

Fighting off predators Attendees agreed that the margins issue was not helped by large FM multi-service providers offering security solutions with an extremely low (or indeed zero) margin to win other elements of

the service provision – such as M&E – that attract a much higher margin.

“This is very predatory behaviour and results in the smaller firms being knocked out of the equation,” said Waud.

A strong feeling emerged among participants that the issue at the heart of the challenge is that, all too frequently, customers “simply do not understand what they are buying and that the industry needs to work harder to educate customers”.

Existing trade bodies had failed to do this and there was little confidence among those present that they would do in the future.

Steve Hall of Ultimate Security summed up the mood. “The various security trade bodies have lost their way and I’m not sure how they can turn it around.

They need to show what they www.fm-world.co.uk

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SECURITY

MORALE BOOSTING

MOTIVATION KEY TO QUALITY OF SECURITY SERVICE

ATTENDEES: JEREMY WAUD, INCENTIVE FM GROUP CRAIG PICKARD, INCENTIVE-LYNX SECURITY SIMON CHAPMAN, LODGE SERVICE STEVE HALL, ULTIMATE SECURITY CHRIS KENNEALLY, CORDANT SERVICES The industry needs to work harder to educate customers about what they are buying

can do.”

Key members of the group felt that lack of differentiation between companies and what they are offering was also something that needed to be addressed and that addedvalue niche services should be considered.

Paul Harvey of Emprise said the security industry itself should shoulder part of the blame for its troubles.

“They are not offering any clear differentiation and in the absence of anything else clients will buy on price. There is too much of a victim culture in the industry. We need to step up and show where we can add value.”

The group was united in the belief that the industry needs to attract more good people or train those already in the sector to enable them to drive through these changes. www.fm-world.co.uk

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BOBBY LOGUE, SECURITY INDUSTRY STRATEGIST

Last year, John Briggs, operations director at First Security, pointed to another, perhaps less welldocumented issue of security – staff motivation.

Briggs pointed to a 2012 report by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CNPI) that sought to help managers improve and maintain staff motivation – and then he applied them to the security sector. The four key themes to emerge were:

PAUL HARVEY, EMPRISE CHRIS WISELEY, AXIS SECURITY

They acknowledged that this was a difficult task against the backdrop of falling margins. But it was felt that a key account management approach would help drive the education process.

Simon Chapman, of Lodge Service, said: “The longevity of our relationships with our retail customers has to some extent helped us to maintain good margins. As we truly understand their business it is easier to deliver and demonstrate value.”

Best of breed The event concluded with the group brainstorming the idea of bringing together a number of security businesses to agree a high standard service offering – a “best of breed” solution – that could be offered to clients.

This would mean that the cost elements of any tender would be standard and there

could be more focus on other elements. It was agreed that this is an exciting development, but to be successful it would need marketing to raise awareness.

Plans were made for the group to meet to discuss this further and in due course to invite key clients to critique the output.

Security industry consultant Bobby Logue said: “The time is right to stop skirting around these issues; we need to re-engineer the way that we sell security to deliver better value.”

Chris Kenneally, CEO at Cordant Services, said: “The battle ahead is margin versus value. Many customers only understand cost and we need to change that.”

The event closed with the talk of further discussions in order to flesh out the potential for the suggested ‘best of breed’ service solution. FM

1/ 2/ 3/ 4/

Maintaining open communication, providing regular opportunities for training and delegating responsibility; Provide tasks that occupy the security team throughout their entire shift; Allow them to move around the site to perform different tasks; and Ensure that they are paid correctly and on time, have full uniforms and PPE, and receive regular feedback, recognition and reward on a job well done will instill a sense of value within the team.

Said Briggs: “The realisation of opportunities for progression and promotion in the (security) company will encourage commitment and pride in their work – increasing staff retention and decreasing changes in workforce for the client.”

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FM FEATURE

THE WORKPLACE CONVERSATION WORKPLACECONVERSATION.COM

MORE DATA, LESS INTUITION

“WORKPLACE SATISFACTION STATISTICS SHOW THAT MOST WORKPLACES DO NOT BOOST PEOPLE’S PRODUCTIVITY, WELLBEING AND HAPPINESS. THEY ARE TOO OPEN OR TOO ENCLOSED; THEY ARE SILOED; THEY DON’T ALLOW FOR CONCENTRATION; THERE IS NOT ENOUGH CHOICE OR TOO MUCH CHOICE. THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO GET IT WRONG” Kerstin Sailer

“Modern FM Soft Landing frameworks help with getting all parties together from concept, design all the way to commissioning / handover and operations of built assets” Richard Harris

“We reward progress towards company goals but we don’t proactively reward great behaviours. Both are critical to success. Culture is powerfully shaped by incentives (cash and noncash). Peer recognition is a very powerful incentive indeed”

“ONE OF THE BIGGEST BARRIERS TO DEVELOPING MORE FLEXIBLE WORK ENVIRONMENTS IS THAT TOO MANY DECISION MAKERS DON’T RECOGNISE THAT THE WAY THEY PERSONALLY PREFER TO WORK IS JUST THAT: A PREFERENCE. INSTEAD, THEY BELIEVE THEIR STYLE OF WORKING (WHATEVER THAT IS) IS THE ‘RIGHT’ WAY”

Kath Fontana

Miriam Gilbert

CULTURAL ALIGNMENT THROUGH PEER-BASED REWARD SYSTEMS

CONVERSATION STARTERS The BIFM and CIPD’s online insight project, which seeks to identify how best to provide happy, healthy workplaces and productive workplaces, has now reached Stage 2 – the defining of a single key challenge that must be addressed in order for such workplaces to exist. Here you can read a flavour of what people said during Stage 1 of the five-stage process (see box, far right). To have your own say, go online at workplaceconversation.com “The story of performance management in all its forms is beggared by bad practices, lack of rigour and manipulation. that is why it requires technical, political and collaborative skills to be a successful performance manager”

“THE PERENNIAL CHALLENGE FOR BUSINESS LEADERS IS HOW TO MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THEIR WORKPLACES WHEN ALL OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE IS IN THE PAST”

“The idea of a uniform, joined-up approach to collecting workplace data by HR, IT, FM and architects/designers/ consultants would make so much sense”

Graham Jervis

John Blackwell

Kerstin Sailer

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WHERE DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY ADD VALUE?

“BEFORE WE GET TOO FAR IN WORKING OUT WHAT MAKES OR BREAKS A GREAT WORKPLACE, SHOULD WE NOT UNDERSTAND WHY WE NEED THESE CARBON LIFE FORMS IN THE FIRST PLACE? WE ARE SO FIXATED ON WORKPLACE AND COLLABORATION THAT WE NEVER STOP TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY EXPECTED TO DO IN RETURN FOR THE WAGES THEY RECEIVE. REMEMBER, 70 PER CENT OR MORE OF THE COST BASIS IS PEOPLE-RELATED. NO WONDER WE SPEND SO MUCH AUTOMATING WITH PROCESSES AND MACHINES TO ELIMINATE THE PEOPLE” David Slight

“Perhaps the debate on intuition versus data is another way to ask whether workplace design is an art or a science, or both? I hope it remains an art. Scientifically designed offices may become too standardised and uninspiring”

BUILDING BRIDGES BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL SILOS

Franck Crosnier

Gareth Tancred

“There are a number of people that really understand the link between people and place and the link to organisational performance resulting in some excellent workplaces.

That said, we are still seeing too many organisations treating these in isolation.

That is inhibiting the huge potential that workplaces can have on organisational performance”

IS FM SUFFICIENTLY CUSTOMER FOCUSSED?

“THE FM INDUSTRY HAS BEEN HUGELY SUCCESSFUL OVER THE LAST 20 YEARS. LARGE FM COMPANIES HAVE BECOME CORPORATES IN THEIR OWN RIGHT, WITH THEIR OWN MISSION STATEMENTS, VISION, VALUES AND CULTURE. SERVICE DELIVERY TEAMS ARE BRANDED AS THE FM COMPANY AND ENCOURAGED TO EMBRACE THAT BRAND IDENTITY. OFTEN THE TEAM DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS THAT THEIR CLIENT ORGANISATION DELIVERS, NOR THE IMPACT OF MARKET OR POLICY CHANGES. ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL!” Jennifer Pigden

“It interests me how ‘fixed’ office environments appear to be - and how frequently the perception is that we don’t have permission to change anything”

WORKPLACE CONVERSATION

TALKING SHOP

THE WORKPLACE CONVERSATION PROCESS 1) (Stage complete) Thoughts on how best to improve the current workplace were sought (quotes on these pages come from that process).

2) 3rd-18th March Now’s your chance to shape the rest of the conversation by deciding what key challenge the project should be trying to solve.

The challenge that gets the most votes goes forward to Stage 3.

3) 19th March-6th April This is when you can propose ideas for solving the challenge set at Stage 2. Read everyone’s ideas for solving it and give them a thumbs-up if you like them. The 20 ideas that get the most support from participants form a shortlist for discussion in Stage 4.

4) 7th-30th April The top 20 ideas for resolving the challenge are now opened up for focused debate. Have another read and continue to discuss them. Would they work in the real world? They might need developing, but are they practical enough to actually work? The to 10 ideas that get most support go on to Stage 5.

5) 21st April-4th May The Workplace Conversation’s panel of experts – from the world of FM and HR – examine the 10 remaining ideas, deciding which idea they think should be declared the winner. (You’ll be able to continue the debate at workplaceconversation.com while the panel discusses the ideas offline.)

6) 5th May The winning idea is announced.

Chris Procter www.fm-world.co.uk

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FM FEATURE

THINK FM 2015

MARTIN READ

FM’S COMPETITIVE EDGE Speakers at this year’s ThinkFM conference may each have different propositions – but they all address a common theme: FM’s potential to take the lead in providing their organisations’ competitive edge. Martin Read reports

or those in the room on 13th May, ThinkFM promises much. The theme – how FM can help organisations to ‘gain competitive advantage through the workplace’ – has been enthusiastically embraced by those presenting on the day. Presentations vary, but the message is consistent – FM stands at a place in time where its role can, and indeed should, be going from peripheral to pivotal in very short order.

F

FM to the fore Munish Datta, head of Plan A & FM for Marks & Spencer, says his message will be stark: “I’ll be saying that FM is the most important sector in the property industry if it is to achieve its aims of making more sustainable, more efficient, more enjoyable buildings to be in.”

“When we started Plan A, it became really clear that FM was going to be right at the very centre of it. Our FM team is the most critical component of the M&S property team to achieving our property commitments without any doubt.

Datta will talk about how the sector must market itself more effectively. What’s disappointing, he says, is that outside of M&S the FM team is 26 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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often only thought about at the end of the building’s design and commissioning process – “and actually, I’d point the finger back at them – they don’t involve themselves much either.

“Designers and contractors won’t be seen for dust a year after the building’s complete.

Clients like M&S are still holding those teams close to those projects after they’re commissioned so that we can hold them accountable – but that’s not normal in the wider industry; what we need is FMs to be right up there, influencing design and ending up with buildings that are acceptable for them to run.”

Defining productivity From the fundamentals of FM’s role in building management, Microsoft’s chief envisioning officer Dave Coplin will address the issue of information-related stress in the workplace.

For all of the modern technological advantages within organisations, says Coplin, “many people feel more stressed and pressured for time than ever before. What’s at the heart of this is not actually a problem with the technology, it’s actually a problem with us, the humans”.

Coplin will argue that our 20th century approach to work and life is fast approaching a point where it can no longer support

THE PRESENTERS

“OUR DEFINITION OF PRODUCTIVITY – OFFICE-BOUND, PROCESS-FOCUSED, AND UNIMAGINATIVE – LIES AT THE HEART OF OUR PROBLEMS” DAVE COPLIN

“MY PROPOSITION IS ONE OF CAPABILITY BUILDING IN FM, AND HOW IT CAN CONTRIBUTE TO STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE” JIM HOOD

“FMS ARE INCREASINGLY BEING ASKED BY MANAGEMENT WHAT BEHAVIOURS THEY CAN EXPECT. IT’S PART OF FM’S EVOLUTION – NOW YOU ARE BEHAVIOURISTS TOO” MONICA PARKER

“THERE’S A MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERY FM TO BECOME THE MOST IMPORTANT STAKEHOLDER IN THE LIFE CYCLE OF EVERY BUILDING THEY’RE INVOLVED IN” MUNISH DATTA

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THINK FM 2015

WHAT TO EXPECT

THINKFM – 13 MAY 2015, KINGS PLACE, LONDON these pressures. “Without fundamentally changing our definition of productivity or changing our working habits, the ability to ‘work smarter’ is simply untenable, leaving only the prospect of working harder in order to survive.”

And it’s our definition of productivity that lies at the heart of the problem.

“Productivity has become the curse of the modern day workplace,” Coplin will argue.

“We spend our working days locked to a single period of time and a single physical location, batting communications back and forward in a sort of nightmarish game of digital ping-pong.

“If we shift the measure of success from the process to the outcome of the work, we can help the employee break free from the shackles of process and emerge to a way of working that suits them and their skills the best. This changes both the output of the organisation and the engagement of those involved in creating it.

Employees become much more connected and engaged in their work, and as a result, enjoy greater wellbeing.”

Building capabilities Jim Hood, director of customer services at the Wellcome Genome Campus, will address the theme of FM’s involvement in aiding an organisation’s competitive advantage by explaining what such an advantage looks like in scientific research; he’ll talk about how his FM team developed through the work programme of the Human Genome Project and how the FM team now contributes to the success of the Wellcome Genome Campus in the diversification of genomicbased research to get closer to the patient. www.fm-world.co.uk

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“My proposition is one of capability-building in FM,” says Hood, “and how it can contribute to the strategic advantage of the Wellcome Genome Campus in attracting and accommodating cuttingedge genomic research.”

Emotional connection Monica Parker, founder of analytics consultancy Hatch, has coined the provocative phrase ‘ROE – Return on Emotion and Engagement’ to describe her presentation.

Parker will argue that more can be done to measure the perception of productivity in the workplace through use of ‘people analytics’.

Says Parker: “People talk in terms of energy investment, space allocation, square footage, etc. – but we know there’s also a cost involved in absenteeism, sick leave, etc.

“People analytics tools are not dehumanising, they’re ‘re-humanising’. They allow us to get rid of the bias in the workplace that we tend to see.

“Because it’s not just about the physical environment. FMs tend to be lumped in as the light bulbs and loos people – but really, FMs are stewards of the most emotional part of the working environment. FMs are increasingly being asked by management what behaviours they can expect. It’s part of FM’s evolution – now you are behaviourists too.”

Plenty of food for thought, all of which should lead to some energetic responses from the ThinkFM audience in May. We hope to see you there. FM THINKFM ‘EARLY BIRD’ TICKET PRICES REMAIN IN PLACE UNTIL 20TH MARCH. GO TO WWW.THINKFM.COM TO BOOK YOUR PLACE

This year’s conference starts with a networking breakfast at 08:00am, followed by a series of presentations addressing the central theme of ‘The Competitive Edge – Gaining competitive advantage through the workplace’. The event closes with a drinks reception from 5:30pm.

Below are the details of presentations confirmed as of 5th March – but do also check www.thinkfm.com for details of more new speakers soon to confirm.

‘Shift or Shrink’ – Frank Van Massenhove, chairman of the board of directors, Federal Public Service Social Security, Belgium ● How do we organise our working life in the future? ● How do we find a balance between private and professional? ● How do you motivate employees and convince them that they can decide for themselves when and where they work?

‘Return on Emotion and Engagement’ – Monica Parker, founder of Hatch ● Emotions and engagement in the workplace ● How to understand the value of your people’s perspective ● Tools to gather better evidence about your staff ● How improved engagement can add up to real value ‘Applying M&S’s sustainability programme, Plan A, to its property estate’ – Munish Datta, head of Plan A & FM, Marks & Spencer ● Why having a sustainable property portfolio is important to M&S ● What the company has learned in applying Plan A to its properties ● A look at areas of future focus to make M&S’s buildings more sustainable ● The FM team’s critical role in achieving the retailer’s aims ‘The Rise of the Humans: How to outsmart the digital deluge’ – Dave Coplin, chief envisaging officer, Microsoft ● How the rapidly rising volume of information is affecting all aspects of our lives as people, as consumers and customers, as workers, and in business ● A look at the problems we face, and the mistakes and assumptions we make ● How we should be using technology to reimagine how we live, work and do business ‘After the Human Genome Project’ – Jim Hood, director of customer services, Wellcome Genome Campus ● How the Wellcome Genome Campus has built on the achievements of completing a major part of the Human Genome Project to develop a research portfolio that can advance the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of many diseases ● How the FM team is key to creating and developing the facilities needed to meet the needs of the science now and in the future.

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FM FEATURE

INNOVATION IN FM

DR ANNA WALKER

IN THE FRAME How can we ensure that innovation – implementing new and useful ideas that provide value to the organisation or end user – is part of the day job for those working in FM? Dr Anna Walker offers a guide to developing your innovation management framework 28 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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M is a sector that is continually challenged to reduce its costs. In an environment in which doing more with less is an everyday reality, having a system to manage innovation is key. This has never been more important; 50 per cent of an organisation’s revenue in five years’ time will come from sources that do not yet exist, and innovation has been identified as a key differentiator among FM providers, with innovative service organisations outperforming non-innovative service organisations.

What are the main drivers of innovation that must be considered when developing an innovation management framework in your organisation?

This article presents drivers at three levels: organisational, team and individual. Focusing on each of these levels guarantees a framework that is comprehensive and follows best practice.

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FM FEATURE

INNOVATION IN FM

DR ANNA WALKER

CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE CLIMATE FACTORS Drivers of FM innovation: organisational level At the organisational level, it is essential that your organisation’s culture is conducive to innovation. This is unlikely to come as a surprise; culture is one of the most frequently cited factors by managers and consultants seeking to change an organisation. Complexity is introduced by the fact that organisational culture and innovation culture are different ideas, albeit with a degree of overlap. Culture drives behaviour, and as such innovation culture, and the factors that comprise it, should be the focus when discussing innovation in your organisation. This simple distinction can add clarity to a topic that can be confusing, and ensures that any systematic approach to managing innovation has a clear framework within which to operate. It aids decisions on which areas an organisation should focus on in order to encourage innovation, and which the organisation is already good at.

For FM, applying a better understanding of innovation culture to your customer allows you to better tailor and position your offerings. For example, an FM provider may be particularly good at collaborating with external suppliers, and the customer may be very open to this. Alternatively, a customer may be so risk-averse that innovation activities should be framed as incremental improvements causing minimal disruption. In this case, it is not to say that innovation should not be pursued, but that a focus on incremental rather than radical changes may be better received.

However, innovation culture is notoriously difficult to measure accurately. One measure, the Creative and Innovative Climate 30 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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Scale (CICS), was developed using psychometric principles to guarantee reliability and validity and is therefore more accurate than many similar measures. CICS looks at 10 aspects of innovation culture (see Table 1). These form the basis of a discussion around innovation culture, identifying an organisation’s strengths and weaknesses regarding its culture for creativity and innovation, and allowing intra- and interorganisational comparisons.

This information can be used to develop specialised change initiatives and offer tailored business development.

Drivers of FM innovation: team level Does your organisation understand how to create effective innovation teams?

Most work is done within a team, and so FM organisations must consider whether their teams are optimised when developing an innovation management approach. A number of considerations regarding the management and dynamics of a team should be considered. ● Diversity. Consider diversity in relation to demographics (age, gender, nationality), personality traits, knowledge and skills.

Note that diverse teams are more effective for complex tasks than simple tasks.

FACTOR

WHAT IS IT?

RISK

AN ORGANISATION’S APPROACH TO RISK AND LEVEL OF RISK AVERSION

VALUING CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

AN ORGANISATION’S RECOGNITION AND REWARD OF CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

TEAM COHESION

THE LEVEL OF TRUST AND INTERPERSONAL UNDERSTANDING WITHIN A TEAM

AUTONOMY

THE LEVEL OF CONTROL AN INDIVIDUAL FEELS THEY HAVE OVER THEIR WORK

GOAL AWARENESS

A TEAM’S UNDERSTANDING OF, AND AGREEMENT WITH, THEIR OBJECTIVES

RESOURCES

IDEATION SYSTEMS

INTERNAL NETWORKS

INTERNAL COLLABORATION

EXTERNAL COLLABORATION

AVAILABILITY OF FACILITIES AND RESOURCES IDEA GENERATION AND THE PROCESSES AN ORGANISATION USES TO ENCOURAGE IT THE EXTENT TO WHICH EMPLOYEES KNOW PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE ORGANISATION DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE ORGANISATION WORKING TOGETHER THROUGHOUT THE INNOVATION PROCESS AN ORGANISATION’S RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER ORGANISATIONS, CUSTOMERS AND SUPPLIERS, AND USING THESE RELATIONSHIPS TO DEVELOP NEW PRODUCTS/ PROCESSES/SERVICES

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INNOVATION IN FM

Cohesion. Is there a high level of trust and understanding within the team, meaning that members are comfortable suggesting and building upon others’ ideas? ● Effective facilitation. Have clear guidelines during team activities and do not evaluate ideas too early in brainstorming sessions.

Be prepared to manage conflict, which is more likely to arise within diverse teams. ● Mutual accountability. Joint responsibility and ownership of a problem and the solution/s will encourage team members’ engagement. ● Using formalised processes.

Innovation is complex and benefits from a degree of formalisation to help people navigate it. Note that formalised processes appear to have a dual role in innovation, supporting teams, but hindering individual creativity if they are overly restrictive. ●

There are a number of things you can do to create effective innovation teams.

For example, homogenous teams can temporarily second members from other teams for brainstorming sessions, and the effect of disruptive team members can be minimised by discussing ideas in smaller groups to make sure that everyone feels comfortable contributing.

Management texts such as Coaching For Innovation offer further guidance.

Drivers of FM innovation: individual level Considering culture or team processes alone is insufficient.

At an individual level, factors such as personality (e.g. conscientious, open and curious employees) and motivational style (e.g. intrinsically motivated by an inherent interest in their job) should be included www.fm-world.co.uk

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in an innovation management framework. But this best practice originates outside FM. What additional individual level factors should FM professionals consider to support doing more with less?

We studied the effect of job satisfaction, health and safety and line management support on innovation within FM at Amey, using data from 10,537 Amey employees – 2,036 of whom were working in FM. The data was collected through an annual employee opinion survey, comprising 25 randomised questions answered on a fourpoint Likert scale. Questions focused on the respondent’s perceptions of himself and of Amey.

Job satisfaction emerged as the most important driver of innovation at the individual level, followed by perceptions that Amey takes health and safety seriously and perceptions that line management are supportive.

The correlations between all of these factors and innovation were strong (≥r=.60), however, FM organisations should focus on employee job satisfaction as the highest priority as part of an innovation management framework as this emerged as the strongest predictor.

It is possible that in this study, health and safety was a proxy for having a consistent culture and organisational rhetoric around a topic. Amey takes health and safety extremely seriously, and this message is consistent across all levels of the organisation.

Employees respond positively when organisational rhetoric and reality are consistent, and in turn this appears to facilitate innovation. Also, once employees are comfortable that their health and safety is being considered they can focus on more complex tasks, such as innovation.

Can FM professionals use this information to facilitate

“With their influence on the physical environment, FM professionals are uniquely placed to effect change”

innovation more widely? With their influence on the physical environment, FM professionals are uniquely placed to effect change. To test this, we compared our results from FM employees with those of 8,501 employees working in other parts of Amey. No big differences were found, which supports the generalisability of our findings.

Moreover, this means that recent divisional restructuring within Amey can only provide more opportunities for innovation.

Conclusion FM professionals face a business environment in which they are challenged to do more with less, or do more with the same.

Innovation is the answer, but it won’t happen without proper management. wYou can use the factors outlined in this article to develop an innovation management framework in your organisation to differentiate yourself from your competitors. FM The author Dr Anna Walker is developing an innovation management and measurement approach for Amey, as part of a knowledge transfer partnership project with UCL and Innovate UK. She is a business psychologist whose PhD focused on creativity, innovation and organisational culture in the defence industry.

References Coaching For Innovation, C Bianchi and M Steele (2014), Palgrave MacMillan Hierarchy And Organisation: Toward A General Theory Of Hierarchical Social Systems, T Diefenbach (2013), Routledge Ernst and Young (2010). Connecting innovation to profit, www.ey.com/ Influence Of Team Composition And Task Complexity On Team Performance, Team Performance Management, M Higgs, U Plewnia and J Ploch (2005) Innovation Novelty And (Commercial) Performance In The Service Sector: A Canadian FirmLevel Analysis. Technovation, PTherrien, D Doloreux, and T Chamberlain (2011)

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FM MONITOR

MARKET INTELLIGENCE

INSIGHT ECONOMY

The figures on this page have been compiled from several sources and are intended as a guide to trends. FM World declines any responsibility for the use of this information.

NON-DOMESTIC CATERING EQUIPMENT MARKET 2015-2019

VAT rates: Standard rate – 20% Reduced rate – 5% Source: HM Treasury (hmrc.gov.uk)

Bank of England base rate: 0.5% as of 17 February 2015.

Source: Bank of England (bankofengland.co.uk)

Consumer Price Index (CPI): This grew by 0.3% in the year to January 2015, down from 0.5% in December 2014. The rate of core inflation is 1.4%, 1.1 percentage points higher than overall inflation. Most of the downward pressure on inflation comes from price movements for goods excluded from the core calculation – motor fuel, food and energy prices.

THIS WAS A GROWTH RATE OF

UK HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURE ON ALL CATERING SERVICES IN 2013 WAS NEARLY

IN 2014, THE NON-DOMESTIC CATERING EQUIPMENT MARKET WAS WORTH

£84 BILLION. £112 BILLION

£765 MILLION 4% MORE THAN 50% 15%

THIS CAN BE COMPARED WITH

SPENT BY HOUSEHOLDS ON HOME CONSUMPTION OF FOOD AND DRINK IN THE SAME YEAR. CATERING STRUGGLED DURING THE RECESSION BUT HAS SEEN A RISE IN SPENDING SINCE 2010.

ON 2013

THE CATERING EQUIPMENT MARKET WAS TOUGH IN 20092010; IT FELL 15% BECAUSE OF RECESSION AND STRUGGLES IN LEISURE/HOSPITALITY.

COOKING EQUIPMENT IS

OF MARKET VALUE, AND THE LARGEST SECTOR BY COST. REFRIGERATION ACCOUNTS FOR A QUARTER, WITH STEEL FABRICATION, WAREWASHING AND OTHER PRODUCTS MAKING UP THE REMAINING VALUE. SOURCE: AMA RESEARCH

Source: (www.ons.gov.uk)

EMPLOYMENT

National Minimum Wage NOTE: The following rates came into effect on 1 October 2014:

UK LABOUR MARKET

UK PRODUCTIVITY

ECONOMIC INACTIVITY RATE FOR PEOPLE AGED 16 TO 64,, 1980-2014

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS OF PRODUCTIVITY 2013

% Category of worker

Hourly rate from 1 Oct 2014

All

£6.50 (up from £6.31)

Women

The economic inactivity rate for women has been falling

40 Aged 21 and above

Men

45

35

Changes in the state pension age for women have caused a further decrease in the economic inactivity rate since 2010

30 Aged 18 to 20 inclusive

£5.13 (up from £5.03)

25

£3.79 (up from £3.72)

15 10

Apprentice rate, for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship

£2.73 (up from £2.68)

UK Living Wage: NOTE: The following rates are set by the Living Wage Foundation: Category of worker

Hourly rate from Nov 2014

UK Living Wage

£7.85 per hour

London Living Wage

£9.15 per hour

www.fm-world.co.uk

33_Insight.indd 33

5 0

The economic inactivity rate for men has been rising

17 PERCENTAGE POINTS below the average for the rest of the major G7 advanced economies in 2013, the widest productivity gap since 1992. On an output-perworker basis, UK productivity was

20 Aged under 18 (but above compulsory school age)

Output per hour in the UK was

SOURCE: ONS

80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 20 02 04 06 08 10 12 14

Inactivity rates grew during three economic downturns between 1980 and 2014. The latest jump in the late 2000s was small; non-existent if excluding full-time students. Reasons for inactivity have evolved. They include an increase in inactivity owing to full-time study and a decline in inactivity owing to long-term sickness. But since 2010, the fall in female inactivity rates has been influenced by increases in the pension age and fewer stay-at-home women.

19 PERCENTAGE POINTS below the average for the rest for the G7 in 2013.

Across the G7 as a whole, productivity as measured by output per hour and output per worker grew by

1 PER CENT

in 2013 as the global economic recovery picked up. In the UK, output per worker also grew in 2013, but output per hour fell.

SOURCE: OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS (ONS)

FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 33

05/03/2015 15:09

FM MONITOR KATHERINE BRYDON

LEGAL UPDATE

Katherine Brydon is a senior associate in the regulatory team at Pinsent Masons LLP

CD M 2015 – W HAT YO U N EED TO K N OW

egulations governing the management R of health, safety and welfare during construction projects are about to change - and FMs must understand their important new welfare obligations, says Katherine Brydon The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM2015) apply from 6 April.

The broad definition of ‘construction work’ from CDM2007 is unchanged. Such work includes a variety of repair and maintenance activities that do not, at a glance, look like construction work. It includes projects such as recabling an office for a computer upgrade.

FMs may take on the duties associated with several different roles under CDM including: ● Advising the client who owns the building on its CDM responsibilities; ● Carrying out construction work, either as a contractor or principal contractor; or ● Getting involved in the design of construction work.

The key changes relevant to FMs include: ● The threshold for reporting construction work to the HSE will change resulting in fewer cases being notified. ● The role of CDM co-ordinator is replaced by a ‘principal designer’ who will be responsible for the planning, management and co-ordination of a project’s preconstruction phase where more than one contractor is involved. ● Removal of the requirement for individual and corporate competence and replacement with a general requirement for those appointing others to take reasonable steps to satisfy 34 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

34 Legal update.indd 34

themselves that the appointee has the skill, knowledge, experience and the organisational capability necessary to fulfil the role.

principal contractor must plan, manage, monitor and co-ordinate the construction phase of a project. This includes: ● Liaising with the client and principal designer; ● Preparing the construction phase plan; and ● Organising co-operation between contractors and co-ordinating their work.

Ensure that: Suitable site inductions are provided; ● Reasonable steps are taken to prevent unauthorised access; ● Workers are consulted and engaged in securing their health and safety; and ● Welfare facilities are provided.

For projects involving more than one contractor, all contractors must co-ordinate their activities with others in the project team – in particular, comply with directions given to them by the principal designer or principal contractor.

For single-contractor projects, a contractor must plan, manage and monitor construction work under their control so that it is carried out without risks to health and safety, and prepare a construction phase plan and provide appropriate welfare facilities.

The principal designer must plan, manage, monitor and co-ordinate health and safety in the preconstruction phase of a project. This includes: ● Identifying, eliminating or controlling foreseeable risks; ● Ensuring that designers carry out their duties; ● Prepare and provide relevant data to other duty holders; and ● Liaise with the principal contractor to help to plan, manage, monitor and coordinate ●

Notification to HSE Under CDM 2015, a project is notifiable, and the client must give notice in writing of it to HSE as soon as possible before work starts, where the project is either: ● Scheduled to last longer than 30 working days and involves 20 or more workers at a time; or ● Scheduled to exceed 500 person days.

Almost all of the requirements of CDM2015 will now apply to all construction work regardless of whether the project is notifiable.

There are additional requirements where there is more than one contractor involved in the work (see below). This is a significant change and will put a number of additional requirements on duty holders. A construction phase health and safety plan is a requirement for all works.

Duties of contractors and designers The client’s duty to appoint a principal designer and a principal contractor is triggered where there is – or is likely to be – more than one contractor, and not where the project is notifiable.

If the required appointments are not made the client must fulfil the duties of the principal designer/contractor himself. The

the construction plan.

All designers must eliminate, reduce or control foreseeable risks that may arise during construction, maintenance or use of the building and provide information about residual risks to the rest of the project team.

What next?

Transitional arrangements will apply to projects begun before the start date so that where a CDM coordinator is in place the client will have until 6 October to appoint a principal designer.

Before 6 April, we suggest that FMs should: ● Familiarise themselves with CDM2015 and the associated draft guidance produced by HSE and by industry bodies, particularly CONIAC; ● Check when work on any projects they have planned is likely to begin in case transitional arrangements under CDM2015 apply; ● Ensure that they are able to show the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to carry out the work in a way that secures health and safety – especially if it is intended that they are to take on the role of both principal contractor and principal designer.

Under CDM2015 the health and safety file is mainly the responsibility of the principal designer. But if the client intends that the principal designer appointment is to end at the start of the construction phase or any time after, duties in relation to the health and safety file transfer to the principal contractor. There are chances here to use BIM for a smooth transfer of responsibility of the health and safety file for future use by FMs. FM www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:10

FM MONITOR MARK DE ROZARIEUX

HOW TO

Mark de Rozarieux, managing director at HD Sharman

G U T TER M AIN TENA N CE

ark de Rozarieux explains why it is in the best interests of facilities managers to carefully maintain the gutters of their properties, and offers advice on how best to do so

M

be employed to help prevent blockages. b) Weak joints: The joints between gutter sections and around the downpipes are particularly prone to failure. The application of silicone-based liquid plastic over joints can help to extend the life of a gutter in the short term. c) Corrosion: Remove rust and grime to check what lies beneath.

Rust can result in the creation of tiny pits in a gutter. These will grow over time into larger holes.

Provisional Met Office figures released at the beginning of January showed that 2014 was the UK’s fourth wettest year since records began in 1910.

Furthermore, five of the six wettest years in the UK have occurred since 2000.

Gutters are hostile environments, not only managing rainfall of increasing volume and intensity, but also accumulating silt, leaves and other materials, and they can quickly become blocked. Structural movement can cause them to corrode and leak.

The joints, ends and outlets are areas of particular risk of failure.

Leaking gutters allow water ingress, which is a major cause of structural damage that is not only costly to repair, but it can also result in considerable disruption to the operation of a business.

Yet despite this, gutters remain www.fm-world.co.uk

35 How to.indd 35

an often-overlooked area of building maintenance.

1⁄

Inspect regularly

Regular gutter inspection should be a standard part of every property maintenance regime, so that potential problems can be prevented and damage avoided.

Inspections should be carried out at least twice a year – more if the building is situated close to trees or indeed within a heavy industrial area.

2⁄

Look out for …

a) Blocked downpipes: These areas accumulate leaves and general detritus, and need to be kept clear to enable gutters to operate efficiently. Leaf guards can

d) Insufficient outlet capacity: Older gutter systems were built to handle rainfall of lower volume and intensity than we are now experiencing.

Consequently, increasingly outlets fail to efficiently drain rainfall from the gutter. More outlets or increasing the size of existing ones can reduce this problem.

3⁄

Install appropriate lining

The most reliable way to guarantee long-term prevention of leaks is the installation of a well-fitted, seamless gutter lining, a waterproof membrane fitted to the original gutter without structural work, so even if the gutter itself cracks, the lining remains intact, preventing leakage.

4⁄

Selecting the right lining

In the British Isles, warm, dry weather can rarely be confidently predicted.

This means that in order to guarantee installation at the specific time required – one that is weather-independent – a solvent-free gutter lining solution should be selected, rather than one that requires the application of adhesives which require warm, dry weather in which to set.

As for all construction specifications, look for a product that has acquired the approval of a recognised industry organisation, such as the British Board of Agrément (BBA).

The BBA is a governmentbacked body that offers approval and certification for construction products and services that fall outside the parameters of British Standards kite marks.

Protect and preserve Choosing the right gutter lining specification is vital, with the result being the professional installation of a sustainable product to ensure that your gutters are permanently watertight, thereby helping to protect your entire property from water ingress into the long term, and preserving the original structure. FM

“Water ingress is a major cause of structural damage that is not only costly to repair, but it can also result in considerable disruption of a business” FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 35

05/03/2015 15:10

FM MONITOR MARTYN FREEMAN

TECHNICAL

Martyn Freeman, managing director, Mitie Facilities Management

U SIN G DATA TO R ES H A P E T H E WO R K P L ACE

ost property and FM professionals manage estates using the most basic information, and their failure to gather and evaluate data means they will fail to get optimum value out of both the workplace and its workforce, says Martyn Freeman

M

The continual march of technology has touched every aspect of working life. Its growth has been accompanied by a rapid increase in data, a phenomenon so dramatic that estimates claim that 90 per cent of the world’s data has been created in just the past two years. In short, the pace of data creation is growing exponentially.

For any organisation it is critical that data is analysed and interpreted to support business strategy and to balance the needs of its people. The challenge lies in identifying the most appropriate data and making sense of it, and the world of property and FM is no exception.

This data explosion has given FM and property professionals the opportunity to have a single view of their estate. Not only do we have the ability to capture basic property data on rent, business rates and utility costs, but also dynamic information on a vast range of factors – such as how people are using and moving around the building – that can help determine the efficiency and value of each building.

Surprisingly, most property 36 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

36 Technical.indd 36

and FM professionals still manage estates using only the most basic information and surprisingly few organisations have access to a single view of all this data. Yet it’s precisely these ignored, minute details that can make a huge difference to the way workplace services are delivered. Not only this, but they also greatly influence the quality and cost of long-term occupancy decisions.

There is still a lack of sophistication when it comes to data collection and analysis.

This comes back to the reason we collect data in the first place. Traditional FM contracts regularly measure contract performance against specified targets and service-level agreements (SLAs). So while data is often collected on a wide variety of FM services, from maintenance issues to how many meals are served daily in the staff canteen, few organisations have made the leap to data analytics and using data in a holistic way to drive changes in workplace service delivery. It’s still the case that most organisations use data from a tactical point of view in the measurement of KPIs, rather than using a 360-degree view to

drive strategic planning around an estate.

Why is data important?

PwC’s annual CEO survey* confirmed that the biggest challenge CEOs saw facing their businesses was the ability to attract and retain talent. This has created both pressure and opportunity for FM and property directors. On one hand, they are being asked to provide flexible, agile and modern workplaces that can be tailored to match the needs of individual staff.

On the other, they are expected to do it within existing budgets and to deliver savings through rationalisation and consolidation.

This is a massive upheaval, and to complicate the landscape even further, it is also being accompanied by structural management changes.

Traditionally, four distinct departments have served employees: property: FM, HR and IT. Research last year found that a quarter of UK businesses have already combined these four functions, and recent evidence suggests that this trend is set to escalate in the next five years. As all four of these departments now have a proactive and important role in shaping and implementing the workplace strategy, there is a need for a wide spread of accurate and timely information about all aspects of the estate – not just what it is and how much it costs, but also how people interact with it, how they use it and how they feel about it.

Realistic perspectives In an age when the quality of

the working environment and its facilities can make the difference between recruiting the best staff or missing out on key talent, having a clear understanding of what is happening in the workplace is vital.

This enables decision-making around a property estate, which is becoming a key business differentiator. For property and facilities management professionals, being able to use data in this way and making the most out of this rich source of information has huge potential for improving the management of workplaces.

Property data flows out from the FM team, dynamic, real-time information about occupancy, building use, energy consumption and so on, which can assist and fuel property portfolio decisions.

Owing to our access to essential data, we can provide a more realistic perspective of total occupancy costs, not just undynamic information like rents, space, lease periods and break clauses. Clearly, we have a real opportunity to add strategic value to clients by advising and using this data to drive big decisions.

The benefits of FM companies using data in this way are clear.

The challenge is helping the wider industry embed this. One thing that is certain is that the pace of change, far from slowing down, will increase. Anyone working in this industry must rapidly develop and implement strategies based on the kind of detailed insight that can only come from an effective datadriven environment. FM * PwC’s 17th Annual Global CEO Survey: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ ceo-survey/index.jhtml

www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:10

FM MONITOR JONATHAN NOBBS

HOW TO...

Jonathan Nobbs, head of technical and marketing, pedestrian door solutions, Assa Abloy Entrance Systems

M AIN TAIN F LOW WI T H EFFECT I V E EN TR AN CE SYST EM S

onathan Nobbs highlights the importance of entrance systems in maintaining effective building management

J

The entrance to any building plays a vital part in creating that all-important ‘first impression’, whether for a high street retailer, a five-star hotel, an office complex or a public building such as a hospital or leisure centre.

Yet once that first impression is over, a well-specified and maintained entrance system should be almost invisible while it plays its true purpose in helping to maintain the flow of people through the building.

When considering entrance systems there are five key factors to bear in mind.

1⁄

Operating efficiency

Most entrance systems only register in people’s minds when they fail. This creates obvious health and safety implications with people ‘locked’ in or out of the building, but it can also have economic consequences. If entrance systems to a major shopping centre fail, the loss of business on a Saturday can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

It is also essential that the entrance systems cope with ‘peak’ footfall periods, for example, in multi-storey, multi-occupier offices there are identifiable morning, lunchtime and 5-6pm traffic times.

In addition, much attention will fall on the front entrance systems, but flow through any www.fm-world.co.uk

37_HowTo.indd 37

building depends just as much on the rear entrances, especially those used by service vehicles, as well as the pedestrian exit and emergency exit routes.

Some of the leading entrance door companies offer both pedestrian and vehicle access doors, providing combined solutions for greater efficiencies.

2⁄

Security

The main purpose of any entrance system is to facilitate access and egress, but it is also the first or second security hurdle, with options to restrict or stop access to unauthorised visitors or to segregate areas of public and private access.

Automatic entrance doors are increasingly integrated into the building access control system and leading suppliers are able to provide a total solution, with all security hardware and systems.

In these security-conscious times, where new threats emerge regularly, it is no longer just the traditional ‘higher risk’ premises that are installing entrance systems with blast protection capabilities, often as part of a retro-fit or remodelling or modernisation programme.

3⁄

Energy efficiency

Air flow is also a critical factor for many building occupiers seeking to meet their

corporate social responsibility and environmental targets and save on energy costs.

An open door is one of the quickest ways to lose either expensively heated or – in summer – expensively cooled air.

Careful positioning, good sealing and additions such as air screens can make a difference, but the biggest factor is the speed and operating efficiency of the automatic opening and closing system and the cycle timing. Too slow and the door remains open with no traffic in or out; too fast and people can feel uncomfortably hurried and, in the worst cases, it can create a hazard as people rush to get through a closing door.

Automatic revolving doors effectively separate indoor and outdoor climates, as they offer an ‘always open, always closed’ option that gives substantial energy savings, as well as efficient, controlled traffic flow.

4⁄

Cleaning and hygiene control

Entrances are also one of main ways that dirt and other contaminants get into a building, increasing the cleaning overhead and often damaging the allimportant aesthetic appearance.

This is especially true in poor weather. Installing entrance barrier matting and easily cleaned surfaces is good practice, but it is also important to adopt an integrated approach and use the doors as part of the ‘dirt prevention’ process.

On the hygiene front, using doors that do not require hand contact to open and close can

help to reduce the spread of infections, which is just as important in office facilities today as it is in schools and hygiene-conscious areas such as hospitals and health centres.

The NHS specifies guidelines for hand-washing techniques and other infection control procedures, but the threats posed by drugresistant diseases such as MRSA and Ebola means that automatic doors have an important role as both a containment and a preventive measure.

5⁄

Lifecycle costing

As with so many areas of a building, there can be a temptation to ‘repair on failure’ rather than have a preventative and planned maintenance schedule. This can be a false economy when measured over the operating life of the entrance system and especially when the consequential loss of any failure is factored into the financial equation. It is also worth noting that many automatic entrance systems use increasingly sophisticated digital devices and controls, so maintenance and repair requires higher skill level and the technician also needs to be able to identify and then have swift access to the correct parts.

‘Flow’ is an important part of improving the operating efficiency of buildings of all types and, as is clear from the five points above, entrance door systems – especially automated systems – can play a critical role in maintaining effective and productive flow, while adding to security and helping to sustain energy efficiency. FM FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 37

05/03/2015 15:11

BIFM NEWS BIFM.ORG.UK

Impact on Customer Experience: How an initiative or practice has impacted on customer experience.

AUDIT COMMITTEE

New chair appointed

Impact on Sustainability: Sustainable and environmental initiatives with a positive impact.

Impact on the Workplace: For positive, sustainable and functional workplaces.

The BIFM is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Kidson, partner at SRLV Accountants, as the new chair of the Audit Committee and nonexecutive director.

Robert is the first external appointment to this important role, and replaces the previous chair, Graham Briscoe, who has held this position since the Audit Committee was founded in 2010.

Robert has a wealth of experience in accountancy and corporate finance and has held many non-executive director (NED) roles in the past.

He will serve a two-year term supported by a further five committee members – Martin Bell, Paula Bock, Sharon Brown, Steve Dance and Stephen Moore.

The purpose of the Audit Committee is ensuring the adequacy and effectiveness of internal and external controls and risk management of the institute, advising the board on these matters.

BIFM would like to thank Graham Briscoe for his work as Audit Committee chair from 2010 to 2014. Graham continues as an NED on the BIFM board, a member of the Governance Committee and a committee member of the Education SIG. He will also advise the Audit Committee when appropriate.

Societal Impact: The impact of the FM profession on the fabric of society.

2015 BIFM AWARDS

Showcase your achievements Entrants have until 22 May to enter the BIFM Awards in the following categories: ● People Facilities Manager of the Year: A role model who has delivered cutting-edge service and who is an ambassador

Learning and Career Development: Demonstrating successes of learning and career development.

Rising Talent in Facilities Management: For a significant impact and contribution to their employer and FM. Team of the Year: Exemplar FM teams that deliver innovation and value.

Enter the BIFM Awards 2015 – it could be your year to shine

KEEP IN TOUCH » Network with the BIFM @ www.networkwithbifm.org.uk » Twitter @BIFM_UK » LinkedIn » Facebook » YouTube » Flickr 38 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

38_40_BIFMNews.indd 38

BIFM Lifetime Achievement Award: An individual who has made a significant contribution to FM over the course of their career. ● Impact Brand Impact: Supporting the brand of a customer, or teams who have developed/promoted a brand.

● Innovation Innovation in Technology & Systems: The most innovative application of systems or technology in FM.

New Product or Service of the Year: Having a positive impact in the work and/or social environment.

Entries close on 22 May 2015. i Full details on all categories are available on the new BIFM Awards website: www.bifmawards.org

EVENT REVIEW

Health, wellbeing, productivity and the workplace The BIFM Sustainability and Workplace SIGs held a very well attended and stimulating event recently on ‘Health, wellbeing, productivity and the workplace’.

The speakers and the audience debated how the design and management of the workplace can affect the health and wellbeing of its occupants – and how best to align them www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:11

Please send your news items to communications@bifm.org.uk or call +44 (0)1279 712 620

for improved productivity and satisfaction.

The debate included a talk

by John Alker of the UK Green Building Council, with highlights from its recent report on the building design features that are known to have positive impacts on health and productivity. This was followed by an interactive tour of the Vitra furniture showroom demonstrating the latest thinking in workplace settings.

Dr Marcella Ucci, from University College London, then discussed the latest evidence from the Active Buildings project, focusing on the links between workplace design and walking/ sitting behaviour of office workers, and highlighting the importance of individual physical and social factors.

After a stimulating debate with the audience, the evening continued with further discussion over refreshments kindly provided by host Vitra. i See more about all BIFM groups at www.bifm.org.uk/groups.

You can view all forthcoming BIFM events at www.bifm.org.uk/events

IET WORKSHOP

Electrical safety management The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is pleased to announce that its latest Electrical Safety Management workshop – ‘Simple practical approach to electrical safety’ – will take place in London on 30 April 2015.

The event, which is supported

by BIFM, offers a step-by-step guide to the Code of Practice for Electrical Safety Management.

The IET recognises that responsibility for a building’s electrical safety is often www.fm-world.co.uk

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BIFM COMMENT

Linda Hausmanis, director of education at BIFM

A CULTURAL SHIFT TOWARDS ‘BEING THE BEST’

A

lthough I have written Comment columns before, this is my first in my new role as director of education and firstly, may I thank the many hundreds of you who have congratulated me on the role – it has been an honour to work with the FM industry over the past eight years and I look forward to a new era. I was asked to comment on what I plan to do in this role. The first thing I will do is draw breath, stand still for a moment to peruse the landscape that is the FM industry and engage with it in the development of a new BIFM Educational Strategy for the next five years.

Much has changed in the eight years since I joined BIFM. We now have FM Professional Standards, there are career development pathways, and there is a choice of regulated qualifications for everyone no matter what stage of his/her career. Apprenticeships have been launched and are currently undergoing intense re-engineering, which will create a new phase of apprenticeships for FM. But one of the objectives for BIFM will be to develop an enhanced educational proposition that will transform individuals from being ‘obstacles’ to being ‘enablers’.

What do I mean? Well, judging by the latest findings at the recent Workplace Futures conference it would appear that we, as individuals, are not performing at our best. Worse still, we may not even possess the skills employers need in order to maximise on the current opportunities that will lead to an improved economic environment. Therefore the ‘obstacle’ – and this is the biggest barrier faced by organisations – is a shortage of skilled staff. This sentiment is not just felt in the facilities management industry; much has been heralded over the past few years about the skills shortage (The Leitch Review Of Skills, 2006, McKinsey’s Education To Employment: Designing A System That Works, and The Skills Crunch – Upskilling The Workforce Of The Future, The Prince’s Trust/HSBC). So the question must be asked of organisations as well as individuals – “What are you going to do about it?”

What is it about our human conditioning that prevents some of us from ‘being the best’ and to not aspiring to want to ‘be the best’? There needs to be a cultural shift.

Firstly, organisations, when developing staff, need to see this as an investment and not purely a cost. It cannot continue to be said by firms, “Why spend the money on training someone, after all, they may leave” because we all know the counterargument to that is, “What if you don’t develop them and they stay?”

Secondly, during my travels last year I found a marked difference in attitude between the people I spoke to both in the UK and overseas. In the UK I will often be asked, “Why the need to undertake a programme of development?” whereas in overseas countries I am more likely to be asked, “How do I embark on a programme of learning?”

So are you a “why” person or a “how” person? Each is just a threelettered word, but what a difference it makes.

“WHAT IS IT ABOUT OUR HUMAN CONDITIONING THAT PREVENTS SOME OF US FROM ‘BEING THE BEST’ AND TO NOT ASPIRING TO WANT TO ‘BE THE BEST’? ”

FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 39

05/03/2015 15:12

BIFM NEWS BIFM.ORG.UK

delegated to a facilities manager without specific electrical training, and FM specialists are particularly encouraged to attend. Key learning outcomes for the day are to identify and reduce workplace risks, apply the Code of Practice’s self-assessment principles to attendees’ workplaces and to create an electrical safety management plan for their own organisations.

Delegates will attend taught lectures and take part in practical workshop sessions.

The event has been described as a “simple practical approach to electrical safety” and a tool “to raise the bar on overall electrical safety” by previous attendees.

Everyone attending will take away a copy of the Code of Practice as a reference book for future planning.

BIFM members are entitled to register at the IET member rate. i

www.theiet.org/electrical-safety

GOOD PRACTICE

Commercial removals BIFM has been working with the British Association of Removers (BAR) to revise and update the Good Practice Guide to Commercial Removals.

The guide provides information and guidance to facilities professionals who hold responsibility for organising and managing removal activities.

This document emphasises how planning is the key to a successful move and describes the many different facets that must be borne in mind to ensure success with the minimum of disruption to the organisation and its staff, as well as:

● ●

●

Resourcing the project Selecting a removal contractor

40 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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PREPARE TO STRETCH YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Download your guide at www.bifm.org.uk/gpgs i

BIFM SCOTLAND REGION

2015 Gala Ball & Awards There are just six weeks until the BIFM Scotland Region 2015 Gala Ball and Awards take place at The Marriott Hotel in Glasgow on 25 April.

This popular and glamorous black-tie event, with headline sponsor Richard Irvin Energy Solutions, is back by popular demand.

Hosted by Scottish TV and radio star David Farrell (Romeo), the event will be the social highlight of the year for the Scottish FM sector.

The ball will begin with a champagne reception, sponsored

by Mitie Technical FM, followed by a four-course meal and a variety of entertainment including live music by Funk Nation, disco and fundraising activities.

Tickets can be bought in any denomination up to 12 at a cost of £80 plus VAT per person from www.bifm.org.uk/ scotlandawards.

For the first time, the ball will also include the Scotland Region Recognition Awards, including awards for: ● ● ●

FM Professional of the Year FM Team of the Year FM Project of the Year

Entries close on 20 March, so you still have time to enter the inaugural regional awards.

Go to www.bifm.org.uk/ scotlandawards for full details. i

●

Importance of communication Health and safety, etc.

BIFM TRAINING he received wisdom is that learning and developing new skills helps to increase your confidence and personal resilience – but is that a result of acquiring new knowledge, or something more complex? As we all turn our minds to coping with the uncertainties of the coming year it is worth focusing on why continuing to learn can be such a positive antidote to coping with change.

It’s surprising for those of us steeped in training that some people find the thought of standing up in front of others to give a presentation utterly terrifying. In one extreme example at our Understanding FM course a few years ago, a young woman had a sleepless night before contributing to group feedback as part of a workshop session and was on the point of refusing to take part.

But with some coaxing and the support of her workshop group, she went ahead. Later, her face beaming, she confessed that she had enjoyed it and would never worry about doing a presentation to an audience again.

Taking on new responsibilities can often be daunting, and for FMs this can often mean being thrown in at the deep end. Some of the most stressful situations involve managing areas alongside people with much greater expertise than your own – especially in technical services. But why is this such a problem – and what’s really at issue here? Undertaking some initial training and research can be a useful way of grasping key issues and processes within a discipline, but this is much more about demonstrating confidence and competence as a manager, and so it’s also OK to ask the ‘dumb questions’ where operational mysteries are concerned. Getting specialists to explain their reasoning and to justify recommendations can also be a good way to signal your confidence as a manager and help to build bridges, even if it seems counterintuitive to admit your ignorance.

It’s probably no accident that at the recent FM World debate among recent FM manager of the Year Award winners (see FM World 4 December, 2014) emotional intelligence, patience, flexibility and pride in the organisation were highlighted as essential qualities for a great FM, alongside commercial awareness, the ability to work as a diplomat, collaborator and influencer. So some valuable food for thought there about the toolkit to focus on.

How do we get the most out of our productive selves?

By working smarter and taking control. See our Personal Effectiveness Skills Course on 16 April 2015.

T

i For further details to help plan your personal programme for 2015, please see our website at www.bifm-training.com, or contact us on 0207 242 4141

www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:12

FM DIARY INDUSTRY EVENTS 24-26 March | Facilities Management 2015 The show brings together FM professionals and exhibitors of innovations and business solutions to the UK market. Visitors will also benefit from the co-located event Cleaning Expo, as well as Maintec 2015 and the Health & Safety Event.

Venue: National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham Contact: www.tinyurl.com/lkks8t8 25 March | BIFM Corporate Members Event Speakers include Chris Moriarty, BIFM head of insight and corporate affairs, on ‘The Workplace Conversation’, Lee Grant, BIFM head of service and community development speaks on BIFM membership, and a representative from host Eversheds (TBC).

Venue: Eversheds, One Wood Street, London, EC2V 7WS Contact: For details contact Jennifer Rowntree, email jennifer. rowntree@bifm.org.uk or call 01279 712 620. Only pre-booked attendees will be allowed access to the event. Please register at www.eventbrite.co.uk/ 1 April | NHS Innovation in Facilities Management Expo 2015 Exploring five core components in which innovation can improve patient care while reducing cost and improving compliance.

Venue: Great Hall, Barts Hospital, London Contact: To find out more, visit www.ascentevents.co.uk/ifm-expo.php 30 April | Electrical safety management workshop Organised by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, supported by BIFM. The workshop offers a step-by-step guide to the code of practice for electrical safety management.

Venue: Strand Place Hotel, London Contact: Visit www.theiet.org/ electrical-safety to buy tickets.

22 May | ISO awareness training session by QUADRA Hosted by BIFM Ireland region’s North branch, this is designed to keep BIFM members informed of updates and forthcoming changes to ISO standards. It will be run by Gavin Kane of QUADRA. Venue: The Old Common Room, Queens University, Belfast BT7 1NN www.fm-world.co.uk 41 | 8 MAY 2014 | FM WORLD

41_Diary.indd 41

Send details of your event to editorial@fm–world.co.uk or call 020 7880 6229

Contact: For more information contact Dan Uprichard, email danuprichard@ymail.com, call 07831 548803, or visit www.eventbrite.co.uk to book tickets.

13 May | ThinkFM – The Competitive Edge: gaining competitive advantage through the workplace The ThinkFM conference will be held at Kings Place, London.

Venue: Kings Place, London Contact: Visit www.thinkfm.com.

Sponsorship and advertising opportunities available.

1-3 June | EFMC 2015 The BIFM, IFMA and EuroFM have partnered to hold the European Facility Management Conference.

Information on speakers to follow.

Venue: Glasgow Contact: To find out more, visit www.emfc-conference.com 16-18 June | Facilities Show The annual conference, in association with BIFM, and colocated with IFSEC International, FIREX International, Safety & Health Expo, Energy & Environment Expo and Service Management Expo, returns to ExCeL. Speakers and programme to be confirmed.

Venue: ExCeL, London Contact: To find out more, visit www.facilitiesshow.com 10 September | BIFM National golf finals Details of regional qualifier days will be available soon. Visit the BIFM website to find out more.

Venue: Hanbury Manor Marriott Hotel & Country Club, Ware, Hertfordshire, SG12 0SD. Contact: For details of sponsor opportunities, contact Don Searle at don@c22.co.uk 12 October | BIFM Awards The BIFM’s annual awards ceremony, bringing together the leaders in the sector with the winners to celebrate excellence in FM and giving national recognition to the leaders in the profession.

Sponsorship opportunities are available on the website.

Venue: Grosvenor House, London Contact: Visit www.bifmawards.org or email awards@bifm.org.uk Follow @BIFMAwards on Twitter.

Speakers include the FM at the US embassy, discussing its relocation project and security experts on the recent Paris attacks. Tickets cost £75 for BIFM members and £125 for non-members. The event is sponsored by Principle Cleaning Services Ltd, Mayflower Washroom Solutions, and BPR Group.

Venue: Churchill War Rooms, King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AQ Contact: Email cathy.hayward@ magentaassociates.co.uk or visit tinyurl.com/bifmlondon2015 to book tickets.

NORTH REGION 14 April | BIFM Sheffield & South Yorkshire Group: Networking Event at Nestlé, York Held in conjunction with colleagues from Leeds and Hull.

Presentation and mini-tour of one of Nestlé’s factories.

Venue: Nestle Confectionery UK Haxby Road York YO31 8TA Contact: Bob Rabagliati, email bailiff@trinity-estates.org.uk, call 01777 703718 or visit www.eventbrite.co.uk to book.

15 April | The Rise of Specialist Roles in FM (Rising FMs) What are the roles of customer service managers, asset managers, space planning and technical compliance? And what are employers looking for? This meeting puts these questions to a group of FM recruitment specialists.

Venue: ActionAid, Farringdon, London Contact: Jason Gurd, 07984 29518 RisingFMs@gmail.com. Booking details to come.

SCOTLAND REGION 25 April | 2015 Gala Ball and Recognition Awards The region’s awards evening will see FM Professional of the Year, FM Team of the Year and FM Project of the Year awarded.

Venue: The Marriott Hotel, 500 Argyle Street, Glasgow G3 8RR Contact: Email kylie@klevents. co.uk or visit www. tinyurl.com/ bifmscotgala2015 to book tickets.

SOUTH WEST REGION 20 March | Capturing and managing FM data This training day will include sessions on the type of data FM teams are expected to capture and how to get meaningful results with it. Planned sessions include how to manage data relating to asset management, space use, catering and customer satisfaction.

Venue: Hilton Bristol Hotel, Woodlands Lane, Bradley Stoke BS32 4JF Contact: Email Steve Poole at steve.poole@resourcefm.co.uk or visit www.tinyurl.com/n2vc5xd SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

LONDON REGION 18 March | London conference

A Home Counties/Sustainability SIG joint event. Opened in 2013, this BREEAM Outstanding building houses the Worldwide Fund for Nature. Peter Best, head of facilities, talks about its features. Followed by a tour and questions. Greg Davies, of Assurity Consulting, talks about ‘Creating business value from your environmental management’.

Venue: Living Planet Centre Contact: Lucy Black at lucy@ bigpondconsulting.com, call 07917 665254 or visit www.eventbrite.co.uk to book.

18 March | Visit to WWF’s Living Planet Centre, Woking, Surrey

15 April | The 128-acre challenge: FM at ACS Schools, Cobham Education SIG professionals tour the 128-acre campus at Cobham.

It includes state-of-the-art sports, arts and academic facilities. FM Oren Gershon examines the FM challenges of managing the diverse site that supports children from 3-18 and plays host to corporate groups outside term-time.

Venue: Council Chamber, ACS Cobham, Portsmouth Rd, Cobham Contact: Oren Gershon ogershon@ acs-schools.com, 07738 718290, or visit www.eventbrite.co.uk to book a place.

24 April | Technical tour of CHP plant at CocaCola The exact recipe of Coca Cola must be the world’s best-kept secret. Many have tried, none has succeeded. At this BIFM members technical tour all attending should wear firm, sound shoes, preferably safety shoes, but hi-vis, safety glasses and hard hats will be provided.

Venue: Coca-Cola HBC Northern Ireland Knockmore Hill 12 Lissue Road Lisburn BT28 2SZ Contact: For details contact Dan Uprichard, email danuprichard@ ymail.com, call 07831 548803, or visit www.eventbrite.co.uk FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 41 www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:12

FM MONITOR PRODUCTS PUT TO USE

Call Greg Lee on 020 7880 7633 or email greg.lee@redactive.co.uk For full media information take a look at www.fm-world.co.uk/mediapack

CASE

IN POINT FEATURE CASE STUDY

Clean gutters for life at Hitchin Girls’ School PROBLEM Hitchin Girls’ School (HGS) continuously monitors its maintenance costs and their value for money. Gutter and high-level indoor cleaning had become outrageously expensive as each task required scaffolding totalling more thn £5,000 every two years. Gutter cleaning is an essential annual task, but budgets only enabled it every two to three years. The result was blocked gutters and downpipes that regularly overflowed, causing dampness to the brickwork and expensive rectification.

SOLUTION Tony Hankin, HGS’s director of finance and resources, bought a SpaceVac high-level, vacuum-powered cleaning system to enable annual cleaning of the gutters (four storeys high) and high ledges in the gym.

He said: “The SpaceVac system is an obvious solution – we bought the kit and many accessories including some

tools specially made for our needs. This package was less than the cost of a one week’s scaffolding hire. We can clean highlevel beams and gutters when required and not only when budgets allow. ”SpaceVac provided a free demonstration and after-sales staff training, so the school can now put high-level cleaning on the monthly maintenance schedule.

OUTCOME The school is in a conservation area with over half inaccessible by cherry pickers and scaffolding is impossible in some areas – now everywhere, inside and out, is constantly maintained in top condition and cleaned as often as is required with no worries about working at heights. Hankin said: “There are now no damp walls to repair and we have this kit for life, saving £2,500 per year on scaffolding.”

Call 01604 760282 for more information Email: info@space-vac.co.uk Visit www.space-vac.co.uk

A seaside partnership built on excellent results

Disposables UK scores at Sheffield Wednesday FC

‘Space Invaders’ land at Hants office refurbishment

PROBLEM

PROBLEM

PROBLEM

Bournemouth Borough Council has a wide cleaning remit but communication between sites had proved difficult.

Sheffield Wednesday Football Club has a high demand for washroom facilities and needs them to be of a high standard and cost-effective.

Geoff Youngs, technical director at digital company LiveLink in Havant, wanted the 1970s arcade game ‘Space Invaders’ as his office’s theme.

SOLUTION

SOLUTION

Disposables UK chose Bay West Revolution and Bay West Optiserv Hands-Free systems because of their cost-saving and waste-reduction qualities.

The range offers multiple benefits, including waste reduction, high capacity and cost savings. All products were available in the club’s strip colours.

LiveLink Tech specified 60 square metres of Supacord tiles in graphite, steel grey and red for the former council building, working with national flooring contractor Enhanced Floors.

Enhanced Floors recommended Supacord by Heckmondwike FB because of its wide choice of colours and its durability.

SOLUTION Outsourcing partner Mouchel has worked with Nviro since October 2011 and has extended the contract within council properties for three years.

Nviro will provide general, periodic and specialist cleaning at a range of council buildings. It is also trialling a food waste collection. Contract manager Jayne Small visits all sites to build relationships.

OUTCOME

OUTCOME

Julie Thomson, operations manager for Mouchel’s soft FM services, said: “Nviro’s working relationship with key managers and site staff from both Mouchel and the council is very positive.”

After trialling the products for three months in the West Stand washroom, the club was delighted with the cost savings and waste reduction and the range is now installed in guest and staff toilets, all corporate areas, and at the club’s training ground.

Call 0800 032 1334, for more information email info@nviro.co.uk Visit www.nviro.co.uk

Visit www.disposablesukgroup.co.uk for more information

42 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

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OUTCOME Andrew Bradley, director of Enhanced Floors, said: “We have worked with Heckmondwike FB for over 20 years and Supacord can be relied upon to provide good performance over the long term. ” Visit http://www.enhancedfloors.com/ for more information

www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:13

FM PEOPLE

MOVERS & SHAKERS

BEHIND

DATA

THE JOB

NICK HOARTY

TOPIC TRENDS

NAME: Nick Hoarty JOB TITLE: Technical lead engineer ORGANISATION: Sodexo – aligned to the AstraZeneca integrated facilities management contract

Key responsibilities

systems under an FM organisation. I have remained in this field, progressing on to higher education at university and gaining experience in various engineering roles including maintenance technician and technical support engineer.

What has been your biggest career challenge to date?

Managing my time effectively is one of the biggest challenges in my role. Balancing my workload, priorities, expectations and own personal development can often prove challenging.

Effective planning and organisation is an essential part of my day-to-day routine.

Multiple aspects of technical delivery, primarily focused on maintenance, energy and engineering What’s been your career high point to date? projects involving electrical, mechanical and Completing my degree studies and professional control systems in laboratory/research buildings. registration as an incorporated engineer with the Project manager for the implementation of a Engineering Council was definitely one of my Sodexo asset management system developed to proudest work achievements to date. This is a key meet the requirements of the newly developed milestone in my personal development plan and a international standard ‘ISO 55001:2014 Asset step closer towards my ambition Management’. My key responsibilities are to implement to become a chartered engineer.

WHAT SINGLE PIECE these procedures across the OF ADVICE WOULD YOU If I wasn’t in FM, I’d client sites, provide support and GIVE TO A YOUNG FM probably be… training to Sodexo operational STARTING OUT? An architect. I have always had teams and to ensure there are “Mentors, networking and an interest in buildings and effective mechanisms for the support from like-minded enjoy watching TV programmes collection of information to people within the FM industry like Grand Designs and improve asset management is essential in understanding Megastructures. decision-making as part of your own development a continuous improvement Which “FM myth” would you process. requirements and helps when What attracted you to the job?

I started with AstraZeneca as an apprentice 12 years ago. Two years ago I transferred to Sodexo.

considering career paths, opportunities and personal ambitions”

My top perk at work is…

I work on a 400-acre scientific research and development site that contains around 80 buildings. Only a fraction of the site is developed and the remainder consists of woodland, nature trails, a large mere and a farm, making it a nice place to spend my working time.

How did you get into facilities management and what attracted you to the industry?

I started out as an engineering apprentice working within maintenance departments across various pharmaceutical functions including manufacturing, scientific support services and FM. Opportunities during my apprenticeship allowed me to develop into maintenance delivery on critical engineering www.fm-world.co.uk

43_Behind the Job.indd 43

most like to put an end to?

That it seems quite dull and uninteresting, when there’s actually a lot of room for continuous improvement. It feels like a project.

How do you think facilities management has changed in the last five years?

Going into outsourcing, there is a shift towards that, as I have seen in my current role. What I have found is that there is the added benefit of working with the client day to day. Having been with AstraZeneca for 12 years, it has put me in good stead.

Do your friends understand what facilities management is?

Probably not, no!

Have you got a story to tell? We are looking for facilities managers to feature in Behind the Job. Contact the team at editorial@fm-world.co.uk for more information

OUR INTERVIEWEE RATES THE IMPORTANCE OF CURRENT FM TOPICS OUT OF 10. THE ‘AVERAGE’ SCORE (IN GREEN) IS TAKEN FROM OTHER RECENT INTERVIEWEES.

Ensuring compliance with legislation

9

8

AVERAGE

NICK HOARTY

Introducing/ working with new forms of IT

5

3

Working on energy-efficiency initiatives

7 8

Adapting to flexible working

5 2

Maintaining service levels while cutting costs

8

6

Adapting FM to changing corporate circumstances

8 10

FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 43

05/03/2015 16:55

Appointments

Call the sales team on 020 7324 2755 or email jobs@fm-world.co.uk For full media information take a look at www.fm-world.co.uk/mediapack

JOBS PLAN YOUR NEXT MOVE

on the move New features available through your smartphone See the latest job listings View all the jobs from the website Search or browse to find the right opportunities Create and update your live email job alerts View jobs directly from your email alerts Save and apply for jobs Save jobs to your profile Email jobs to yourself or friends Apply for the right jobs first using your saved CV Keep track of all your jobseeking activity

Go to www.fm-world.co.uk/jobs 44 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

RECR_FMW120315.indd 044

jobs.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 15:22

FM opportunities Director of Change and Operations London • £85,000 A new position within an industry leading real estate firm has been created to drive operational excellence across three core functions of the business. This role is central to the company’s mandate of streamlining more efficient business processes and leading major internal projects, which will include IT integration across new and existing sites and refurbishment or fit outs. You will have ownership of the CAPEX budget and be the face of the business in leading lease negotiations for new offices, as well as renewing existing ones. Crucial to your success will be your ability to engage key stakeholders and influence change.

Ref: DaB1260751

Technical Services Engineer London • £28,000 - £30,000 A global finance and accountancy firm, known for nurturing the best talent in the industry, has an immediate need for a Technical Services Engineer to join its progressive team. Providing support for our client’s technical services and infrastructure, you will liaise with internal and external stakeholders, ensuring that the technical services are in line with best environmental practice. You will have experience with M&E engineering, as well as a relevant degree in Building Services or Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and you will have previously managed projects to time and specification.

Ref: CS1260681

Offices globally www.cobaltrecruitment.com Please apply for either of the above roles by emailing apply@cobaltrecruitment.com or call 020 7478 2500 to speak with David Bremner or Chris Sycamore quoting the relevant reference number.

Regional FaciliƟes Managers ARE YOU READY FOR A NEW CHALLENGE IN FACILITIES MANAGEMENT!!!

ECO FM are a pioneering FaciliƟes Management provider with an established client base and a naƟonal resource of experƟse and support.

We are currently looking for two talented Regional FaciliƟes Managers to head up the operaƟons in the south of England…

Central London – Based out of our presƟge oĸce in Holborn Outer London & South West – Home based, ideally situated around the M4 Corridor This is an acƟve and visible role requiring excellent customer relaƟonship skills. Working as part of a Team, the Regional FaciliƟes Manager will be expected to posiƟvely contribute to the performance of the business and build strong local relaƟonships with the client, tenants and internal teams.

If you think you have what it takes to join a forward thinking team and would like a full job descripƟon, please send your c.v. to d.brookes@eco-fm.co.uk.

Professional FaciliƟes Management with the investment in mind

RECR_FMW120315.indd 045

REGIONAL CONTRACTS MANAGER x 2 1 Year Fixed Term Contract London based salary: £32,628 plus £2,000 London Weighting York based salary: £32,628 The Salvation Army Property and Facilities Service have two vacancies for Regional Contracts Managers, one for our London Office (South Region) and a second vacancy in our York Office (North Region).

You will be working as part of a small team who manage the operational aspects of part of The Salvation Army’s property portfolio in the region.

and budget for all contracts, and provide professional advice on all contractual issues to clients and other members of your team.

You will manage the process of sourcing local contractors from pre-qualification to contract implementation; develop and monitor a list of approved suppliers, improve the performance of consultants and contractors using key performance indicators, service levels and management information.

You will also be responsible for managing statutory compliance, manage and monitor expenditure

All applicants must be able to work within the Christian ethos of The Salvation Army.

The successful candidate will have experience in a contract and supplier management role; within a property, building and/or facilities management environment. You will be expected to travel throughout the region, with all travel expenses paid.

To apply, please visit www.salvationarmy.org.uk/jobs CVs will not be accepted.

Closing date: 9am on Tuesday 7th April 2015.

Promoting equality in the workplace.

The Salvation Army is a Church and a registered charity.

Charity no. 214779 and in Scotland SC009359.

www.salvationarmy.org.uk

FM WORLD | 12 MARCH 2015 | 45

jobs.fm-world.co.uk ECO FM QPV.indd 1

The power of people

18/02/2015 14:22

05/03/2015 15:23

FINAL WORD NOTES FROM AROUND THE WORLD OF FM

NO 2

DAYS

THE SAME FM World’s 2015 Salary Survey is go!

FM World has launched its annual salary survey, with BIFM members and FM World website visitors invited again to take part in our important research into the pay, prospects and aspirations of facilities managers. The survey, which has been going since 2005, is research acting as an important snapshot of trends across the sector.

The questionnaire should take no more than 10 minutes, and as well as answering questions about salary, bonuses and benefits, we’ll be asking about the critical issues that

matter most to facilities managers in the development of their careers.

Last year’s survey found considerably improved confidence about size and potential for pay rises, with more than 25 per cent of respondents expecting a raise of between 3-4 per cent (up from 18 per cent in the previous year’s survey). It will be interesting to see if this confidence has increased yet further.

The largest salary band by number of respondents last year was £46,000-£60,000, representing

30 per cent of all those who took part. There remains a salary zone of 36,000 to £45,000 into which more in-house than supply-side FMs are bracketed; but when salaries hit £45k and above, our survey continues to show more supply-side than in-house respondents in the higher salary brackets.

Will these figures hold fast - or will new dynamics be shown to have an impact on the figures?

This year we’ll be dedicating an entire edition of the magazine to the issue of pay and prospects in the

sector, using our salary survey statistics from your input and including additional comment from experts in the field.

One participant in the FM World Salary Survey 2015 will be selected at random to receive £300 as a thank you for taking part. To have your say and complete the survey, visit www.tinyurl.com/ FMWorldSalarySurvey – thank you in advance for helping us in this research project.

Central heating additive wins Ecobuild M&S challenge An energy-saving additive for heating systems won a commitment by Marks & Spencer that it will be assessed for potential applications across the retailer’s estate.

Endotherm, from Endo Enterprises (and genuinely named after a Marvel supervillain from the 1980s) was described as ‘making water wetter’, which was a novel way of explaining that the fluid reduces the surface tension of water to allow more water to coat radiators.

In turn, this increases the cross-sectional area of the heating system and reduces a boiler’s energy expenditure. Savings of 15 per cent on gas consumption are reported.

The award comes as the culmination of The Big Innovation Pitch, an initiative between M&S and Ecobuild to unearth “a true sustainable innovation across the sustainable design, construction and energy sectors.”

Five products made it through to a live

ducting resistant to both fire and water) Novah Ltd – LED lighting (LEDs in fluorescent tube casings, allowing for quick adoption using existing fittings) Endotherm won favour from the judges because of the ease with which the solution could be applied, requiring no new installation skills. Gatorduct was received warmly, but judges expressed incredulity at the claim by manufacturers that the lightweight ducting could, as claimed, resist fire and water.

Judges for the live pitch process were: Chris Marney, Marks & Spencer’s head of engineering and energy efficiency. Marney was joined on stage by Peter Caplehorn (policy director at the Construction Products Association), Hywel Davies (technical director, Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers), Kath Fontana (MD, BAM FM) and Gareth Tancred (chief executive, BIFM).

●

‘pitch’ stage in front of the Ecobuild audience yesterday. Joining Endotherm were: ● Newlife Paints Ltd – Waste Paint Recycling (taking discarded paint and processing it for re-sale) ● Ritec International – Clearshield (a chemical bonded to glass to repel dirt) ● Gatorduct Limited – Gatorduct (cardboard

SHUTTERSTOCK

IN THE NEXT ISSUE OUT 26 MARCH

FEATURE: LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND COMBINED SERVICES – THE VISION FOR 2020 /// CASE STUDY: AIRBUS FILTON /// CASE STUDY: WEST BERKS HOSPITAL /// ZERO-HOURS CONTRACTS /// SFG20 WORKING WITH CIBSE GUIDE M /// LOW CARBON AIR CONDITIONING /// ALL THE LATEST NEWS AND BUSINESS ANALYSIS

46 | 12 MARCH 2015 | FM WORLD

46_No2Days.indd 46

www.fm-world.co.uk

05/03/2015 17:42

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