FACILITIES MANAGEMENT JOURNAL JOBS
FM CAREERS - RECRUITMENT
GENERATION GAME
Michelle Connolly Director of Facilities Management recruitment experts 300 North on why the FM
sector needs to reach out to the school and student population to succession plan for the future
With the current skills shortage in FM,
largely due to lack of apprenticeships
following the 2009 recession, our
workforce has become truly polarised. Many skilled
and experienced sta are nearing retirement with
no-one to replace them. To prevent this skill gap
growing further, it’s time the FM sector started
succession planning by engaging with the youth of
today.
Visibility is key to ignite the imagination. When
growing up children dream of becoming doctors,
actors, police o icers and teachers – all prominent
roles in our society. One of the issues with FM is
that it’s the ‘unseen’ profession; when everything
is running smoothly, we don’t even think about
facilities, however it’s only when estate issues arise
do we feel that value of the FM provision. So, how to
bring FM out of the shadows and highlight it as an
engaging and rewarding sector to work in?
GETTING INTO THE CLASSROOM
Engagement at school level is vital. Higher
education is not the natural next step for everyone
and spiralling tuition fees are making practical
education choices more attractive. More than this,
we must work hard to promote vocational routes as
there is still stigma around workplace study being
an avenue for people not academic enough to
continue to A-Levels or University. In a recent study
undertaken by ‘The Transformation Trust’, it was
found that 1/3 of parents asked didn’t know what an
apprenticeship was and a further 1/3 saw it as a last
option should their children fail exams. By engaging
with 11-14 year olds, we can show vocation as an
attractive choice with strong and attractive career
prospects.
The IWFM believe that Workplace and FM should
be promoted as a career of choice. IWFM North
Regional Chair Mark Whittaker and Class of Your
Own CEO Alison Watson MBE are developing a series
of workshops and schemes to take to secondary
schools, introducing FM as a sector and giving an
overview of some of the job opportunities it can
bring.
As well as professional associations, businesses
are flying the flag including ABM UK and Engie who
are already engaging with our secondary schools.
ABM UK has a Junior Engagement Programme and
a er a successful pilot in three London schools,
it will now be rolled out to nine schools UK wide.
The scheme aims to tackle perceptions about
engineering, FM and apprenticeships among
the children and their parents. Engie, one of
the UK’s largest facilities services companies, is
championing both apprenticeships and internship
opportunities for University graduates. One of their
recent apprenticeship schemes centred around
the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford and
includes a three-year apprenticeship in FM – a level
three qualification accredited by the Institute of
Workplace and Facilities Management.
If businesses are not yet looking at engaging with
schools, as a sector we should encourage them to
think about how they could get further involved
with these emerging talent pools. Could your
business o er di erent types of apprenticeships?
Does your business attend career fairs to showcase
your company and the wider industry? Do you have
structures and strategies to support growing talent –
or do you only ever hire the ‘finished article’? These
are all food for thought.
SOFT SERVICES AS AN ATTRACTIVE PROSPECT?
Another significant barrier to the FM sector,
especially for young people today, is the perceived
lack of viable career options within so services.
There is question over how you grow and develop
your career within this sector – administration,
catering and cleaning roles o en being a job for life
and seen as having no real career path. For those
entering this work sphere that’s a grim prospect
indeed.
Unattractive salaries are also a challenge in so
services where many roles are still remunerated
at minimum wage. These salaries o en don’t
provide enough due to the rising costs of living
and as a result, the roles tend to be targeted at
people with few qualifications who are limited in
their job options. The Migration Observatory report
produced by the University of Oxford shows that
cleaning sector workers tend to have lower levels
of qualification and an average pay of £8.42 per
hour. Some employees find these lower level roles
genuinely rewarding, but for many they are simply a
way to get paid; because of this the sector is poorly
perceived and is o en under appreciated. Owing to
these factors, lower level so services roles are o en
some of the hardest to fill for employers.
The current unattractive nature of some so
services roles poses a risk to the FM sector following
Brexit. The UK are set to introduce an entry points
system to create a ‘high wage, high-skill, high
productivity economy’ and the British Cleaning
Council has said it’s ‘very worried and concerned’
about the impact of this system on FM. With 24
per cent of cleaning industry workers coming from
outside the UK, FM businesses could risk losing ¼
of their already understa ed workforce. And it’s
not just cleaning. The catering sector is also highly
sta ed by non-UK nationals and there are over
£54,000 EU Nationals currently in Administrator roles
in the UK.
Twenty-two per cent of businesses are already
investing in apprenticeships to try and o -set some
of the short-falls Brexit will create and prudent
employers are already implementing mitigation
strategies. Engaging with schools and changing the
perception of so services is an excellent way to
approach this challenge.
Ensuring job opportunities within your business
are enticing to the modern job seeker is vital – It’s
imperative your sta are appreciated, fairly paid, and
have a clear promotional career path. There may
need to be some internal culture changes and new
paths to success created for those entry level career
options, however these changes will pay dividends
in establishing a loyal and motivated workforce.
LATEST JOBS ON FMJ
REGIONAL FM
Salary: £42k-£50k, plus car allowance
Location: London
https://bit.ly/2QQ43QE
PROJECT AND MAINTENANCE MANAGER
Salary: £50k-£60k, per year +
Location: West Midlands
https://bit.ly/3dyvFDL
BUILDING MANAGER
Salary: £45k-£50k, + benefits + bonus
Location: London
https://bit.ly/39jQEqF
jobs.fmj.co.uk
Over
250 jobs live
on site
48 APRIL 2020
/2QQ43QE
/3dyvFDL
/39jQEqF
