NEWS & ANALYSIS FMJ.CO.UK
IWFM CONFERENCE
IN THE ROOM
Firstly, full disclosure, due to
isolation rules I was unable
to attend the live conference
and instead relied on the digital
platform, which, given that this
was a hybrid event, resulted in
being excluded from viewing the
opening keynote from The Guilty
Feminist comedian, writer and
podcaster Deborah Frances-White
and the closing talk by historian and
broadcaster David Olusoga.
The first streamed session of the day
for those of us not in the room, delved
into climate action, where Leo Johnson,
Head of PwC's Disruption practice who
co-presents Radio 4’s flagship series
‘FutureProofing’, presented a dizzying
set of ideas. These varied from ‘first
wave stu ’ such as the use of IOT data
to improve energy savings in buildings
to ‘second wave ideas’, like solar
glass or peer to peer energy trading.
“This sector” he observed, “has quite
a moment ahead, and your job is to
come up with moves that could help us
out of this climate change challenge.”
SOCIAL VALUE
Introducing the session on social policy
with Guy Battle CEO of Social Value
Portal, Sophie Hooper, Head of Policy
at IWFM said that following research
10 OCTOBER 2021
that showed one of the barriers to
achieving social value was a lack of a
common framework the Institute had
teamed up with Battle, to develop a
new measurement framework for social
value, designed specifically for the
workplace and facilities management
profession. Battle explained how the
framework works in practice, and
observed that the FM sector has a
crucial role to play in unlocking social
value for communities and helping
them rebuild and recover from the
pandemic.
“You are the jam that sits between
how services are managed and the
occupier and can help unlock that
opportunity whether you’re In-house or
on outsourced teams.”
Social value he added, is not just
about understanding what you can
do, it is about understanding need.
Workplace managers are at the
forefront of the process, he concluded,
and if they’re not doing it – it won’t
get done. The FM role needs to be
rethought, he said, “putting community
at the centre of what we do will help us
build back greener and fairer.”
TECHNOLOGY
The wider adoption of digital tech to
measure space capacity, ensure social
distancing and monitor buildings
remotely has grown exponentially
during the pandemic. A leading expert
in this sphere, Carl Benedikt Frey, the
author of The Technology Trap said the
lessons of the past can help us face the
challenges to come.
In a broad ranging talk which
incorporated Engel’s thoughts on
the downward pressure on wages
due to mechanisation during the first
industrial revolution, to how real-life
fashion models have been replaced by
computer-generated “virtual” models;
Frey noted that the pandemic has
shown what can be achieved remotely.
But while we know what can be done
remotely we’re still figuring out what
should be done remotely.
What are the trade-o s for innovation
at a distance he asked? When it comes
to innovation remote work allows
us to reach a larger pool of talent,
but many of those more sporadic
interactions don’t happen, and this
may impact on workplace performance.
When people become siloed, cross
ferritization happens more rarely he
said, which is why o ices will continue
to be as important, but o ice spaces
will be designed to facilitate more
sophisticated interactions.
Delving down into the power of
data within the FM sector, Ian Ellison
and James Pinder of workplace
performance and development
specialists 3edge, presented the results
of a joint IWFM and Planon report:
‘Harnessing the power of data’.
Ellison then asked delegates whether
they believed if “our new approach
to work is working well”. A› er much
conference discussion the conclusion
was that FM is well equipped to help
organisations make sense of the big
picture and plan for the changes ahead.
However, noted Ellison, if FMs want
to use data e ectively, they need the
capability and contacts within their
organisations to make it happen.
FUTURE PROOFING
A no less important concern for the
future of the profession is how to
accommodate five generations of
workers with the workplace. Award
winning journalist Camilla Cavendish
is former Head of the Policy Unit at 10
Downing Street under Prime Minister
David Cameron and the author of
Extra Time: 10 Lessons for an Ageing
World. She counselled that as we think
about work we need to regain our
sense of purpose and stop thinking
about careers as ladders. “It’s hard to
collaborate on a ladder and to step o
when you want to," she said. "We’re
better o viewing our careers as lattices
and build a portfolio around that."
On the wider e ects of the pandemic,
Cavendish said a blurring of the work/
family divide has le› many people
stressed and no matter how much they
complained previously about their
commute, it did help create a boundary
between home and work.
Wellbeing was the theme of the final
streamed session of the day, as Ian
Baker, Head of Workplace Solutions
at EMCOR UK explored the growing
impact of sustainability and wellbeing
agendas. "If wellbeing is not at the heart
of people engagement and business
strategy, organisations will not survive,"
he said, but in a heartening message to
FMs both in the room and on the digital
platform he added: “If we take what
our industry has achieved during the
pandemic and apply it to a collective
purpose of sustainability it gives FM a
deeper meaning.”
In focusing on mega trends, the
IWFM conference covered some hugely
important themes. However, amidst
growing concerns that the Institute
is experiencing falling membership
numbers, a discussion about its
primary purpose; from supporting
individual members to progressing its
long term aims of achieving charter
status, seemed a missed opportunity.
It’s to be hoped that if the IWFM is able
to host a fully live event next year, these
no less important internal issues aren’t
overlooked.
This year’s IWFM conference ‘emerging stronger’ featured some excellent
speakers covering a huge wealth of mega trends. But the elephant in the room,
the very future of the Institute, was left unexplored, reports Sara Bean