NEWS & ANALYSIS FMJ.CO.UK
ASSOCIATION NEWS
ESG IS GOING TO PLAY A MAJOR
ROLE IN PROPERTY AND FM
KEEPING PEOPLE AT THE CENTRE OF OUR PROFESSION
8 APRIL 2022
The RICS Facilities
Management
Survey results for
the first quarter of
this year reveals that
three-quarters of
respondents feel that
data is not currently
used e ectively
enough within the
FM industry, and that better benchmarking of
performance is needed.
This underlines the important role IBOS
(International Building Operational Standard) can
play in helping firms and organisations to better
understand how their building is performing,
by creating consistency on cost elements for
workspaces, people and technology in order to
optimise the value for all concerned.
The ability to collect vast amounts of data is no
longer in doubt. The challenge that the profession
must face is ensuring that we collect the right
data consistently and that we use that data to
develop a strategic approach to buildings that we
can measure, benchmark and utilise to improve
performance. The intention of IBOS is to ensure
that this data includes the human experience
aspect alongside critical data on compliance
and cost.
Looking at the recent employment picture over
half of contributors cited an increase in headcounts
during the first quarter of this year. Although this
is slightly more modest than that of nearly 70 per
cent in the previous survey, it remains consistent
with a continued improvement.
Respondents continue to note di§ iculties
sourcing workers in certain areas. Around
three-quarters of contributors cite issues finding
suitable building operation and maintenance
workers, while 60 per cent signal similar di§ iculties
with sta§ for support services and property
management. For property management, the
share of respondents reporting recruitment
problems has increased steadily in each of the last
five quarters.
However, the survey has some positive news for
the sector, reporting solid growth across many
areas. While healthcare remains the strongest
performer, there’s been a marked acceleration in
demand for serviced business space over the past
three quarters.
Respondents also foresee workplace and
relocation management being a strong area
of expansion for the FM industry in the year
to come. Regarding the outlook for total FM
workloads, the majority of envisage continued
positive growth in the year to come.
As all organisations wrestle with the challenge of
creating vibrant and flexible workplaces that will
be productive and high performing the need for FM
services to innovate and engage at senior level has
never been greater.
But the area of FM that is anticipated to see the
strongest growth over the coming 12 months is
sustainability management (the second successive
quarter in which this has been the case). Given the
current energy crisis, survey participants are also
increasingly of the view that energy management
will attract a strong increase in investment over the
next year, with 63 per cent now expecting energy
management to be the fastest growing area of
sustainability during the next 12 months.
It is clear that ESG is going to play a major part
in all property and FM decision making as we look
forward. Again, it is critical that this is positioned
as a central part of decision making alongside
other data sets so that a clear and deliverable
strategy can
be set out,
understood
and delivered.
As the most critical
touchpoint
between an
organisation and its
customers, recognition
of the importance of
customer experience
to the workplace and
facilities management
profession has been a gradual evolution. This
evolution corresponds with the ascendency of our
profession’s role as a people-centred, empowering
discipline over the past few decades.
Through our Awards you can trace an arc for FM
from a profession whose identity with building
management was total, to one about enabling
people and enabling work, wherever it happens.
This is represented across the Awards categories,
such as workplace experience, collaboration, social
value, wellbeing, equity, diversity and inclusion, and
new for this year, excellence in customer experience.
The importance of FM team engagement with
their own or their client’s end-user customers is
growing as those same end user customers become
ever more willing to compare the services they
receive with what they encounter elsewhere. The
rise of social media, and people’s generally growing
propensity to share bad experiences, is making FM’s
frontline relationships all the more critical.
Clients and service providers alike are increasingly
driven to ensure that each interaction between
frontline service personnel and end-user customers
is as positive an experience for the latter as possible.
For client organisations, brand loyalty is at stake.
For suppliers, it’s the continuation of its contract
with that client. Both need to be willing to work
closely, perhaps more closely than in the past.
If you need help with improving the customer
experience you provide, the IWFM Customer
Experience Working Group has recently produced
three new interactive documents to assist you. First
there is a guide and toolkit for people management.
This includes: guidance on how to nurture your
teams from recruitment through to advancement;
a toolkit with helpful templates designed to assist
managers in putting customer experience at the
heart of their thinking; and a presentation to support
leaders in sharing and cascading the detail within
the guidance.
Next, there is customer experience measurement
and benchmarking. This explains what to measure
and how to measure it in the context of the two
distinct but related customer experience activities:
customer service (serving customers day-to-day)
and customer care (managing and resolving
problems as they arise).
Most recently, the Group provided guidance
on using customer journey mapping to enhance
customer experience. Aided by useful videos
which support and explain the content, it sets out
an approach that can be followed to represent
the customer journey and help plan a continually
evolving approach to positively influence customer
experience.
There is more still to come from the Group, but the
above will get you started.
Find out more and access
these assets by visiting
our website.
Paul Bagust - RICS Head of Property
Standards
IWFM CEO, Linda Hausmanis