Value challenge for Facilities Management
I thought I would reproduce here an extract from a response I made to a question on ‘professionalisation’ from the Facilities Management sector. For those not in the know, Facilities Management(or FM) is a catch-all description for the various technical and management disciplines which we all rely upon to keep our commercial properties up & running. From care-taking and changing light bulbs to catering, cleaning, security, technical services and onwards to the management of IT infrastructure, FM covers a very broad church. And therein lies the problem. FM has a problem of definition and also of perception. Together, they drive down the value which the sector is perceived to deliver. In the past, attempts have been made to enhance the reputation of FM through professionalisation, but to little apparent effect. I believe the sector needs to re-focus how it sells its value to the marketplace:
Mark, your sense of frustration is pretty clear. From my perspective, what you are referring to is the ‘professionalisation’ of FM. As you know, the myriad FM associations and organisations have been batting this around for years, and reached no real conclusion – or am I being unfair?
Unfortunately, the term ‘professionalisation’ is a double-edged sword. Whilst a professionalised environment clearly defines boundaries, expectations and quality standards, many in the firing line hold a fundamental disregard for any form of professionalisation because it is perceived to represent control, bureaucracy, targets and inflexibility at the expense of creativity and endeavour. So it comes as no surprise to me that a drive for the professionalisation of the sector fails to attract unbridled support.
I believe there is more than one way to skin this particular cat. I would argue that the sector and its representative organisations could achieve similar professional stature in the eyes of the marketplace by focusing relentlessly on value. After all, do I retain a lawyer or an accountant or a surveyor primarily because they are a member of their respective Chartered Institutes, or do I retain them because I perceive them to be able to deliver a service which brings me value? Yes, retaining someone with chartered membership status provides me with a layer of comfort, but it is not the key driver of value. There is an entire range of value attributes which should be driving the sector, but aren’t.
Your point about re-naming the sector/discipline raises another issue. I work with surveyors and they face the same challenges – eg. defining the difference between property management and asset management. Inevitably there are grey areas and overlaps, each bringing different types of competitor. That is the nature of service provision. So I say to them, ‘concentrate on the unique value you add to the sector and keep re-inventing that value as the market evolves’. Wrt the challenge facing the FM sector, I would suggest that recognition is earned through the delivery of value. Waiting for a global FM ‘brand’ to miraculously appear in order to gain recognition could mean a very long wait.
Finally, as for FM gaining a seat at Board level, there is a pretty long queue. For example, HR has been knocking on the door for a very long time. Only now, as advanced economies become almost irreversibly service-oriented, is HR’s role in ‘human capital management’ being recognised as a key strategic influence on the ability of a business to succeed. I get the feeling FM’s de facto seat at the top-table may be some way off.
Interestingly, FM is not the only services-led sector facing the challenge of perceived value-add. Most service sectors have service providers who, to a greater or lesser extent, struggle with the combined challenge of identifying where true value lies and aligning the business to deliver that value to receptive markets. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that the delivery of value is what ultimately makes the difference.
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