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Category: Insights

Blog – Pride month

Posted on by Ian Adams

In Pride month, Paul Courtney, Q3’s HR advisor, give a personal perspective on what being part of the LGBTQ+ family means to him.

Paul Courtney - HR Advisor

Well, I didn’t see that coming…Being asked to write a blog about Pride month!

Whilst I am a PROUD member of the LGBTQ+ family, I tend to celebrate Pride in my own way. However, this year has made me think about what is important to me, especially with global conflicts in general, my position within Q3 (am I being the best advocate for our diverse workforce?) and to a certain extent, am I playing a role model to my nephews and nieces. They are now coming to an age where they are wondering why Uncle Paul doesn’t have a girlfriend or wife! This has made me reflect, and from this reflection, I feel I need to be out there more and challenge my comfort zone.

So, why it is important to celebrate Pride? Well, nearly 60 years ago, on the 28th of June 1969, a little bar called the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich village of New York was raided by the New York Police Department. Thankfully, there were no fatalities nor serious injuries, but it was the first moment when people of this group stood up for themselves and fought against discrimination and oppression, not only for their rights and dignity but for ours in the modern world!

This is reason Pride month sits in the month of June every year!

Whilst this attack happened in New York all those years ago, the United Kingdom has seen subsequent attacks on the LGBTQ+ family. The most famous being in London 1999, where the LGBTQ+ family were attacked by someone setting off a nail bomb in the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho; and more recently in 2023, when two guys were attacked with a knife outside a gay bar!

Pride month enables many people to reflect and learn about how others have fought over the years and has paved the way for many to live more authentically.

More recently in April 2024, I went into Manchester with the ‘Grandads’ (that’s what we call them) from my friendship group, to celebrate their anniversary!

Over the years, I have heard many ‘Grandad’ stories, but this trip to Manchester allowed those stories to flow naturally, and it made me realise and appreciate, just how much they had endured as individuals and as a couple over the 45 years’ they had shared together. One of the Granddads even brought with him the receipt detailing the items they enjoyed on their first date at a Chinese restaurant! Whilst this was lovely, I heard stories, of how in the late 70’s they had bricks thrown through their window, their businesses being attacked, living through the HIV/AIDS decades, and more hurting, their families’ lack of acceptance. Love always wins! They did in the end!

Hearing their stories made me step back and this reflect and made me want to write this blog to explain why Pride month is as relevant in 2024 as it was then!

Did you know?

  • Loving someone of the same sex is still illegal in 67 countries!
  • LGBTQ+ youths are 8.4 time likely to attempt suicide than other LGBTQ+ youths whose parents has accepted them and their identity.
  • 29% of LGBTQ+ youth that are homeless are victims of human trafficking.
  • Almost one in five LGBTQ+ staff (18%) have been the target of negative comments or conduct from work colleagues because they’re LGBTQ+.
  • Two-thirds (64%) of LGBTQ+ people had experienced anti-LGBTQ+ violence or abuse.

I am sure you will agree that these facts are shocking, and it is a stark reminder that whilst I feel the UK is leading the way in creating an inclusive space for individuals to live authentically at home and at work, there is still a great amount of work that needs to be done.

At the start of this blog, I wrote that I would be stepping out of my comfort zone by attending more events this year, to raise awareness and support those that may be finding it hard to live how they want to live; and as such, I attended two events this weekend alone!

My first event was a Pride event. This was not the Pride events we all know about, such as, Manchester, London, or Brighton, but it was a local community event! The event didn’t have council backing (although they did close a few roads) or big brands sponsoring it. It was exactly what it said on the posters, with local businesses and residents all working together to put on a wonderful family day.

The whole event was filled with people that came from a range of ages, religions, faith, sexual orientations, that were there for one thing – to celebrate each other’s uniqueness, through demonstrating acceptance, valuing the diversity and LOVE.

The day soon passed quickly, with a range of activities and events, including the parade, face painting, dressing up, live singers and entertainers (Drag Queens and Kings!), food from around the world, and LOVE for each other.

The second event of the weekend was the creation of a podcast. The event was hosted by an old Gaydio Radio Presenter, Emma Goswell, and entitled ‘Coming Out Stories. It only took an hour to create this podcast, however, as with all events, sometimes you just don’t want it to stop!

In the podcast, Emma introduced a gentleman called Patrick, who moved to the UK from Barbados following abuse from people in his homeland. Surprisingly, he had a wonderful and supportive family, but as a family they also accepted that he needed to move away due to the harassment and persecution because of how he identified!

Following the podcast recording, Emma introduced her book that she had co-written called ‘Coming Out Stories.’ The booked is compilation through discussions/podcasts that Emma has conducted over the years as a LGBTQ+ advocate, radio presenter and journalist. The stories are not only from the UK, but from across the globe. What made this book so interesting, was that it was not just from the perspective of the person who was coming out, but also explores stories from others’ viewpoints, including parents, grandparents, work colleagues and bosses, and Church officials.

Listening to the stories from both sides, I found myself being emotional, because it took me back to my own coming-out experience, which I feared. Whilst mine was an OK-ish experience, that feeling of dread and fear of telling your parents came flooding back to me. From the stories I was hearing, it reminded me again why Pride is still just as important as in the past!

I would encourage anyone to download it onto their kindle or buy the book. You may know someone that may be struggling to tell you something, or not too sure how to handle a situation when someone is opening up to you. Whilst the book is certainly not a ‘How-to’ book, through reading it, it is hoped that you can help to support this person, so that they don’t become a statistic like those written about above! It is all about listening!

Learn more about Pride

Whilst June is classed as Pride month, it is worth remembering that Pride is just the ‘umbrella’ of the community. Throughout every year other events takes place to support those individuals from this community:

March – Bisexual Health Awareness Month
31st March – International Transgender Day of visibility
26th April – Lesbian Visibility Day
17th May – International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia
24th May – Pansexual and Panromantic Visibility Day
14th July – International Non-Binary People’s Day
23rd September – Celebrate Bisexual Day
1st December – World Aid Day

You will find throughout through the next couple of months many Pride events will be taking place up and down the country. My advice to you, not that you have taken the time to read this blog, is to go and have fun, these events are all about inclusivity and love for each other!

Many people, regardless of their sexual orientation, beliefs or religion will attend a Pride event, and if you haven’t, that’s okay… but maybe try one?

By attending a Pride event you become an ally of the LGBTQ+ movement, and that helps individuals in more way than you can ever imagine. Many people who are not part of the community walk away from the event with a better understanding of Pride. Here are some examples of what I mean:

  • Becoming an ally can help your family, friends, and colleagues within their personal and professional lives, as you can support them in challenging homophobic or transphobic behaviour.
  • Many events are attended by some great acts, however, look past the celebrities, and find community stalls, this will enable you to educate yourself in a range of LGBTQ+ matters enabling you to champion equality and diversity in all matters of life. Many of these stalls are community based, allowing you to learn about how different cultures are supporting the LGBTQ+ movement.
  • Attending Pride helps you to learn about the history of the LGBTQ+ movement.
  • It is a family event, especially the parade, so go along and watch it! Its FREE! What child or adult doesn’t love a bit of glitter and face paint!

During Pride events, you may find many businesses start to promote and advertise, to capitalise on the celebrations! This is called ‘Rainbow Washing’ which is the act of a business that promoting itself as a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, by adding rainbows to their logos, selling items that ‘appear’ to support the community. Sadly, they have not demonstrated or conducted any substantive work to raising their standards for their own LGBTQ+ employees or helped events or charities to promote the causes in supporting this community. I would encourage you to research these companies – check out their inclusivity policies (what do they do for their own LGBTQ+ employees) or what attitudes they have demonstrated towards the community, before you spend your hard-earned money in celebrating this event.

If you are not able to attend a Pride event, why not sit back and relax with a good film or TV series:

Films:

  • Moonlight
  • Milk
  • Paris is Burning
  • Pride
  • God’s own Country
  • Holding the Man – my personal favourite – Make sure you have !

TV Programmes:

  • Pose
  • Schitts Creek
  • It’s a Sin
  • Killing Eve

As with all communities there may be many individuals who may rely on the good work and support of charities, and the LGTBQ+ community is no different. All charities need a lot of financial and practical support, and whilst financial support is always welcome, many charities struggle with volunteers dedicating their time to help raise funds or spreading the message of support that is out there!

Here are some non-profit organisations that you may wish to research or help support in your own way:

Terrence Higgins Trust – Home | Terrence Higgins Trust (tht.org.uk)

MindOut – MindOut | Mental Health Charity for LGBTQ community

Whilst the above are national charities, you may decide you may wish to find local charities to you to support. Here are a few:

The Out House – TheOutHouse

Mosaic LGBY+ Young Person’s Trust – Mosaic LGBT+ Young Persons’ Trust (mosaictrust.org.uk)

Switchboard – Brighton & Hove LGBT Switchboard

Q3 and Pride

You must be wondering what is Q3 Services doing to support our LGBTQ+ family?

At Q3 Services, we believe that we are showing our support for our LGBTQ+ employees, through:

  • Constantly reviewing our policies to ensure everyone is included and treated fairly within all elements of their employee journey.
  • Welcoming employees to play an active role in their career by offering opportunities to progress within the business.
  • Providing free training through our learning platform iAMLearning.
  • Incorporating natural language enabling employees to cite (he/she/they) how they wish to be addressed.
  • Working with clients that support and share our own values and beliefs.

As we continue to grow, Q3 recognises that we could do more, and we would love to hear from you about how we can continue to evolve and support our fantastic and diverse workforce.

So, now we come to the part of my blog which is about my journey with Q3 Services, some 2 years into my role.

During my application and interview stage, I found the experience to be extremely easy with no intrusive questions and conducted professionally to really enable me to be genuine within my application and interview.

The interview was performed over Teams which meant I naturally had my camera on. Behind me is a print of myself (I know how diva-ish!) and printed in the top right-hand corner is a Rainbow flag. I was not scared to show who I was with my interviewer, Lucy Hayes (HR Director), In fact, the conversation was about who was on the print, not the rainbow flag! (Apparently, I looked like Sting!)

During the onboarding programme, I was introduced to a range of Directors, Operations Managers, Contracts Managers, and various employees. In many new situations, questions would naturally be asked about someone’s personal life, whether it is life in general, hobbies and of course sport; and for many people they will pause and ask themselves, “How am I going to navigate this question?” As always, I would always be my authentic self, and despite me only being 3-4 weeks into my induction (as I started in July 2022), when asked, I would simply respond with, ‘Oh, it was Brighton Pride’ or, ‘this weekend it’s Manchester Pride.’ This was because from the people that I had met in such a short space of time during my induction, I felt that Q3 Services’ outlook and attitude was that the business and leaders drove an inclusive culture to all their employees, which further enabled me to be open and express myself in the way that was me!

Within my day-to-day tasks, I would naturally attend meetings where I am respected to give my opinion or advice on the topic. I genuinely contribute this opinion because of the ability of Q3’s senior leaders to promote a positive culture that respects everyone’s individuality, whilst building the confidence of all employees. Through attending these meeting, I felt confident that this is genuine, as I was never rushed into answering, or brushed over, as they may feel my response was not relevant.

I have been trusted and supported in introducing various programmes, such as the apprenticeship programme, to help all employees to reach their career aspirations and develop themselves. Also, our mandatory training platform which was implemented to ensure all employees could understand and learn about the topics easily and freely.

Whilst I am writing this blog as a gay man and through Pride month, many may say ,“It is easy for me to support this community!” In fact, this is where my role starts because, yes, I can write about the LGBTQ+ community and support it more easily. However, I am a strong believer that through the promotion of this and other topics throughout the year, Q3 Services and I can ensure that no employee of Q3 is harassed or bullied because of how they identify, for example, through gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability, or sex.

I am extremely passionate and a strong believer that Q3 and I share a common goal – to enhance the employment experience, help individuals to thrive in their current role, and guide people in their career aspirations by offering new opportunities. More importantly, we will help everyone to live as the most authentic person they can, through challenging and stamping out any unprofessional, discriminative, and non-inclusive behaviour!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FM and the diseconomies of scale

Posted on by Ian Adams

FM and the diseconomies of scale

Mark Hazelwood Appointed Managing Director Of Q3’S New IFM Business

Mark Hazelwood – Managing Director IFM.

Mark believes that the FM sector may have lost some of its zip and dynamism, to the detriment of many clients. He looks at the challenges and considers some ways we might get ourselves back on track, once again putting clients’ needs at the centre of our thinking.

In FM, many would argue that cost has been the primary driver behind an organisation’s decision to outsource FM services to a specialist provider.
However, in my view, what’s equally important in the outsourcing decision-making process is the belief clients invest in the agility and dynamism of an external partner, as well as their confidence in the outsourcer’s ability to simply get things done.

Sixty years after the term “facilities management” became a thing, we have seen the contractual FM model evolve from single service, through bundled services to Integrated FM or Total FM models. Each step supposedly created a more joined up, lower cost and better value proposition for the client. Many would argue it hasn’t.

Instead, it has initiated a market consolidation amongst the leading service providers, as they have scrambled to acquire the skillsets necessary to self-deliver across an ever-broadening range of FM trades and disciplines. This consolidation process has fuelled the emergence of larger and ever larger industry players, turning over £billions.

But does big necessarily mean better? My view is that it has had the complete opposite effect because the big FM organisations have now become more complex and cumbersome, constraining their creativity and ability to respond quickly.

FM is in essence a simple business activity but ironically, in many cases, the suppliers have now become more complex than the clients they serve. Diseconomies of scale start to apply, and this raises a host of questions about whether the trend is a good thing from a client perspective. Has it resulted in significant improvements in service delivery and value? Has it generated innovation in operational models or created new ways of working? No, not if we are being honest with ourselves.

The large FM providers are now on a journey where they are committed to chasing down the multi-site, multi-million-pound, IFM model contracts which fuel their top line growth. There is limited flexibility or variation in their offer because the vehicle they have created is too slow and expensive to move in any other direction. The model is formulated to maximise their own strengths and capabilities, rather than a solution built around true client need.

Paradoxically, it is presenting the smaller and medium-sized players with a significant competitive advantage because they are inherently more agile, flexible, unbureaucratic and are more customer focused with their approach.

Many other industries have witnessed disruptive new entrants that shake things up or create whole new paradigms in the ways goods and serviced are delivered. Mostly, technology is the catalyst to their success – think Amazon, Netflix, Tesla, Uber, Airbnb. For some years, tech has also offered the promise of revolutionising the FM sector, and it is probably through tech innovation that the breakthrough will come. In FM, it hasn’t happened yet, but when it does, I believe it won’t originate from the market leaders but from the smaller FM companies with technology at their heart, or tech-based organisations that don’t yet have a presence in this huge industry.

Downsizing to improve?

In our quest to improve the FM marketplace, have we unwittingly destroyed the very essence of what made outsourcing an attractive proposition in the first place? And does this explain partially why many clients have reverted to best-in-class single service contracts or smaller, more agile providers who are more aligned to their business drivers and everyday FM needs?

The industry needs a serious shake-up. We cannot persist with recycling the current model of output-based tender, where bidders just price to the same commoditised specification, led by a formulaic set of requirements. How will this ever lead to new horizons where FM drives new, alternative models of delivery?

There is a desperate need for change, and honestly, I can only see progress coming from an about-turn in the supersizing trend so that players once again become hungry, energised and agile and exhibit a mentality that is totally customer focused. This is especially important for smaller clients for whom the super IFM solution is neither appropriate nor affordable, and frankly appears confusing and irrelevant to them.

I don’t necessarily believe we have to rip everything up and start again. We do however need to remember the reasons people found outsourcing attractive in the first place and start concentrating on meeting those needs. That begins by becoming much more of a listening industry that acknowledges our clients’ key business drivers and delivering against them, rather than through meaningless, low-level KPIs.

This is the approach, or perhaps a better word is “philosophy”, that we employ at Q3. We look for potential clients with whom we know we can make a real positive difference, and who will in return, value the work we do. From the outset, we build relationships at a personal level involving the senior leadership team, who stay involved for the duration of the contract. We take an holistic view of the business drivers that operate within the organisation and introduce subject matter experts from our team who have operated in the same sector. Only this way can we really get under the skin of the organisation and build a tailored FM solution that satisfies their unique needs and matches their expectations exactly.

Technology underpins this approach, and we make use of the best technology available to support the business processes within our client’s operation. It’s all about applying technology to improve the desired outcomes, rather than applying technology for technology’s sake. We adopt open-protocol systems that can be easily adapted, and frequently exploit a client’s existing infrastructure to create the solution. This way, the technology infrastructure is bespoke to the client, and effectively becomes their data on their system, in perpetuity.

This isn’t rocket-science. In fact, it’s “marketing” in the true sense of the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s own definition: “The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” It’s the opposite of the current FM market-stall mentality which says, this is what we sell, which bits do you want to buy?

Of course, we see an obvious question looming, which is how we maintain this approach as Q3 grows from a boutique FM service business into a larger business competing with the UK top 50 FM providers. Yes, there will be growing pains, and we will face many of the challenges from diseconomies of scale that I have described in this article. The good news is that we are aware of the pitfalls and are planning accordingly. If we keep the focus on being fleet-footed, agile and customer-centric, then we won’t need to change our business model and know we can manage the growth transition.

The Hybrid Hustle: How FM can make the office a magnet for employees

Posted on by Ian Adams

Lynne English, Operations Director in Q3’s IFM division, shares her thoughts on how we have collaborated with clients to help their staff re-engage with the workplace, in the hybrid working era.

(Reproduced from an article originally written for  FM Director publication)

The rise of hybrid working has fundamentally changed the way we use office space, so long-gone are the 9 to 5 days of dedicated desks and predictable occupancy. The change created by Covid has been seismic, and many organisations are still struggling to resolve the question of the future “purpose” of the office in this new era. A few high-profile organisations have even tried to mandate a full, or partial return to traditional, office-based, without truly addressing that whole issue of purpose.

Sadly, I doubt many of these return-to-work edicts have been based upon facts and science. More likely they are based simply a gut feel that it the right thing to do. It’s probably fair to say that many board members see home working as “out of sight and out of mind” and a recipe for slacking. Perhaps they also see their half-empty buildings and feel the need to realise the ROI on their huge corporate real estate investments?

From the workers’ perspective, there has been a fair amount of resistance to going back. After all, it’s difficult to promote such a policy when a Covid-enforced, remote-working model proved that people could be equally productive, and perhaps even more productive, when working remotely.

Unsurprisingly, employees have totally embraced the flexibility provided by home-working and the positive benefits it offers for a healthy work-life balance. Maybe people have grown to love hybrid a little too much, if the battle employers are experiencing to get them back, is any measure!

But consider for a moment the downsides of the dispersed working model. If you started your working life during the Covid lockdown, you would have been robbed of many of the benefits of office-based learning and induction, at a key time when the corporate culture would normally be embedded in your psyche. New employees have subsequently returned to the office in a cultural void, not knowing peers and colleagues, or even the basics of where things are, and how things work. Ironically, more people have got to know the name of the cleaner, than the name of the person sitting next to them. It’s not difficult to believe that on one of our contracts, we even introduced name badges to overcome this problem!

It’s easy to belittle the office, but there are benefits to office-based work. In one client’s operations, the contact centre team was reconfigured to home working during Covid, to ensure business continuity. The system worked and their customers’ needs were met, but an unexpected thing happened – the Net Promoter Score (NPS) dropped significantly. Coincidentally, when lockdown ended and the team returned to the office, the NPS suddenly improved again. Coincidence? Or was the collaboration, community environment and team interaction, responsible for stimulating better results?

So, how should corporate leaders address my earlier comment on defining the new purpose of the office. My view is that we should frame the purpose of the office around outcomes. Outcomes in relation to culture, community, commercial return, and customer experience. And if we accept this premise, the next logical question is, what do we need to change about our FM approach to maximise the benefits of a workplace-based workforce?

FM can be an important part of that change process through its ability to transform workplaces into dynamic, welcoming, and compelling places where employees want to spend their time. We can help people appreciate that the office is a destination where they can achieve corporate and personal goals, not just a place to sit down in front of a screen, while ignoring the people either side of them.

Certainly, it reinforces the belief we at Q3 have held for some time, that FM must prioritise the needs of the building occupants, ahead of simply looking after the buildings.

Here are a few ways we have helped some of our clients to define a new purpose for the workplace, by creating a culture that thrives in the hybrid era:

Designing workplaces for collaboration, not just concentration

Offices should prioritise collaboration spaces, to maximise the opportunities for face-to-face interaction. Invest in flexible spaces and furniture arrangements that can adapt to brainstorming sessions, team huddles, and client meetings. Consider designated “collaboration zones” equipped with whiteboards, high-quality screens, comfortable seating and good, accessible catering, that also allow easy socialising.

Make technology work to ensure seamless integration

Bridge the gap between remote and in-office teams with top-notch video conferencing technology. Make sure the tech is easy and trouble-free, and that technical support is readily to hand. Ensure all meeting rooms are equipped for seamless virtual participation and invest in room booking technology and desk reservation systems, to avoid scheduling conflicts and optimise space utilisation.

Put wellbeing first and create a destination experience

Employees are easily repelled by a sterile office environment. To counter that feeling and make it more attractive, do the obvious things like investing in ergonomic furniture, good lighting, clean workspaces and temperature control systems designed for people not BMS engineers. Get the FM team walking the floor and engaging with people, so they are accessible, can provide assistance, and resolve minor problems on the spot, without staff having to resort to calling the helpdesk.

And, if you want the workplace to be truly welcoming, why not start by doing just that! It’s as simple as coaching your reception and front-of-house teams to physically ‘welcome’ people by name, as they arrive. It’s very powerful and means that folk always start the day with a smile on their face.

Put the emphasis on wellness and wellbeing – set aside dedicated wellness spaces like meditation rooms, on-site fitness centres and quiet spaces. And think about creating spaces that aren’t just about enabling work, by creating breakout areas with comfortable seating, games, a well-stocked coffee area and somewhere to eat and drink– anything that will foster social interaction and that is not necessarily work-related.

Generating a positive ‘experience’ is where Q3 has really played a significant role in helping achieve change on our client sites. At our monthly client meetings we focus on the calendar, around which we design engagement events that provide a social focus and a good reason for everyone to be in the office. Proper relationships are forged at events and recently, we have had Easter egg hunts, pancake day competitions, charity fund raisers and even yoga sessions. Organising that last event provided me with the challenge of writing one of the more difficult risk assessments of my career!

On days when the directors are in for a board meeting, we also invite staff to a meet and greet session, when they can have a coffee and a chat with people from the senior team.

Good communication is key to making these events work, so we get involved with all the internal comms, including email, intranet announcements and posters. Then on the day, it’s all about seamless logistics, such as laying on the bacon butties, pancake mix, pastries or yoga mats!

Gather employee feedback and adapt

The key to a successful balance between remote and office working, is understanding employee needs, so it’s important to conduct regular surveys and focus groups to understand what employees need to achieve their work objectives. This is an area led by the client but supported by feedback and data provided by the FM company. Then it’s a case of translating those needs into new layouts, amenities, and even cleaning schedules to optimise the office experience. Recently, this has prompted initiatives such as locker storage and showers to facilitate cycle-to-work schemes, as well as the installation of transport charging points for the growing number of staff travelling to work by electric vehicle.

Our contribution to creating compelling workplaces is working, because staff are voting with their feet and showing a real commitment to coming back to the office through choice. If you feel that some of these ideas may work in your organisation, give it plenty of thought before simply replicating our approach. Remember, one size doesn’t fit all and researching and understanding the needs of the workplace occupiers must be the first part of any strategy for creating a compelling workplace.

FM in the real world

Posted on by Ian Adams

Thoughts on the evolving role of technology and innovation in the real world of FM. An opinion blog from Mark Hazelwood, Managing Director, IFM, Q3 Services

Mark Hazelwood evaluate the IFM Model

Ball-gazing

There’s been a trend for some time for the Facilities Management industry to gaze into the crystal ball future of FM, and chatter on about how technology will deliver some magical Nirvana.

Listening to the soothsayers, this change is long overdue, and our industry is ripe for technological disruption. For years now, we have been sold the dream of intelligent workplaces utilising sensors, beacons and swelling data lakes from which AI will create a virtually self-reporting self-managing, self-maintaining facility.

Really? How many examples of this grand utopia do you know of? Let’s be honest, this industry’s history of deploying innovation is often not that great, and more about “talk” than “do”. In fact, there is quite a long history of the latest tech NOT delivering, and unsurprisingly, people have become cynical.

Some years ago, I recall industry articles about the Uber-isation of FM, where a client could employ cleaners, HVAC engineers, or security guards, through an app/algorithm that sourced a quote from the cheapest, local FM supplier on the open market, and billed the service transaction (plus commission), all in one single-swipe. Wow! But is anybody using it? Similarly, we braced ourselves as the flexible, co-working revolution was set to transform the entire workplace model… before Covid initiated its rather sad and premature decline.

Sadly, despite all our best efforts, FM in its current form, is still not seen as either business critical or “sexy,” particularly at board level. And this irks many in FM. So, in a vain attempt to elevate its profile, the industry has focused instead on the future promise which technology and innovation offer in such great abundance. To me, this seems like a strategy doomed to failure from the outset. An automated FM panacea requires a huge leap of faith, but this is at a time when we struggle to see very few fully deployed and utilised CAFM systems, working properly in the UK.

Resistance is futile

Let’s look for a moment at this vision of techno FM, as it is unfolding in the real world, in the space which most of us poor souls currently occupy.

We see semi-comedic LinkedIn videos of robotics deployed in public spaces, gliding endlessly around a very small area, often on an already spotless floor, not really cleaning anything. (Although, I concede they are acting as a great, moving, promotional billboard for the FM company.)

Granted, robots in the right environment can be productive and cost-efficient, but these are few and far between compared to the situations where they can’t work – emptying bins, cleaning desks, changing light bulbs, servicing washrooms and toilets, and so on. Unlike the Daleks, who eventually worked out the art of levitation, robots are still limited to cleaning flat floor surfaces without too many obstacles. So now, we revert to cobotics, where robots and people cooperate on FM tasks to much greater effect.

Then, there’s the familiar automated reception, with a tablet sitting conveniently in front of a receptionist who watches and does nothing, while you struggle to navigate the awful user interface. Why not move the receptionist in front of the desk and proactively greet and assist visitors with the human touch?

And think for a moment about the practical obstacles we have to navigate to achieve the brave new techno world. The assumption is that clients have modern facilities with BMS integration we can plug into, but that is simply not the reality for the vast majority of clients. Or, the challenge of upskilling a basic operative, with language barriers, on a living wage, to become a semi-skilled specialist with a reasonable intellectual understanding of tech for which they are now responsible – it’s not easy.

Even in those modern facilities where we are managing to create data-driven insight it’s only being used to affect the conventional human-based service delivery on the ground.

Achieving a step-change

If we are we are going to be credible as an industry, then we need to use innovation and technology in a way that truly moves FM service models forward, not make workplace experience worse, or introduce solutions that are less efficient and more expensive.

We have visions of technology being a strategic FM game-changer, whereas the reality is that it works best through local, tactical deployment, integrated into the overall workplace strategy for an organisation. Innovation is not a paradigm shift or a cultural change in FM, it’s simply a cherry on the top!

My view is that we should start with a clear view of what an organisation is trying to achieve, in the context of where they are trying to achieve it, and then deploy the appropriate technology. Too often, we start from the wrong end…with a great bit of sexy kit or shiny bit of software, trying to marry a solution to a problem. Instead, we should be clear on the objectives we are trying to achieve and the desired outcomes and create a plan to deliver that. If tech is part of realising that plan, then fine!

Where’s the beef?

Many clients have incredibly diverse property portfolios, so you need to be sure you can measure success from short to long term and have a clear understanding of return on investment (ROI). In the real FM world, ROI inevitably must be short because of the business model we operate in the UK. Tenders are based around the three-year contract, (plus two, if you’re lucky) so it’s difficult to be strategic, and almost impossible to justify investment in tech solutions, that can’t satisfy that timeframe. Is an FD in a client organisation going to fight for extra investment in an unproven FM tech-based solution, or in a project that will improve the value-add of his own organisation’s core activity?

And when we focus on success, we shouldn’t just be thinking purely in terms of ROI monetary return. What about workplace satisfaction, productivity and wellbeing? Assuming we can measure these effectively, are we really achieving them, and what is the impact? Also, there are so many simple things we can do that may be neither innovative nor tech-based but show real return. Such as, aligning the processes of the service provider with that of the client, to prevent duplication!

I can’t believe that the FM industry is so loathed to talk about what it actually does and the real value it creates. Is it too complicated, or are we ashamed? Innovation and technology have slid in like some modern-day Trojan horse, designed to elevate and create false kudos, rather than deliver the concerted step change in FM which clients and outsourced providers crave. I remember presenting to an industry awards panel about how we were delivering FM services brilliantly, but the constant line of questioning was around innovation and technology with a complete disregard for the exceptional achievements on that particular contract.

Perhaps it’s a cultural thing that drives FMs to talk about anything except the very things we do well and are extremely good at. I would love to see a step-change in the industry where we have that confidence and are proud of our profession, rather than trying to create pseudo-science or deploying technology in a cynical tick-box way that adds no real value.

So, instead of a fascination with these shiny things, let’s all puff out our chests and start promoting, highlighting and showcasing the best-in-class services, that can be practically and successfully deployed today.