[Please note this page is a part of our 10th anniversary collection. It was written in 2009 and has not been updated.]

Rebecca Bradley

Career
Currently: Portfolio Manager, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch
2006 - 09: Estate Services Manager, Merrill Lynch
2005 - 06: Head of FM, London Stock Exchange
2002 – 05: Facilities Manager, London and UK regional sites, Microsoft
1999 – 02: Assistant Property Manager/Property Manager, British Airways

Comment
It's a nice coincidence that I was asked to make a few comments about our industry in the 10th year of i-FM as this year is my 10th anniversary of working in FM.

I've had some interesting and challenging roles at some exceptional companies over the last 10 years and the importance of facilities management within those companies has been variable to say the least. At the top end, it was clearly appreciated by senior directors that the environment in which staff worked was inextricably linked to their performance, meaning the FM team played a vital part in the company's success. At the other end of the scale, the FM team was held to add no particular value other than ensuring the bins were emptied and windows kept clean. There is an argument to say that both these attitudes have their place - the key of course is how aligned that FM delivery is to the goals of the company. And here is where I have noticed that things have changed since I joined the industry.

No longer is the FM team off in its own little world, in a basement somewhere, doing what they think is the right thing; companies can't afford to take this approach. FMs, through necessity, are now really business managers with a high degree of commercial awareness and business acumen, a million miles away from the caretakers they were once perceived to be in the days of yore. This can only be a good thing for everyone concerned. Companies that employ professional FMs will be able to rest assured their property is in safe hands; FMs themselves will be valued more highly for their unique skills and knowledge; and the industry will become a more desirable place to work.

I don't pretend that we have yet reached this Nirvana where all FMs are highly skilled; and there remains an abundance of companies who are unaware of the value their FMs provide - but we are certainly closer to it than we were 10 years ago, and that has to be a positive step in the right direction.

Mick Dalton

Career
Currently: General Manager, Marafeq FM
2007 – 09: Senior Director Property Management, Emaar PJSC
2006 – 07: Group Operations Director, Global Switch
2005 – 06: Marketing Director, GSH Group
2002 – 04: Operations Director, White & Case
1997 – 02: Facilities Director, Ernst & Young
1986 – 97: Facilities Manager, Eastern Group

Comment
Today, FMs need to have complete understanding of sustainability, energy, business objectives, and they need to be proactive with solutions, customer-centric and capable of managing a supply chain to bring out the best for everyone. If I was asked to give the top competencies for an FM now, these would be:

• Broad commercial experience
• Ability to break down barriers and communicate at all levels
• Spend more time with customers and be customer-centric
• Ability to manage a large range of issues
• Inherently proactive and reactive
• Drive down workplace real estate costs
• Ability to work in strategic and practical disciplines and have a problem-solving and solutions mindset
• Understand buildings and sustainability inside out
• Drive the sustainability agenda
• Be competent at infrastructure, IT, energy
• Have a cost-saving and added-value approach to everything
• Provide seamless workflows across a wide range of environments, locations, cultural differences and changing regulatory frameworks.

Global FM has identified six topics affecting everyone in this business: education and training, sustainability, FM now and in the future - the challenges, economy and culture across borders, innovation, and risk management. I think there are some missing topics here and would add: cost management in recession and in an up-turn, added value in FM, technology, people and supplier management.

Finally, Dan Pink, a career analyst, argues that traditional reward and incentive (‘if you do this, you get that’) strategies do not work. Instead, intrinsic motivation is the new order of the day:

• Autonomy – ‘the urge to direct our own lives’
• Mastery – ‘the desire to get better and better at something that matters’
• Purpose – ‘the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves’.

To me, this is what FM is all about.

John Ellis

Career
Currently: Managing Director, Freidman FM
1997 – 06: Managing Director, MacLellan (sold to Interserve)
1990 – 97: General Manager, Haden Facilities
1989 – 90: Managing Director, Complete Maintenance
1984 – 88: General Manager, MJN Maintenance
1983 – 84: Regional Manager, Haden Maintenance

Comment
Those of us who have been around for more years than we would like to say never thought the industry would grow at the rate that it has. The major element in this, due to size, has to be PFI and Work Services Management (WSM) contracts. On the other hand, the private sector saw the opportunity to outsource not only service delivery but also employee liabilities and costs. This allowed for flexibility and improved knowledge in their non-core activities because service suppliers brought an abundance of experience from the different and broad nature of the contracts they had within their portfolios.

Over the last five years there has been significant change in the dynamics of the industry at large with numerous acquisitions of medium and small successful businesses by large UK and multi-nationals. The emphasis on service delivery by these organisations has diminished and the focus has been bottom line, whereas previously delivery and profit were equally of importance.

The industry is underestimated for its professionalism and contribution to UK Ltd and does not receive the recognition it rightly deserves. Those individuals with ambition and desire can fulfil their career aspirations while enjoying the opportunity of working in numerous and varying industries delivering a multitude of services.

The outlook is positive but there will be more challenges from legislation and directives from Europe. In addition, skill shortage is going to become more acute as the industry continues its growth, and lack of investment in training across all skills is going to put pressure on salary and pay rates resulting in increased labour costs. Both government and the FM industry must equally invest in training and development.

Finally, 2012 is going to test the UK from infrastructure through to service delivery, which will demonstrate to the world how great - or lacking - the UK is in staging large international events.

Ian Fielder

Career
Currently: CEO, British Institute of Facilities Management
1998 – 04: Director of Marketing and Strategy, Johnson Controls
1995 – 98: UK Business Development Director, Procord/Johnson Controls
1993 – 95: Senior Operations Manager, Procord Ltd
1985 – 93: Property Portfolio Manager, IBM UK

Comment
The FM industry has grown incredibly quickly in response to market needs, driven by clients and their ever changing requirements. The supply-side has met the client-side demands through a kaleidoscope of different offerings. It is interesting to note that virtually every contract consists of a varying mix of tasks and service levels that have a commonality in supporting the main organisation's aims.

The development of FM is currently going though a new phase driven by the recession which resonates with the dawn of the industry in the late eighties and early nineties - the last full recessionary period. Every industry and profession benefits from a paradigm shift, and FM will come out of this economic downturn fitter and leaner.

I am also encouraged by the leap in professional development potential we have achieved by developing the qualification framework through the BIFM. FM qualifications are now accessible to all, from the school diploma right through to post-graduate degrees.

I often hear those in FM saying that their career is so exciting and they are proud to be adding value to the core business by managing a professional service. I count myself lucky to have been in a position where I have seen FM develop as an industry and a profession and have seen it from client as well as supply side. The ultimate for me is now working with like-minded people who are helping professionalise what we are delivering through the BIFM to support our members. Education, training and knowledge transfer is the key to our future.

Lucy Jeynes

Career
Currently: Managing Director, Larch Consulting
1992 – 95: Business Development Director & Consultant, Charter Services (a Symonds FM jv)
1990 – 92: Business Development Manager, Investment Fund Manager, Crown Agents for Overseas Governments & Administrations
1988 – 90: Marketing Manager, Metcalfe Cooper
1997 – 88: Account Manager, De Brus Marketing Services

Comment
Coming from a marketing background (where many key services had been outsourced for over half a century already), it was interesting to work with sections of a business that had never really considered using external suppliers. When I first started in FM consultancy (in Charter Services working for Mike Cant and Oliver Jones), much of the work we did was in 'virgin territory' - organisations that had everything in-house: cleaning, catering, security, fabric and M&E maintenance. Nowadays, a significant number of organisations have been round the sourcing roundabout a few times. Outsourcing per se doesn’t necessarily solve issues such as local labour market conditions, buildings that aren’t quite right for today’s working patterns, and the tendency for FM services to be defined by their shortcomings unless communication is managed very carefully.

Service providers expanded their offerings quickly from their 'core' provision (cleaning or M&E, for instance) to wider facilities management - some more credibly and successfully than others. I feel the market is still settling and not at maturity, given the amount of shake-out and deal-making still going on. This can be frustrating for clients who can feel their concerns are coming second as some providers make their money in FM by trading in FM companies rather than by providing excellent service.

There are three challenges for FM service providers now. Firstly, to keep up with their customers, who are often now envisioning more innovative, agile solutions than the market can deliver. Secondly, to improve the quality of their bidding - many good companies do not do themselves justice in the tendering process. Thirdly, achieving consistency: the reference contracts are great, but it is proving hard to deliver that standard consistently for all clients across all sites.

When I first started running training courses for BIFM (or the AFM/IFM as it was called for a short time then!), course attendees were usually engineers, hardly any women. The profession has diversified dramatically and now embraces people from a wide range of backgrounds across all the services. It’s still not very gender or ethnically diverse at the more senior levels - and this is a challenge to be addressed for the future, as the wide range of people working in frontline services is not yet fully reflected further up their organisations. We have relied on people stumbling across FM: school careers officers still think FM is a job in radio, and until we become a destination on the careers map it will be harder to attract the best talent.

At the same time, sustainability is still being narrowly defined in FM as an issue to do with carbon footprints. This is only part of the story. Community sustainability (work and training opportunities for local people, involvement of small local companies within the supply chains of major contracts, engagement with the third sector) is barely to be seen in FM’s sustainability equation. Larch has been working on some imaginative programmes in this area and we should expect to see much more of a focus on these initiatives in the next ten years.

The sector has been hit hard in this recession, and this has had led to a short-term, functional approach to FM for many organisations. Reducing the cost of contracts, paring back service levels, cutting down 'delight' services, extending existing arrangements while the economic situation remains uncertain. FM can work fine like this for a couple of years, but soon we will start to see that the (temporarily necessary) absence of forward strategic direction for services is leaving a gap that needs to be filled with new strategies for the new world that will emerge from this gloomy period.

Looking forward, FMs coming out of the recession have an opportunity on the up-curve to reinvent and refresh what was being delivered in the current 'holding pattern'. Qualities that will set people and companies apart from the technical ability to deliver are intelligence, innovation, the courage and imagination to conceive bold new visions - and an entrepreneurial spirit to seize the opportunities for change that an economic recovery will present (when it finally arrives).

Oliver Jones

Career
Currently: Chief Executive, The Asset Factor
2002 – 05: Group Sales & Marketing Director, Carillion
1998 – 02: CEO, Citex Group (sold to Carillion)
1997 – 98: Group Property & Logistics Director, Regus
1989 – 97: MD, Symonds Facilities Management (subsequent deals done to form Dalkia and then Trillium)
1983 - 89: graduate trainee at BAA, then QS Service Manager at Gatwick Airport, then launched Gatwick Premises Management

Comment
The FM industry continues to offer significant opportunity for the many smart minds within the broad outsourced support services sector.

As one segment becomes fully developed, such as PFI, other areas such as integrated property and facilities management open up, enabling leaders to develop new offers and add further value to the corporate, investor and public sector customers of the industry.

As always, downturns lead to innovation and the current business pressures faced by so many are leading to new combinations and collaborations ... the FM industry remains a highly appealing environment for good business.

Joanna Lloyd-Davies

Career
Currently: Principal Consultant, Metzger Search and Selection
1997 – 00: Business Development Manager, Ecovert FM
1996 - 97: Business Development Manager. Aqumen (formerly Mowlem FM)
1993 – 96: Business Development Manager, Tarmac FM
1983 – 93: Evolving role in financial management, property and FM, Johnson Fry

Comment
The FM Industry has a unique opportunity to rise above these financially storm-bound days to provide agile strategies and services, guiding business leaders as they confront fateful constraints.

This is a time of advantage: leverage FM within the organisation to optimise property and service solutions. Pick up the baton, lead from the front, challenge the status quo and focus on the art of the possible. Engage with the Board, think differently - execute effectively.

Stan Mitchell

Career
Currently: CEO, Key Facilities Management International
1986 – 90: Facilities Manager/Production Control Manager, Wang Computers
1976 – 86: Junior to Chief Engineer, Merchant Navy

Comment
I passionately believe that facilities management has a ‘value add’ to offer as a professional discipline. We have successfully established the foundations that will stand the test of time, and developments continue to activities such as the ongoing European Standards and an increasing number of academic organisations promoting and teaching facilities management worldwide. However, I also believe that the distinction between facilities management and facilities services continues to need to be reinforced at every opportunity. The management and the delivery of services are two distinct activities which are reliant upon each other to prosper in a sustainable manner.

The current focus upon the environment and the sustainability agenda in its widest sense alongside the current recession presents FMs with a perfect platform to take both of these activity areas and demonstrate the value that we offer.

When I look forward, first of all I look back to see if the foundations that I, along with many others, have laid over the past 25 years represent something that can be built upon. The fact that today there are so many young and very bright individuals who are emerging and choosing this fantastically demanding and important role as their career of choice, assures us that in one respect at least our efforts have not been in vain.

Facilities management, I believe, is truly a 21st Century profession that need not follow the historic norms of such bodies. It should be truly global in today’s world and we should encourage inclusiveness at every opportunity. If those that take up the challenges of leadership in the profession as we go forward show innovation and grasp the challenges of changing world economies, standards of living and working, and social responsibilities to name but a few, who else is better placed to demonstrate leadership and real value across all aspects of government, business and social well-being than the facilities management profession. I will of course continue to play a part but will observe with interest as those coming forth take up the leadership roles!

In relation to Key Facilities Management International, I have a personal objective of establishing a truly international facilities management business. My objective is to leave in the hands of those that follow me a business that optimises what is best in FM, that follows an ethos of quality not quantity, that does so in a manner that advantages all those who help make it happen, and that becomes an employer of choice. A little ambitious perhaps for Stan Mitchell - but with good fortune, good luck and good people, we look to the future.

Martin Pickard

Career
Currently: Director, The Asset Faculty & Managing Director, Denton Business Services
2002 – 03: CEO, Reliance Integrated Services
2000 – 02: Managing Director, Citex Management Services
1993 – 00: Estates Director, BTCR (a BT subsidiary)
1989 – 00: Property & Business Services Director, Cellnet
1985 – 89: Head of Estates, BT Mobile Communications

Comment
The FM profession has travelled a long, long way in my working life. From a low key, backroom, highly reactive, compliance-focused accommodation service using all in-house staff, it has evolved into a fully fledged management profession with qualifications, institutes and awards that makes a proactive and strategic contribution to the organisations it serves and is supported by a multi billion pound outsourcing industry.

Some of the challenges of the early years are still with us, such as the battle for recognition by government and business and the struggle for training and development resources. Time has created new challenges to do with climate change, the economy, technology and sustainability. There are also other challenges that we have created for ourselves, like the divide between the outsourced and the in-house FM communities and the lack of effective collaboration between our professional and trade bodies.

The future of the FM profession and the industry which supports it will depend on how we address these issues. I am constantly enthused by the quality of people that join our ranks all the time and the positive way in which they are embracing the task ahead. I am sure that they will learn from our mistakes and will rectify some of the problems we have created. Facilities people are, by their nature, can-do folk and I encourage our new stars to build on the foundation that has been created but not to be afraid to dismantle that which does not add value.

Lionel Prodgers

Career
Currently: Director, Agents4FM
1999 – 09: Independent Operator including secondment as Managing Director, Siemens FM
1994 – 99: Managing Director, Chesterton Workplace Management
1984 – 94: Managing Director, Facilities & Property Management (sold to Chesterton)

Comment
The macro economic, political and social pressures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be the focus of attention for decades to come. I believe the most significant driver for the future of FM will be sustainable development, but we must go beyond the familiar 'green building' and energy efficiency issues. In order to achieve the optimum use of scarce resources, we have to get to the heart of the enterprise we support and change behavioural patterns and operational traditions as well as FM processes and systems.

Protecting the environment and conserving energy is an ever-growing priority for both the public and private sectors and for all governments. Given this direction, enterprises are anticipating the need for accountability for sustainable practice in all areas of activity. In this respect, the attributes of building design, maintenance and operation are capable of being enhanced by good management practice.

Various environmental support services are already available relating to property and facilities management, such as energy audits, building commissioning services, training, billing management and oversight, energy procurement and choice analysis, resource efficiency management, water conservation services, metering and advanced metering, innovative renewable energy systems and technology. Couple these with the procurement of goods and services utilised in a facility, and there appears to be enormous scope for standardising the metrics against which a facility, or number of facilities services, can be classified as ‘sustainable’.