Josh Greatrix
Josh is VP of our US team, recruiting for facilities management positions across America. He also heads up the UK FM Management team, and has a finger on the pulse of global FM trends.
Hybrid working has led to the Facilities Management sector experiencing a shift that will continue to grow over the coming years.
It’s a shift that could transform the way many facilities organizations offer their services.
Before the pandemic, of the 32.6 million workers in the UK in 2019, only 1.7 million worked from home. 73% had no experience of working from home. When lockdown hit, more than 20 million of those people moved to a WFH model – a huge shift in their experience and perception of their working life.
While many assumed that when the pandemic was over we’d just shift back to working in a pre-pandemic way, the reality has been more complex. A significant proportion of the workforce have reset their working expectations. The term hybrid is now well known, and well used.
Hybrid work models are here to stay
Hybrid working is a way of life for many businesses and their employees. It allows them to adapt to the changing environment and continue to be productive.
By 2023 60% of workers will prioritise a wellness-equipped smart office. Less than a third of digital workers will choose the corporate office as their main place of work. In fact, a Gartner survey in the US has shown if an organization were to go back to a fully on-site arrangement, it would risk losing up to 39% of its workforce
According to a survey by the British Chamber of Commerce, 40% of people would like their employer to offer hybrid working in future.
We’ve spoken before about how the pandemic has changed office requirements, but what does this mean for your client and the FM services you offer?
As more employees choose a hybrid working model as default, your clients are having to adjust their own workplace strategies. According to a recent survey conducted by Gartner, 72% of organizations expect a reduction in their real estate footprint. Your clients need you now more than ever. They are looking at how to provide great working environments while also giving employees more flexibility. The changes will not just be around physical workspaces but also around service levels that go beyond the 9-5.
Facilities management must evolve to meet this new hybrid, distributed way of working
As FMs continue to adapt to the new normal, the priority is understanding the different ways their clients are using and consuming services. If you don’t know how your customer is using your services, it will be hard to adjust your offering and value proposition.
Clients will want and expect a more flexible service, to fit their flexible workforce. This means facilities managers will need to do more to understand client needs and shift their client relationship.
Corporate real estate needs to change to support hybrid working
One of the first steps in gaining this understanding is measuring building occupancy. As physical and virtual space converges, traditional measures of occupancy (e.g. desk utilisation) won’t be enough. The new hybrid working environment requires accurate insight into how employees are using their workspace.
Occupancy sensors can be used to monitor the use of different areas of a building. They can help inform things like:
- Understanding where people sit, when they sit there and how often they sit there.
- Identifying underutilized areas and making sure service rotas reflect this.
- Assessing the success of specific office areas. Are more people using collaborative space or desk space?
- Identifying where people congregate outside of their designated workspaces (e.g. café spaces).
- Using accurate occupancy information ensures you can deploy the right hard and soft services at the right time.
As both clients and FMs gather more information on how space is being used, both sides can benefit from sharing this data. By bringing together occupancy, space and energy data, you can make informed decisions on how best to maintain spaces that will meet your clients’ changing needs.
You can also use real-time data from your building management systems (BMS) to inform effective delivery and track progress.
Make whole building data accessible throughout the FM team (and beyond)
Historically, facilities management consisted of managing space, implementing tasks and performing maintenance activities. However, advances in technology have led to a new role: agile facilities management.
As a result client expectations are not more than “a safe environment”. FMs are also responsible for reliable uptime, efficient utilisation and well-organised spaces.
It’s greater access and interpretation of data and analytics that will enable this. The visualisation of data across all stakeholders leads to greater flexibility and optimisation of resources and processes. It’ll bring about better service delivery through greater insight into demand patterns.
Find opportunities to introduce automation in operations and maintenance
All that data and leads to the ability to automate. And automation will make it easier to offer clients a more flexible facilities management service.
Use sensors in various parts of the building to understand when and how often the space is used. This would help in designing cleaning schedules, ensuring availability of meeting rooms, and optimising real estate planning.
Automate work order management – this will help clients close work orders faster, reducing down time for facilities.
Automate cleaning scheduling based on usage patterns. This will make sure that high touch points are cleaned more frequently than others.
Automate monitoring of assets – such as air conditioning units or AV equipment. Then issues can be addressed before they affect productivity.
Use Artificial Intelligence technology to understand space use. It’ll help optimise office space allocation, schedules and maintenance needs.
Creating an on-demand FM service could help offer the flexibility that clients now need
With building and usage becoming more complex, the range of support skills need has grown. Multi year service contracts are not as popular as they were pre pandemic, reducing by 25% in 2021 compared to 2019. Adapting to a new service model, such as a pay-as-you-go or consumption based service could offer clients the flexibility they need. Providing on demand facilities management services can also help support your clients' sustainability objectives. It can reduce travel, energy usage and waste products.
The Internet of Things will make Facilities Management services more efficient
The Internet of Things (IoT) connects devices over the internet so that they can communicate with each other, providing a digital infrastructure for data-sharing and automation.
IoT has been used for many years to manage building equipment and create smart environments. But now we’re seeing the technology used in more innovative ways to improve efficiency and flexibility in facilities management services by:
Reducing costs of operations through predictive maintenance and energy optimisation.
Improving customer experience by providing faster access to information on space booking, availability and maintenance issues.
Improving employee experience by increasing productivity through automated processes.
Improving sustainability by reducing energy consumption through predictive energy analytics and control technologies.
Flexing around hybrid needs will get you noticed
Now is a fantastic time to re-think your sales strategy and offering. Most organizations are still trying to figure out how to make hybrid work for them and their employees. By going to them with a flexible workplace strategy for their facilities management, you’ll differentiate yourself in the market place and show that you are prioritising client need right now.
