COMMENT It took a global pandemic for facilities management to reach the top of the agenda in the boardroom. Suddenly, cleaning schedules, products and costs were an immediate must-know in order to provide reassurance to workers as well as board members trying to ensure minimal business disruption.
During the past 12 months, this focus has changed from immediate crisis prevention to reconsidering the future of the workplace and the contracts that enable work to take place, as well as build and maintain a business identity.
Since Colliers launched its Strategic FM Advisory business late last year, we’ve already started advising clients with portfolios across 68 countries and comprising 17,000 properties, and which are managing more than £175m of FM spend. What has become clear is that, while working from home can be productive, most corporates are preparing for a return to the office with an overlay of revised occupancy levels.
Office evolution
We are seeing a reconfiguration of space types, increasing the need for flexible and collaborative work environments, while hygiene factors that have enabled a Covid-safe working environment will be here for some time to come.
Offices, at least in the medium term, are likely to be less densely occupied five days a week, with more of a focus on collaborative work, product development and innovation. Remote working is likely to become the place for focused activity. While the physical footprint of the office may not change substantially, utilisation and optimisation will be a key focus. We’re likely to see a change from dedicated desk working space towards more meeting rooms, creativity suites and break-out areas, as well as some private booths for confidential work.
The role of FM in these new workplaces will change and become increasingly flexible and customer-focused, ensuring that the workplace is hygienic, effective and enables staff to be productive. If there’s an expectation of being present in the office, employees are going to be asking more of their employers to ensure their wellbeing and health.
Delivering value
In a lot of industries, profitability has taken a hit this past year and these cost pressures mean that FM needs to deliver increased value. A number of procurement and outsourcing programmes were put on hold in 2020 while businesses waited to determine the impact of Covid-19. In the last quarter of 2020, we saw a marked increase in the commencement of delayed outsourcing programmes, looking for new contracts to provide true value for money within an enhanced framework of assurance for business resilience.
Furthermore, facilities management will need to become more adaptable and responsive to the new space types and how the workplace will be used and optimised. To address this requirement, clients and FM suppliers will need to collaborate in a way they never have before.
This is something that cannot be defined in an RFP as it is a transformational process with a high degree of urgency. This whole transformation process needs to be underpinned by tools, technology processes and effective facilitation to ensure the overall objectives are delivered, while recognising the client’s and FM supplier’s business requirements.
Effective solutions
This is not just theoretical rhetoric, it is based on how we in the industry are responding to a new challenge and working environment. Pre-Covid, organisations were already recognising the value of the synergies between the workplace environment and FM – in some cases even moving away from the term “facilities management”.
This imperative continues, albeit with an increased need to transform FM operations to provide flexibility and the platform to align delivery to the point of need within the new space types and variable occupancy levels. With homeworking here to stay and the development of different workspace types, clients are looking to the industry to formulate an effective solution that reflects the way workplaces will be used and occupied.
The future has to be the provision of flexible FM solutions that can be calibrated to enable employee productivity and wellbeing and, above all, will provide a targeted service profile with appropriate standards that are delivered at the point of need and demand. Those who can provide this in the future, at scale, will be the winners in the post-Covid workplace.
Nicholas Marsh is EMEA head of enterprise FM advisory at Colliers
