October 29, 2015
Facilities management must become more strategic or risk becoming irrelevant 0
A new report claims that there are persistent and well-founded perceptions at boardroom level that facilities management is a support function with little or no strategic relevance and that this poses a serious risk to the discipline. While this may raise few eyebrows amongst those who have been aware of the problem for many years, what is startling is that the report comes from the International Facilities Management Association. The report, Redefining the Executive View of Facility Management, authored by Richard Kadzis, highlights the long reported mismatch between this perception and that of facilities managers themselves who believe they represent an industry that continues to adapt to a changing world and add value to the organisation. Conversely, senior executives see FMs as ‘glorified custodians’ whose performance should be measured in terms of the money they save the organisation.
October 28, 2015
What Shakespeare’s Henry V can teach us about flexible working
by Julia Johnston • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working
Why are so many of us preoccupied with the status that having an office brings? They say it’s lonely at the top. Well, that loneliness often starts with the social exclusion of being in an office. Why would you not want to be in with the in-crowd, to be with your own team of people and the go-getters who are making a difference to your organisation? Why not be where the action is at the working coalface of your organisation? Stuck in your office, you can feel like a kid in the corner of the playground, wondering what the others are whispering about. Some of us want an office because we believe it shows our peers that we have made it; that we have reached the upper echelons of our corporate management structure and become an acknowledged achiever. We want an office so that we can preen to others, but that doesn’t automatically make for better managers, leaders or companies.
More →