With the arrival of trade unions and other organisations, that well-being received more attention – companies had to respond to keep employees satisfied. This was reflected in FM: in addition to the focus on technical support, there was also more attention to the workplace as a healthy environment that promotes the well-being of employees. At the same time, we see office environments changing into often large office landscapes with a tendency towards uniformity: everyone has the same desk, chair, and working tools. Later, we learned that everyone is different and that there are various types of activities. Meanwhile, a whole (r)evolution has been effected within the work environment. You need to be able to do concentrated work, bring your colleagues together for meetings, have lunch together at noon etc. very diverse activities, and thus other types of offices with a diverse environment that offered space for these different activities emerged.
But it could be better: by examining all the tasks that need to be done and aligning the workplace environment accordingly, companies could make their buildings contribute to the efficiency and satisfaction of employees. This approach to the workplace, known as ‘activity-based working’, originated in the period between 2008 and 2010. It was thought out for the individual and employees: What do they need to do their job? In the period between 2020 and 2023, the next shift came, towards hybrid working, adding an extra dimension to the workplace. We now also work place – and time – independent. A serious challenge for the Facility Manager and the workplace, as you will discover further on in this book!
THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION
Everything changes; it has never been otherwise. But the speed and impact of change have never been as great as in the past three decades. It started with the advent of the internet. In three steps, this irrevocably changed our lives and our way of working:
￭ Web 1: in the first period (1991–2004), the internet was mainly a static environment and (inexhaustible) source of information.
￭ Web 2: from 2004, social media appeared, gradually turning the internet into a highway with two-way traffic.
￭ Web 3: in recent years, the semantic web has emerged, and it will play a key role in current and future FM: the increased connectivity that makes remote work easier, the concept of the ‘digital twin’ as a virtual lab for experiments, artificial intelligence that makes our buildings ‘smart buildings’ etc. These and other technological breakthroughs will be discussed in detail in the following chapters.
BETWEEN CAVEMAN AND HERD ANIMAL
Do you recall how you worked 20 years ago? For me, it feels like an eternity has passed, but I remember it vividly. Every day, I arrived at the office around 8 a.m. – nice and early, to clear all my administrative and planning tasks before all the other colleagues trickled in. Everyone had their fixed spot, which was taken for granted back then. And each one had their own desktop and telephone set; that was also the rule. We even sent our contracts to clients via fax. It feels like office prehistory, yet this was the typical office environment 20 to 25 years ago.
I was allowed to work from home back then, but honestly, there wasn’t much you could do. Taking paperwork home, communicating via email and Skype for video calls – that was pretty much it. Thankfully, laptops, Blackberrys, and other mobile devices gradually found their way to office workers, keeping us digitally connected, even at home and on the move. Working anytime and anywhere increasingly became a reality. But as the boundary between work and private life began to blur, the concept of ‘work-life balance’ gained importance.
And then came the pandemic, and everything changed.
In this chapter, we delve into the evolution of humans in the workplace and hybrid working. We explore how offices can adapt to these changing needs and how we transition from macro to micro planning. We also review the characteristics of a future-proof work environment. Other important facets discussed include building communities, inclusion and neurodiversity in the workplace, and the role of the Workplace Experience Manager in this story.
COVID CHANGED EVERYTHING
Back to 2020. Specifically, March 2020, when a virus from the East swept over us and would forever change our private and professional lives. Our workplace, in all possible senses, would never be the same again. Previously, it was very simple: our workplace was the building we went to day in and day out to perform our labour. Neither the location nor its arrangement was ever deeply questioned. “Working 9 to 5” (as Dolly Parton sang in the movie of the same name) was the norm, and deviations were few. In the first decades of this century, we saw timid attempts by
and then it’s good to start with a small project that you can still link to the systems of your partners and suppliers, thanks to that open approach.” In the near future, Peter sees AI (Artificial Intelligence) especially playing a major role: “You will be able to utilise your data much better and work much more proactively by anticipating changing employee and user behaviour, anticipating potential problems, and predicting new needs before they actually occur.” Furthermore, he sees the FM technology market growing in the coming years, if only because major technology players like Microsoft, Cisco, Schneider Electric, and Siemens have set their sights on the workplace environment.
In conclusion, Peter strongly believes in the importance of technology, not only in terms of efficiency and new insights: “The FM sector is an ageing sector. Many FM specialists will soon retire, and we do not immediately see a next generation replacing them. To attract young talent, we need technology among other things. With the challenging projects that technology makes possible, we can make our sector more attractive to that generation. We are also on the eve of a ‘Worktech revolution’ where we can achieve enormous productivity gains by focusing on smarter buildings – and the smart technology that makes this possible.”
“TECHNOLOGY WILL MAKE FM MORE ATTRACTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE”
FM and workplace experience are inextricably linked; this has become clear by now. But to be able to build that optimal workplace experience, it’s also crucial to understand exactly what employees desire, what they need. In this respect, our profession closely aligns with Human Resources (HR), with the team that constantly works on the well-being and job satisfaction of all the talent present.
I don’t need to tell you: At some point everyone has entered an office where the desolation nearly drips from the walls. The kind of office that makes your heart sink when you see the enclosed spaces with stacks of paper everywhere. I vowed never to have to work in such an environment. Even if you don’t understand the mechanisms behind it, you just feel there’s a direct link between the management and layout of the workplace on one hand and the well-being and job satisfaction of the employees on the other. I’ve experienced it myself multiple times: When the click between your norms and values and those of the company is gone, it becomes difficult to continue together. And the company’s vision of the workplace cannot be seen independently of this.
But as a Facility Manager, you don’t want to rely solely on this feeling; you also want to thoroughly understand how exactly this connection works, to then be able to work with it as effectively as possible. By paying attention to employees and incorporating those learnings into a clear structural policy on well-being, we can ensure vital, engaged, and healthy employees. Employees who are happy at work, in turn, ensure that the results are achieved. To realise this, it is important that there is good cooperation between the various stakeholders who all contribute to the well-being of employees from their domain of expertise: Facility Managers who are responsible for the best possible workplace environment on the one hand, but also HR managers, who know better than anyone else exactly what those employees are looking for.
From this overview, it appears, among other things, that the total market amounts to over 1 trillion (1,000 billion) dollars in 2024, and that we can expect growth of at least 10% by 2027. Europe accounts for approximately a quarter of this market, and the Middle East about 2.5%. Notably, integrated facilities management (IFM) services are growing much stronger than ‘single’ and ‘bundled services’, but for now, single services still dominate, as you can see in the figure below.
8.5: Overview of total FM market by contract type Europe – Frost & Sullivan.
TRENDS IN THE FM SERVICE PROVIDERS MARKET
Frost & Sullivan remains a valuable source of information when discussing this FM services market. Not only do they continuously collect data, but they are also very active in identifying old and new trends in this market. I have always found their reports and analyses very valuable, which is why I engaged in a conversation with one of their partners, John Raspin.
Figure
