Facilitate - March/April 2023 Full

MEETING EXPECTATIONS

People want more from meetings and related spaces

SCOPING MECHANISM

FM's influential role in shaping indirect Scope 3 emissions

MANAGING MENOPAUSE

The government has rejected proposals for menopause leave

Conversion equations

How net zero, uncertain future demand and a growing emphasis on quality are set to influence the future of central business districts

FRONT DESK

CONTENTS 10

06 Menopause struggles

The government has rejected the proposal for menopause leave

08 Tech to boost quality Technology will improve FM services, but progress is slow

10 Cycling to net zero Cargo bikes offer a greener alternative to vans at certain types of client sites

15 News in Numbers

Numerical take on big news from January and February 2023

17 All about building safety New higher-risk building registration marks big change

FEATURES

18 Conversion therapy? Assessing the pros and cons of repurposing buildings in city centre business districts

24 Meeting expectations Meetings and meeting spaces need to match up to new expectations of attendees

30 Scoping mechanism

FM’s role in influencing indirect emissions under the GreenHouse Gas Protocol’s Scope 3

VIEW POINT

38 Perspectives

Four FM professionals seek to influence your insight agenda

42 A bit about you

Glimpse into the jobs of Chris Burch and Katerina Ford

KNOW HOW

45 Supression tactics

How automation fixed the lifts at a Network Rail station

46 Budget hopping

Benefitting from the blurred line between Capex and Opex

48 An immersive experience Finding the right tools for the new world of hybrid meetings

49 Express yourself FM can lead on gender expression policy changes

51 Lights, action, carbon Considering lighting’s embodied and operational energy

54 Corrosion red flags

Sampling alone won’t keep your HVAC pipework corrosion-free

55 Catering on location Challenges of catering in manufacturing and distribution

SUPPLY SIDE

59 Ecoserv Group saved from administration Around 2,000 jobs have been retained following the group’s sale out of administration

ONLINE

NOW > NEXT > HOW?

Decarbonising building assets

Marie-Louise Schembri of Hilson Moran discusses decarbonisation in an evolving regulatory and financing landscape. tinyurl.com/Fac0304002

The connected security officer

Noah Price, G4S international academy director, speaks of the security officer role’s technological shift. tinyurl.com/Fac0304001

Supply and demand in FM

James Fiske, CEO of Building Cost Information Service, shares his views on the challenges for FM in 2023. tinyurl.com/Fac0304003

RESEARCH

New energy legislation threatens London rentals

At least 50% of inner London commercial properties will be ‘unlettable’ from 2027 as new energy efficiency legislative changes loom.

tinyurl.com/Fac0304008

Economic downturn will drive FM decisions

CBRE says firms are looking for better value for money from contracts, with the economic downturn set to be a key driver of decision-making in 2023. tinyurl.com/Fac0304009

WEBINAR: FIELD SERVICE ON THE FRONTLINE

TUESDAY, 18 APRIL – REGISTER HERE: tinyurl.com/Fac0304-FSM

Facilitate’s next webinar, in association with Planon, discusses the role field service technicians can play in meeting the evolving expectations of clients as service provider clients transition to more complex contracts with outcome-based performance or integrated FM demands.

● How can service firms help ensure the maintenance and uptime of more widely spread communities of users?

● How can FM service firms deploy their field service management personnel and systems for maximum positive effect?

DATE: Tuesday 18th April, 1:30pm

REGISTER HERE: tinyurl.com/Fac0304-FSM

YOUR AWARD-WINNING MAGAZINE

Facilitate – the magazine and online news content resource of the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM) – keeps IWFM members and others up to date on all workplace and facilities management issues, ensuring that you are informed of the latest developments and thinking.

In 2019, Facilitate won Best Magazine (10-32,000 members) award at the Association Excellence Awards, judged by a body which assesses the media brands of trade bodies, membership organisations and associations. Also, our editor Martin Read took the title of Editor of

the Year at the 2020 MemCom Awards, as run by the association for membership communities. We are further developing our award-winning product for you, so feel free to contact us with any thoughts and ideas. Got a story? email editorial @ facilitatemagazine.com

Facilitate, incorporating FM World, is the publication of IWFM, the professional body for workplace and facilities management. For information on membership, qualifications and training contact us:

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Editorial Advisory Board

Simon Ball, market director, EQUANS

Peter Brogan, head of research and insight, IWFM

Rob Greenfield, health & safety director, Avison Young Ian Jones, director of facilities, ITV

Dr Matthew Tucker, Reader in Workplace and Facilities Management, Liverpool Business School

Kate Smith, head of workplace & portfolio strategy UK, CBRE

Liz Kentish, managing director, Kentish and Co.

Simone Fenton-Jarvis, workplace consultancy director, Relogix

Warners

Printed

COMMENTS

From the editor

LOOKING BACK, MOVING FORWARD

This year, IWFM is celebrating 30 years of the Institute. As 2023 progresses, and with help from our community of volunteering members, we will be exploring the evolution of our profession and predicting its future. However, some members may not be familiar with the Institute’s history, so here is a brief introduction.

In 1993, the Association of Facilities Managers and Institute of Facilities Management merged to become the British Institute of Facilities Management. The FM profession has evolved in the decades since, with the Institute maturing alongside as a membership body, standards setter and professional community.

In 2016, the profession’s workplace opportunity arrived with The Workplace Advantage report. Where once the productivity debate had ignored the workplace, this report quantified the contribution a well-designed workplace could make to organisational performance. It identified workplace and facilities management as the organisational super connector. Ever the champion of the sector’s advancement, we set out to embrace the emerging workplace function as a strand of the profession, foregrounding FM’s impact where it can be recognised for its ability to transform organisations and enhance experience.

In 2018, we rebranded to the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management and set out to reposition FM as a value creator with even greater potential to support business success. Ensuring leaders fully appreciate the crucial contributions FM makes and optimising its impact will remain at the heart of our mission into the next decade and beyond.

Ablack and white image online of a packed 1950s commuter train carriage shows suited and booted commuters all holding aloft their huge broadsheet newspapers. From a distance it looks like bed linen pegged out on laundry day. Typically, this depiction of fifties media consumption is used to point out that while we may all be “on” our phones these days, it’s the same as it ever was. We all listened to radios, took photographs, wrote letters or made calls in the past; we just use one device for all of that now.

However, smartphones also allow our most intimate communications to reside mere millimetres apart from our most professional. It’s all too possible to erroneously inform Charlie in accounts that the cat litter bag has burst all over the carpet again while your bemused partner receives a message asking if they can process a crucial invoice. Let’s face it, though: the genie is out of the bottle and the interactions this tech has enabled are not going away.

At February’s Workplace Futures, Planon’s Peter Ankerstjerne warned us that any service provider not adopting a mobile-first mindset, making the smart phone the primary interface between organisation and employee, will be out of the game; all data relevant for employees now needs to be available via their mobiles.

We know that this is happening already, with frontline personnel able to feel far more a part of the service delivery community through corporate or even contract-level apps. But it’s about how FM speaks to building end-users, too. Also at Workplace Futures, former IWFM chair Lionel Prodgers spoke of how the growth in consumer use of smartphone apps to remotely control heat, light and access in the home is what will drive similar demand from such consumers in their work environments.

When we look back in years to come, this individualisation of both frontline personnel service communication and end user service delivery is likely to have proved more influential in how this sector operates than anything we’ve experienced recently in terms of building design or pandemic adaptation.

LINDA HAUSMANIS is CEO of the IWFM

LINDA HAUSMANIS

Our most intimate communications are millimetres apart from our most professional

FRONT DESK

10

How technology is boosting the quality of workplace and facilities management services

Cargo bikes are riding the net zero wave, replacing vans at certain client sites

The government response to the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) report on menopause and the workplace is a “missed opportunity to protect vast numbers of talented and experienced women from leaving the workforce”, the body’s chair said earlier this year.

The response rejected five of the committee’s recommendations outright, including the recommendation to consult on making menopause a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and pilot a specific menopause leave policy.

In a letter to minister of health Maria Caulfield, the chair of the committee, Caroline Nokes, expressed concern that the government had “ignored the significant evidence base” for equality law reform and called for a review of its position.

The committee also highlighted the low-cost but high-impact opportunities for model workplace menopause policies and menopause leave, which the government has dismissed.

In the letter, the committee said that it was “extremely disappointing that the Menopause Taskforce has not met since prior to the summer recess, and that the industry round table on HRT [hormone replacement therapy] supplies has been delayed a number of times”.

Discrimination

The report, published in July 2022, argued that the overlooked impact of menopause is causing the UK economy to “haemorrhage talent’’. The current law, it said, does not sufficiently protect women experiencing menopause and does not offer proper redress to those who suffer menopauserelated discrimination, with evidence that many women have to demonstrate that their menopausal symptoms amount to a disability to get redress.

Although the government said it has accepted, partly accepted or accepted in principle six of the recommendations,

15 News in Numbers: key stories boiled down into numerical form

17

The biggest change in building safety: higher-risk building registration is set to begin

Government rejects menopause leave policy

by Herpreet Kaur Grewal

the committee criticises it for not actually committing to any new work in response to the report.

Nokes said: “This belated response to our report is a missed opportunity to protect vast numbers of talented and

experienced women from leaving the workforce, and leaves me unconvinced that menopause is a government priority.

“For too long women have faced stigma, shame and dismissive attitudes when it comes to menopause. The evidence to

our inquiry was crystal clear that urgent action was needed across healthcare and work settings to properly address women’s needs, yet government progress has been glacial and its response complacent. Its refusal to even consult on reforming equalities law doesn’t make sense and we urge it to look again.”

Research conducted by WEC early last year polled 2,161 women who were all experiencing at least one symptom of menopause, and found that 31% had missed work because of symptoms.

Companies’ response

Lauren Stirling, head of HR and people development at contract caterer Elior, said: “There is no doubt that menopause significantly impacts women. The British Menopause Society reports that menopause symptoms affect more than 75% of women. Over 25% describe their symptoms as severe. Sadly, it is not uncommon for women to feel they have no option than to withdraw from the workforce. Looking at our own demographics at Elior, over 60% of our workforce are women, a large proportion of which are in the 45-55 age group.

“Irrespective of any government-level decisions, raising awareness around menopause is fundamental. It remains a relatively taboo subject and it’s only by raising awareness first that action

SMALL STEPS PROGRESS

November 2022: The NHS launched its first guidance on menopause for line managers and colleagues. The guidance means that menopausal women working in the NHS will be able to work from home if their symptoms require it. It includes advice on HR aspects such as how to record menopauserelated absence, as well as practical tips for line managers on the benefits of having regular health and wellbeing conversations with their teams, and it supports

will follow.” Stirling said that regardless of the government’s guidelines, organisations can take “positive action” to raise awareness and provide menopause support schemes. “Organisations can undertake CPD accredited ‘Menopause in the workplace’ training, helping make them better informed and equipped, or work towards the Menopause Friendly Accreditation to prove their commitment to being a menopause-friendly employer.”

Stirling added that Elior UK’s familyfriendly policy includes a menopause awareness training programme, with the aim of “breaking the taboo and raising awareness” so that colleagues who may be experiencing menopause will feel supported at work. An important part of this support and awareness comes from having open conversations between managers and colleagues, line managers completing menopause training, and resources and supportive material being available to employees. “Our resources are made available for partners and family members to help them better understand and support their loved ones.”

them to consider any reasonable adjustments they may want to implement to support colleagues who are experiencing menopause symptoms.

August 2022: A university launched two policies designed to offer support to staff experiencing menopause and those undergoing fertility treatment – and raising awareness of the issues with line managers and other staff members.

Queen’s University in Belfast’s Fertility Treatment Leave Policy “acknowledges the

demands on individuals and their partners and is offering up to five days’ leave for fertility related treatment”. The second newly launched Menopause Policy provides “a range of training and awareness raising to support those experiencing menopausal symptoms”. The guidance is intended to provide “clarity and direction to help managers understand the menopause and related issues within the workplace, how they can affect staff, and how managers can best provide support”.

Elior also said that any menopause policy should be “completely inclusive of women, transgender, non-binary and intersex individuals”. Sterling said: “More than half of UK businesses are currently experiencing skills shortages. Losing women where it could be avoided is something we should be fighting hard to change.” She argued that any healthy workplace should offer “an inclusive culture where everyone is valued, regardless of age, culture, background or gender” and everyone should be “equal, included and supported as an individual”. Putting putting equality, diversity, inclusion and colleagues’ wellbeing centre stage “demonstrates a company’s dedication to making its organisation a great place to work”.

Leave is not the answer

Staff at digital health app Peppy agreed that the Women and Equalities Committee is correct to draw attention to the issue of menopause in the workplace but believe that women will be better supported by receiving information, advice, and treatment for the symptoms, rather than being offered leave.

Kathy Abernethy, chief nursing officer and director of Menopause Services at Peppy, said: “While we welcome this focus on menopause as a workplace issue, approval of sick leave just isn’t the answer here. While it’s true many individuals do take time off work due to menopausal symptoms, what colleagues really need is easy access to information and appropriate treatment to effectively manage those symptoms.

“Many workplaces can and do offer great support, which is very important, but access to treatment – whether that is HRT, lifestyle changes, nutritional support or therapy approaches – or often all of these – is essential, and workplaces who support their people to make informed decisions around treatment choices, may find that absence is far less common.”

For too long women have faced stigma, shame and dismissive attitudes when it comes to menopause

IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK

There can be a tendency when discussing the impact of technologies to focus on one of two extremes: transformational hype (“everything you thought you knew is about to end”) or nerdlevel technical minutiae.

Fortunately, February’s annual Workplace Futures conference carved out a third way, covering a broad stream of tech narratives as they affect . The following soundbites have been highlighted to give a flavour of the day.

Building design

FM was meant to take a leading role in building information model (BIM) creation and maintenance. Has it? Agents4RM International MD Lionel Prodgers noted “a reluctance at the design and construction stage” to build technical data and physical assets such as plant and equipment into the BIM. “It’s beginning to happen, but it’s not universal.” Slow progress towards integration into BIM means we are still some distance from FM taking the controlling influence over BIMs as once envisaged. Will FM ever have everything FM-related collated into a single place? Prodgers doesn’t see it happening any time soon.

Nigel Warrick, head of digital workplace at CADline, spoke on how the pinpoint accuracy of modern built asset data from cameras and drones allows for specialised intelligence to emerge from disparate systems feeding into BIMs.

Mark Davenport, smart buildings director for Equans UK & Ireland, took on the topic of smart buildings, and of how FM needs to be front and centre in any discussion about their design – smart buildings being “a major disruption to the construction

model”. Developers, he said, can be reluctant. “They didn’t understand BMS so they certainly don’t understand what a smart building is.” Developing smart buildings requires ‘fivestar’ clients who understand the qualitative improvements that smart buildings can bring.

Navigating the data ocean

Graham Perry of business intelligence software firm Datore spoke of the oceans of data that FM organisations will be asked to deal with in the future. Refining raw performance data will be key, as will organising it into a form that can be sent to analytics systems for machine learning to make actionable insights.

Should FM organisations be internalising this work? “We are going to see an outsourcing of data and analytics,” said Perry. ‘Data as a service’ and ‘analytics as a service’ will deliver intelligence into an organisation without that organisation having to buy them themselves.

The human dimension Vpod Solutions’ group director of workplace consultancy and transformation, Simone FentonJarvis, talked about how too many workers (a fifth or more) remain unengaged in their work. Hybrid means it’s possible for colleagues “to be more disconnected, despite being more connected than ever”.

“As a profession, of course we want to get people back to the office,” she continued, “but we need to give [workers] a reason.” People, culture, and belonging are the principal elements: The workplace offers a reason to get together with our tribe. We need to tie what it is to be human to what the office provides for us. That’s potentially quite a shift.

“What’s important is that the data collected to support workplace design is the data

that supports the desires, intentions and behaviours of the people meant to populate it.”

Peter Ankerstjerne, chief strategy officer at Planon, said the focus of offices is collaboration, creating relationships and promoting company culture. “We are

moving from activity-based to experience-based offices. And it’s we as FMs who need to stage that experience – because the office has become optional for most people now.”

Corporate culture came up in Q&A, with Ankerstjerne speaking of companies

Technology’s role in the flight to facilities quality

by Martin Read

WORKPLACE FUTURES

communicating the culture of their workplace through their brand – something once the exclusive purview of marketing, but which the FM sector is now ideally placed to lead on.

Founder and CEO of Leesman, Tim Oldman, spoke of the FM sector digging its own grave should it fail to react to what his organisation’s data is saying about office occupancy

in the years ahead - that, bluntly, 40% of office space will no longer be needed. And what remains of this space will need to be of the highest quality. Unfortunately, said Oldman, “the product you are delivering is not fit for purpose. It’s time to face up to the challenges ahead.”

Oldman’s frustration was palpable as he showed workplace user statistics from 10 years ago detailing how noise in the office was even then seen as detrimental to performance, something routinely mentioned today in discussions about postpandemic offices.

“I told you that in 2013, and you didn’t change anything! I’m surprised that no one here today has faced up to how different tomorrow will be.”

Future office space will

need to be of extraordinary quality, and smart buildings can underpin a developer, investor or client’s offering of a ‘premium brand’ office, Davenport had said earlier, referencing how student accommodation has managed to become such a brand in recent times.

Retrofit futures

Of the RIBA Plan of Work and FM’s theoretically crucial involvement at the operation stage, Warrick said it will increase in importance as refurb and retrofit projects – in pursuit of net zero objectives – become more commonplace.

Integral’s Shane Betts, Alan Epps and David Bownass discussed the ‘data-driven’ retrofitting of buildings, confirming the emerging theme of a ‘flight for quality’ and its effect on retrofit projects. A net zero building standard, due this year, will help boost the amount of environmental retrofit work that is, they argued, in need of a boost. “We’re already behind the curve with millions of buildings requiring attention.”

BMS begone?

IoT infrastructure will, suggested Davenport, lead to the death of the traditional building management system (BMS), as Internet of Things (IoT) architecture allows more flexible connections between devices. Epps agreed: no longer do organisations need to rely on a BMS to get the necessary data outputs; sensors, and how they report, give FMs a much wider information canvas

40%

95.5%

Percentage of all data captured about building performance that currently goes unused

employee. “We need to adapt to a mobile-first mindset. Every one of us. Every relevant data for employees needs to be available via mobile.”

Ankerstjerne saw a big shift being the ubiquitous smartphone acting as the primary interface between the organisation and its

audience members, Leesman’s Tim Oldman, and WSP Group’s Claire Callan alongside Flowscape founder Peter Reigo

Marcus Sontheimer, chief information and digital officer with ISS, spoke about his firm’s growing a range of distinct apps, each for specific requirements. What’s key is how ISS, alongside other FM providers, is now able to communicate through apps directly to frontline personnel, something also being done by SBFM. The firm’s CEO Matt Chapman and product manager Charlotte Coles-Morris spoke about apps making users feel part of their employer’s community, whatever the interface and whatever the user’s role. What’s important is how ‘meaningful insights’ are distributed and acted upon by management and frontline personnel alike.

I’m surprised no one here today has faced up to how different tomorrow will be

Clockwise from left: event host Martin Pickard,

Percentage of office space no longer needed, according to Leesman data

On the face of it there is much to recommend replacing vans – petrol or electric –with electric cargo bikes to service certain kinds of client sites. Most obvious is a potential reduction of on-site emissions, allowing facilities teams to take a relatively low-cost step. or pedal, towards net zero targets. Then there are more flexible ways in which facilities service functions can be conducted, for example through an increased frequency of service interactions conducted alongside whatever core bike delivery operation is taking place (keeping food deliveries warmer; clearing waste bins faster).

There is also the impact on those who ride the bikes themselves, each of whom will benefit from a slew of wellbeing impacts, both physical and mental. (Most cargo bikes have an electric motor, negating the need for riders to need an especially high fitness level – but the increase in rider exercise is nevertheless significant.)

On the face of it, then, there are many potentially significant sustainability ticks. And there is a compelling Scope 3 emissions argument, too, with FM service provision tending to have its highest emissions through transport. But there is a way to go, and some cultural challenges to overcome, if we’re to see a true revolution in cargo bike use.

Chain reaction

Early 2023 has seen a spate of activities associated with promoting the cargo bike cause, including a day-long conference and exhibition (scheduled for the end of March as we went to press). The cargo bike opportunity for FM is one that first came to wider sectoral awareness during the height of the pandemic in summer 2020, when Facilitate reported on their growing use for couriering activities in city centres. At that time, supermarket chains were also trialling bikes for their ‘last mile’ deliveries. But post-pandemic, it’s fair to say that the delivery landscape is more one of mopeds and electric vans, at least for now. And short-term

Can cargo bikes ride the net zero wave?

by Martin Read

assessment of the economics may crowd out cargo bikes’ otherwise compelling sustainability arguments. For a start, there are limits to the reach of cargo bikes compared with vans, and there is a whole new type of cycle storage necessary at both the beginning and end point of any typical cargo bike journey. The bikes’ storage limits are also a factor, their smaller capacities requiring more journeys, albeit with far lower cumulative emissions than vans.

The extent to which these challenges will affect a switch away from vans may depend on the facility. The three most obvious types of sites for which cargo bikes have potential to usurp larger

vehicles are universities, industrial parks and hospitals, where their use across-site can have an immediate effect on air quality and emissions. Essentially, any organisation running its own on-site logistics operation is a strong contender to transition to cargo bikes.

FM service provider Bouygues Energies & Services (UK) has deployed cargo bikes on its contract with the NHS. Speaking on a recent webinar, the company’s regional director Simon Hayman said that Bouygues is the first UK FM provider to incorporate cargo bikes extensively into their fleet, having initially trialled four of the vehicles at the outset.

“We now have 300 vehicles in the fleet, of which 15 are e-cargo bikes,” said Hayman. “Two diesel vans have now gone from our healthcare sites, which is an important point because the NHS is speaking more and more about air quality in the surrounding areas to their hospitals.

“We’re running e-cargo bikes at two-thirds of our healthcare sites and we also run them on some other contracts such as with Westminster City Council. And the way we’ve integrated them into our fleet is by changing the way we work. They’re not just for delivering material from our stores out to hospital buildings, or for collecting material from local shops. They’re more for moving

£2.46bn

66p

7.8p

7x

The

(SOURCE:

around quickly and sustainably around our sites. We use them to collect waste from the bins, for example; instead of driving a three and a half ton diesel van around the site, we cycle around maybe once or twice a day collecting the rubbish.”

Cultural change

Some barriers seem reasonably straightforward to surmount, from the ability to charge and maintain the bikes onsite, to the adapting of delivery / service patterns to accommodate new ways of working. But others are more deep-rooted and human: not all van drivers will be happy with becoming ‘riders’, swapping the warmth of a cabin for the physical demands – albeit reduced by electric motors – of cargo bike riding. Nor will many be physically capable, electric drive chains notwithstanding, of becoming routine cargo bike riders. There’s also a new training requirement, and it’s not just about learning to ride the bikes, “It’s also about training on manual handling,” says Hayman; “how to load the bike, how to unload the bike and how to manoeuvre with a bike in its loaded or unloaded state, because it changes.”

It is also about inculcating a new culture. Facilities personnel who really take to cargo bike-riding tend to already enjoy cycling.

Immediate future

Challenges aside, there has been a burst of energy around the potential for cargo bikes in recent months. Beyond their use on fixed sites, they are already becoming more commonplace in major city centres like London and Manchester where their use is able to cut journey times for service and deliveries between buildings. They also offer a welcome flexibility in service provision as the prevailing mix of requirements evolves in order to adapt to new working patterns.

Event: The National Cargo Bike Summit 31 March, Guildhall, London cargobikesummit.uk

We cycle around maybe once or twice a day collecting the rubbish

Hidden annual social and environmental costs associated with diesel vans in London

Social and environmental costs associated with diesel, expressed on a per-mile basis

Social and environmental costs associated with e-cargo bikes, expressed on a per-mile basis

amount of social impact caused by electric and diesel vans compared with e-cargo bikes

Organisations urged to consider older and / or disabled workers

by Herpreet Kaur Grewal

It is becoming clear that businesses must do more to accommodate workers over the age of 50 to successfully manage their way through a challenging economic climate and to tackle current labour shortages.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that many over the age of 50 took the opportunity to step away from the workforce during the pandemic. Over-50s saw the most significant increase of inactive people among all age groups since the start of the pandemic. The number of people aged 50 to 70 who moved from economic activity to inactivity between the second and third quarters of 2021 was 87,000 higher than in the same period in 2019.

Parallel to this, the UK unemployment rate sits at a very low 3.7%, and job vacancies continue to go unfilled. Such circumstances present a clear need not only to manage existing resources effectively and expand the workforce, but to entice early retirees back to work.

Despite all of the above, recent research from the Chartered Management Institute suggests that businesses are less open to hiring older workers than they are younger prospective employees. Of 1,000 people managers working in UK businesses and public services, just four in 10 said they were “to a large extent” open to hiring people aged between 50 and 64.

Seasoned employees

Liam McNeill, vice-president, EMEA at UKG, said: “With so many businesses struggling to recruit enough workers to plug gaps in their teams, it’s vital that people managers show an openness to welcoming more seasoned employees back into the workplace. The UK is fast approaching recession, business leaders must assess their current workforce –which are largely Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X – and look to empower employees and managers as part of their retention strategies.”

McNeill added: “Across all industries, we’ve seen that workers over 50 years of age have left the workforce en masse. To combat this, HR leaders must carefully consider the diverse needs of their employees and cater to the varying approaches to work and life. This includes allowing your people to manage their

schedules and easily communicate with managers and teammates to better meet work-life balance via technology – something we like to call life-work technology – which contributes to a better employee experience and boosts the overall engagement at your organisation.”

Research by the Learning and Work Institute (L&W) shows that the number of people not working and not looking for a job has increased by around 600,000 during the pandemic, growing Britain’s so-called economically inactive group to nine million working-age people.

UK is the worst G7 country affected

The research found that the UK had seen the biggest rise in people leaving the labour force in G7 countries through the pandemic, leaving employers short of workers. L&W said that this is part of a long-term demographic crunch as the baby boomer generation retires, and there is a class and gender divide between those who can afford not to work and those who are unable to without much more support.

Better-paid and male-dominated roles like managers and directors, IT professionals and other professional roles account for around one in three people who took early retirement.

By contrast, people from lower-paid, traditionally female-dominated roles were more likely to give up work for health reasons. Housekeeping; caring personal services; cleaning; and other elementary services occupations account for over a quarter of such moves.

There has also been a sharp rise in the number of people with long-term sickness, reflecting a rise in ill health in the population, the impacts of the pandemic, plus lengthy NHS waiting lists. In addition, there are huge geographic variations: the proportion of working-age people economically inactive because of

long-term sickness varies from one in 100 in parts of Surrey to one in seven in parts of Merseyside.

Targeted help

By the 2040s, there will only be 2.3 people of working age for every person above state pension age – down from 3.5 in the 2010s. Expanding the workforce by helping more people with health

conditions and caring responsibilities to work will be key to avoiding labour shortages over the coming decades. Employers will also have to overcome any ageism to make sure that they can employ the best people for their roles.

Stephen Evans, chief executive at the Learning and Work Institute, said: “The rise in economic inactivity has contributed to labour shortages, but it is the bigger demographic crunch of an ageing population that we should focus on most. There are 1.7 million outside the workforce who say they want to work, but only one in 10 are getting help to find work. Our analysis also points to an important diversity and potential inequality between those unable to work due to health or caring responsibilities; those who don’t need to work with people in better paid roles more likely to have retired early; and those who need help to work.

“We need to see a fresh approach from government and employers to ease the current situation and prepare for the demographic changes ahead. That means targeted help for anyone who wants to find a job, investing in childcare and health services, and tackling ageism across our society.”

EMPLOYMENT STATISTICS BRITAIN’S INACTIVITY PROBLEM

9m

The number of Britain’s economically inactive working-age people (Learning and Work Institute)

1.7m

People want to work, but only one in 10 get help finding it (Learning and Work Institute)

87,000

The increase in people aged 50 to 70 who moved from economic activity to inactivity between Q2 and Q3 in 2021 from 2019 (ONS)

40%

Only four in 10 managers working in UK businesses are open to hiring people aged 50-64 (Chartered Management Institute)

3.7%

This current and very low UK unemployment rate means that inactive workers need to be enticed back into the workforce (ONS)

Across all industries, we’ve seen that workers over 50 years of age have left the workforce en masse

NEWS IN NUMBERS

82%

The percentage rise in their energy bills – when the government’s support is reduced in April –that hospitality businesses are factoring into their Q2 costs, according to a hospitality sector survey.

85%

Percentage of companies that, despite now having net-zero strategies, are failing to incorporate them into their daily business operations. Just 41% of operations managers have seen sustainability strategies produce ‘significant changes’ in daily practices, while 32% say their firms do not align with science-based emissions targets.

£6BN

Amount of money promised by the government that the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has urged be brought forward from its originally specified 2025 date to help building owners cut energy use by 15% compared with current levels.

1,161,000

Date by which the cost-of-living crisis and increase in wages because labour shortages could result in maintenance costs rising by 15.4% in a market forecast set out by The Building Cost Information Service. Fresh post-Covid standards will also see cleaning costs rise 28.5% over the same period.

55

Age after which an applicant’s chances of employment drop significantly. It’s why ISS has signed the Age-Friendly Employer Pledge, recently introduced by the nonprofit organisation Centre for Ageing Better, to help employers recognise the skills and experience of older workers.

1/5 TH

Percentage of employers, according to the Institute of Employment Studies, that do not hire young people in the 22-25 age group. Twofifths who do not hire from the 18-21 age group and two-thirds do not hire from the 16-17 group.

35%

Percentage of managers in Oscar Acoustics’ research “ignorant of UK laws established to safeguard employees from tumultuous noise” 93% of office managers were unaware that unrestricted exposure could lead to heart attacks, strokes, heart disease and diabetes.

1/3

Job vacancies in October to December 2022, according to the Office for National Statistics. UKHospitality’s Kate Nicholls said the figures “reinforce the challenging recruitment landscape hospitality businesses are facing, with vacancy rates still 63% higher than prepandemic levels”.

Percentage of British adults who worked remotely in 2022, according to personal finance firm Finder.

The 37% of British adults who worked remotely last year is equivalent to around 20 million people

assessment of safety case reports, which, in turn, require far more information.

Based on the autumn consultations from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, we know a fair bit about what data to collect for the golden thread and safety case. The real difficulty lies with the practical implications of that, which everyone is trying to work through:

● How many of the different safety management systems need to be included?

● What does ‘digital’ actually mean and how do we all achieve interoperability?

● How much time does it take to collect this information?

● What does this mean for resources and what competence does it need?

It’s all about building safety

On the same day as the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 came into force, the government put forward the Higher-Risk Buildings (Key Building Information etc.) Regulations 2023 to Parliament for approval. And none too late, as people must start registering their Higher Risk Residential Buildings (including student accommodation over 18 metres) from April to meet the October 2023 deadline.

The regulations set out the high-level information that the principal accountable person – responsible for the repair of the structure and exterior of the building – must provide to the Building Safety Regulator. It will not contain all the data required in either the golden thread or the registration application; we await details of what else needs to be submitted.

Key building information will enable the Building Safety Regulator to analyse trends and risks in high-rise residential buildings and effectively tranche the call-in and

This is why we’re talking about building safety again; not just because so much is happening in this space, but because what is happening from an information management perspective will have effects beyond the world of building safety. Seeking sustainability outcomes? Need to prove ESG? Optimising preventative maintenance? Productivity, anyone?

To get the principles right, we’re collaborating across the occupation phase. Within the Building Safety Alliance, we have a cross-industry team working on the information framework, ‘the List’, applying the principles of interoperability. This tool will inform what the safety case should be looking like. It is complemented by work in the Government Industry Interoperability Group, which is in the final stages of developing its Code of Practice on interoperability. And Nima, the new name for the UK Bim Alliance, is collaborating to work on the right data schema for fire safety information. Watch this space for future tools for use in the sector – residential or otherwise.

EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION FOCUS GROUP

secondary legislation is expected around February

KEY CONTACTS

Sofie Hooper Head of Policy

● 2023 will build our support for colleagues with inclusion, diversity and equity by greater collaboration with other groups

BUILDING SAFETY ACT

● Building registrations need to be complete by October 2023 for all higherrisk residential buildings;

BUILDING SAFETY ALLIANCE

● The golden thread SIG is working on a framework tool for capturing the golden thread and its underpinning principles

SCOPE 3 EMISSIONS GUIDANCE PROJECT

● The SFMI standardised

scope 3 emissions rating project is hosting a series of webinars in spring/summer

DRAFT HIGHER-RISK BUILDINGS (KEY BUILDING INFORMATION ETC.)

REGULATIONS 2023

● These contain additional information requirements when registering a higherrisk residential building, from 6th April 2023.

SOCIAL VALUE FRAMEWORK

● IWFM and the National Social Value Taskforce are updating the FM plug-in framework to optimise FM’s contribution to social value

GET INVOLVED

● Our policy work is informed by members’ priorities.

Share your views at: policy@iwfm.org.uk

Higher-risk building registration kicks off in April, implementing the biggest change in decades for building safety in the occupation phase

IMAGE: ISTOCK

CONVERSION EQUATIONS

ILLUSTRATIONS: BATCH (FOLIO ART)

If post-pandemic changes to work patterns mean an office building is only fully occupied on three days of the working week, does that mean the place concerned only needs three-fifths of an FM? And if occupancy is down like that in the long term, does the lessor need less office space?

In turn, can a local planning authority expect a slump in applications to build office blocks, leading to a fading of the ecosystem of shops, cafés and bars that support a commuter-based office economy as the number of customers falls, followed by a general depression in urban centres?

Many extravagant forecasts were made during the pandemic of emptying offices and cities as working

at home became the norm. What has happened might be described as a change more radical than those committed to the traditional office work model wanted – but also less disruptive than the evangelists for homeworking predicted.

For FMs now seeing offices that are less busy than pre-pandemic – at least on some days – this has meant a change in thinking, from servicing places that employees are required to attend to servicing places they can choose to attend or not. What goes on within these offices – who is in them, when, and what they will thus demand from FMs – is in a state of flux. Although demand for office space looks unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels, the

One remedy to what some now see as a long-term shift in city centre business district occupancy is the repurposing – or even razing and rebuilding – of former office space for residential or other uses. Environmental concerns, a mixed picture of future demand and a flight to workplace quality are factors influencing the calculations, as Mark Smulian reports

traditional urban centre business district, with the office space it contains, looks to have life in it yet.

Simon Venn, managing director of technical services and chief government and strategy officer at Mitie, says: “With the transition to hybrid working, the use of city centre workspaces is changing. For many people, the biggest barrier is the journey and whether they feel a day in the office is worth the time, effort, and expense it takes to travel in. Therefore, the holy grail for FMs is to create commute-worthy workplaces.”

The pandemic period of 2020 to 2021 saw a noticeable shift in firms initially adopting, or further leaning into, the analysis of space use, with increased public interest in wellbeing sparking new forms of output. The jury is still out on the value of this.

“On modern, data-driven sites, part of this work is in adapting spaces to improve accessibility,” Venn says. “For example, we are able to provide supportive working conditions for neurodiverse colleagues by using technology to monitor and alter the temperature, lighting and humidity to a level that is more comfortable for them.”

Many are turning now lesser-used parts of a building into different ‘zones’ to suit different employee groups: quiet areas for when colleagues need to take time out from a noisy office floor; areas with additional stimuli, such as artwork or music; and larger communal areas for colleagues to come together. Venn adds that a new approach to usage data is key to the decisions organisations take with their space. Should an occupier that is experiencing peak employee demand for working space on a Wednesday let that space lie idle on a Friday, or instead lease only a ‘Friday’ amount of space and just hope everyone can fit in on Wednesdays?

“Naturally, on days that are busier in the office there will be a higher demand for space, which is where technology and data is so key,” Venn says. “The FM industry is continuously introducing technologies [contemporary room and desk booking apps] that are changing the way facilities professionals are managing spaces.”

But for some, the installation of sensors to gather footfall and occupancy data is a novel concept, as is adapting the space in line with what the figures tells them. This can allow a rethink on energy efficiency priorities, for example, through reducing

access to some areas on quieter days, or scheduling maintenance works on days with the lowest footfall.

An asynchronous effect

Consultant and IWFM awards judge Mike Packham largely agrees with future projections on city centre office use and its effects on the profession.

He says: “Even before the pandemic there was an increasing trend towards working from home and Covid-19 brought that forward as people discovered they could work from home. Offices now are busy from Tuesdays to Thursdays but not on Mondays and Fridays. What this means for FM is really quite profound; if you were set up for five-day working and its now only really three, you have two spare days.”

The issue of crowded Tuesdays to Thursdays – with over-subscribed desk or meeting room bookings –only to then have Mondays and Fridays in which users can pick and choose at their leisure, creates difficulty for FM,” says Packham.

CITY OF LONDON CAPITAL GAINS

Judging by the City of London Corporation’s demand for offices, it’s as if the pandemic never happened.

Shravan Joshi, chairman of its planning and transportation committee, says: “While clearly the pandemic has changed the world of work, we received more planning applications last year than in the previous two years and we have proposals for 10 tall buildings either at application or pre-application stage.

“The high number of applications shows that demand for City office space is very strong post-Covid. International investors remain confident that the City’s office market will remain resilient in the face of challenging economic headwinds.”

Joshi says Central London quarterly office take-up “has now returned to the pre-pandemic average, sustained by factors including pent-up demand from the Covid period and significant pre-letting of new developments”.

But the City has seen a glut of second-hand space coming

on the market, which has led to vacancy at around 11%.

As workers return, “the City has regained its old buzz over the last year [and] we are up to 80% of pre-pandemic levels of footfall”, says Joshi.

Experiential offices

The main demand is for quality, sustainable, techenabled offices and bespoke ‘experiential’ offices, says Joshi. To the immediate east, Canary Wharf in London’s Docklands was able to let more than 415,000 square feet of office space in 2022 and signed 20 new office leases – pointing to a successful year for office leasing, with further momentum expected in 2023.

Katie Oliphant, Canary Wharf’s managing director for offices, boasts of her organisation having overseen the area’s “transformation… into one of the UK’s most sustainable, mixed-use neighbourhoods, offering an extraordinary environment to all those who work, live and visit the estate.”

“People who are downsizing are not necessarily going for 40 to 50% less space, it’s more like 10 to 20%”

More broadly, the footprints of central business districts may well shrink as people decline the longer commute in favour of travelling short distances to suburban office locations, which could grow as a result, Packham says. But as of 2023, this remains theoretical.

Ian Fletcher, director of policy at the British Property Federation, which represents office building owners, says any decline in business in central business districts has not yet happened. Although it might appear obvious at first that fewer people in an office means less space is needed, Fletcher says: “That’s not what seems to be happening so far. What we’re seeing is that people who are downsizing are not necessarily going for 40 to 50% less space than they’ve got at the moment, it’s more like 10 to 20% with the make-up and layout very different. There’s a lot more collaboration space, open space, amenity space.”

A CHANGING LANDSCAPE?

8.4%

Percentage of offices in London that are currently unoccupied, according to CBRE, compared to the long-term average of circa 5%.

15.3%

Reduction in City of London rental values over the past six months

(SOURCE: MSCI)

5 x

Expected increase in science laboratories in London between 2020 and 2023 – mostly the result of office conversions

62%

Workers who either have the full choice over whether to use the office or have that decision made by local team management

(SOURCE: LEESMAN)

Hybrid working “ultimately means that we need less office space than we used to, but the more interesting thing is that it is going to be differently configured”, Fletcher says.

Meanwhile, property consultancy Savills says that, if anything, in some areas the story is about the need for more, not less space. It reports two prime office locations – the City of London and Canary Wharf –currently boasting of expansion (see box).

Savills’ January 2023 Market in Minutes assessment confirms the impact of agile working with the need for offices in the large regional cities last year down 8% on the five-year average, but still up year on year.

In central London, Savills reports office take-up as being 13% up on 2022, which puts it exactly in line with the 10-year average. These were not, however, all new lettings; the company noted a short-term surge in organisations choosing to improve the working environment they offer by upgrading the environmental rating of their building sooner than they might have normally done, so leading to increased use of break clauses and changes of occupant on lease expiry.

According to Savills, there is a “new normal” for office leasing volumes, “but the sector is far from in

CARBON AND CAPACITY CONUNDRUMS

Transforming unwanted office space into residential use as a solution to redundant buildings is not without its issues

HSBC’s decision to vacate its London headquarters for a new location using 40% less space is an interesting recent development. Days prior to the story breaking, workplace consultant Tim Oldman – whose organisation Leesman measures and analyses the experiences of employees in their places of work – had warned of a similar 40% reduction in office space demand overall, based on figures from his firm’s ongoing analysis. “Big change is about to happen.” he said, noting that 40% fewer people in offices would mean a equal reduction of office space.

Oldman described the workplace and facilities management profession as being “on the edge of a cliff” because commercial office space is slowly becoming

obsolete, and “that means a lot of real estate is sloshing around in the marketplace”.

Workplace consultant Andrew Mawson of Advanced Workplace Associates says the bank’s highprofile move reflects what his organisation has been observing – and that the move is “only just the beginning”.

Mawson explains: “We think supply will eventually double, and demand will halve. That means you’ll have about four times more space than is needed. Governments may need to prime the pump to turn offices into residential units and other uses.”

In New York, according to recent reports in The Economist, America’s biggest-ever office-to-residential conversion is currently taking place. A 1.1 million square foot skyscraper

is being transformed into no fewer than 1,300 apartments of varying sizes. Amenities will include a spa, basketball courts, entertainment lounges and – crucially, in our new hybrid world – co-working spaces.

“It will be interesting to see if there’s enough cash for similar office conversions to residential in the UK,” Mawson says. “It will definitely be a buyer’s market. Occupiers with leases expiring over the next two or three years should not be hoodwinked by the agents and landlords into thinking that it’s a tight market because rents must now fall.”

There are, however, many technical challenges involved in these types of conversions more generally, and the cost of doing so with a former office building can outweigh the cost of constructing an entirely new one.

“Some conversion to residential will happen,” believes British Property Federation’ Fletcher. “But it can be quite technically difficult. Also, office to residential conversion has a

bit of a bad reputation because of some of the frankly quite poor developments that happened about 10 years or so ago, when permitted development (PD) rights were first introduced.”

It is, indeed, the case that pre-pandemic PD rights allowed some highly publicised, poorquality retrofits of office blocks for residential purposes. Today there is more caution, with the Home Builders Federation citing space standards, aesthetics and the provision of amenity space as limiting the potential for wholesale conversion of business office districts into residential ones. The residential demand for natural light, higher-quality ventilation and more sophisticated plumbing can be insuperable challenges for some budgets.

All of which means that, for some, the preferred remedy is the bulldozer: knock the unwanted offices down and replace them with homes. However, the costs involved when considering this approach are not what they once were. A

crisis”, with office take up having nudged seven and a half million square feet in 2018, falling to just over four million square feet in 2020 and recovering last year towards six million square feet.

War for talent

Fletcher says that the situation varies outside London. “In smaller cities like Oxford and Bristol, they have relatively higher occupancy levels because it’s easier to get into the office. Larger cities like Manchester and Birmingham, where it takes longer to get into the centre, have lower levels of occupation.”

Savills’ research suggests that although the overall total of office space taken in cities varied dramatically between its 2018 peak and 2020 slump, with a period of recovery, the share taken by each major market remained roughly the same. Manchester stayed in second place behind London followed by Birmingham, Leeds and Bristol. Prime yields – the ratio of rent income to the cost of buying a property – was up over the year to January 2023 from 3.25% to 4% in London’s West End, 3.75% to 4.5% in the City of London and 4.75% to 6% for provincial locations, rising to 6.25% in the South East.

Neil Pennell, chair of the technical affairs committee at British Council for Offices, has been

thinking about the kinds of city offices in which people would hope to work. As much as business districts may change in character as residential adaptation brings in fresh retail and leisure facilities, employee demands and the war for talent is likely to see existing office-based businesses stay put, internalising some of this demand themselves in the form of gyms and so on.

“To attract and retain top talent, employers need their offices to be a place where people choose to spend time; workplaces that offer a rounded experience combining food, leisure and work with incredible facilities inside the building will become more attractive,” Pennell says.

“Also, office owners and operators are increasingly aware of the importance of providing user-centric FM and the need to work much more closely with customers to ensure the highest environmental credentials are maintained at every stage in the building’s life cycle.”

key factor favouring conversion to residential rather than demolition and rebuild is the problem of the amount of embedded carbon involved in demolitions and primary construction, a topic currently rising up corporate agendas as businesses wrestle with their net zero aspirations.

Urban design specialist Chris Brown, managing director of consultancy Climatise, says local authorities are increasingly likely to encourage refit conversions with this in mind.

“I can see local authorities bringing carbon in [demolished buildings] into their carbon offset planning policies, which will favour the economics of building retention and also in having more general anti-demolition and pro-refurbishment policies,” Brown explains. “But a good rule of thumb is that if it isn’t viable to refurbish – at least if you catch the building as soon as it becomes vacant – it won’t be viable to build new, though the obverse isn’t always the case.”

There will be another matter for FMs to deal with, as building owners and the people who work in them pay ever greater attention to environmental issues.

Fletcher says: “This is coming from two or three angles. Firstly, although it’s not in legislation yet, everybody broadly expects that by 2030, commercial property will need EPC rating B if you’re going to let it, so if your property doesn’t meet that you’re not going to be allowed to let it, or not until you fix it.”

There is also pressure from occupiers demanding changes to accommodate hybrid working and companies wanting to meet their sustainability strategies, Fletcher says, while investors want to know they will not be faced with an office they cannot easily let because of sustainability shortcomings.

The business district office may be evolving, but it is not dying. Well built or retrofitted and environmentally sound office buildings are set to see increasing demand from occupiers as they ditch poorer quality space, with many main commercial centres likely to see rising yields and continued planning applications for office space.

“Offices now are busy from Tuesdays to Thursdays but not on Mondays and Fridays. What this means for FM is really quite profound”

One of the first thoughts a typical knowledge worker will wrestle with when asked to join a meeting in 2023 is this: which platform? Teams? Zoom? Google? And only then, perhaps: can I book a room in the office to take it? Workers have become accustomed in recent years to conducting or attending meetings in a mixture of home, office or third space environments. New residential spaces are even being designed with work meetings in mind with the provision of communal remote

working lounges for tenants.

What this means is that, for providers of offices and the existing meeting space market, the very purpose and physical make-up of these spaces is changing. Space dedicated to banks of desks is being scaled back in favour of more meeting rooms and collaborative open spaces.

Meeting disorder?

Data from Remit Consulting shows the national weekly average for UK office occupancy has steadily risen, with a pronounced upward curve in the middle of the week. But the great ‘return to the office’

MEETING EXPECTATIONS

Physical meetings and the space in which they are having to match up to new expectations born of organisers and attendees’ experiences in recent years, as Jamie Harris reports

is not as pronounced as public perception: offices are only 40% full from Tuesdays to Thursdays. Across the week, occupancy is at 34.3%, compared with 15% in early 2021.

“Let’s not romanticise 2019, though,” says June Koh, total workplace partner at Cushman & Wakefield. “Building occupancy has always been much lower than people thought. Pre-pandemic occupancy was only ever 60-80% for a variety of reasons, such as holidays, sickness and external meetings.”

Workers are going into their offices less frequently, and this reduced frequency has changed what they do when they

get there. Julie Ennis, CEO of corporate services at Sodexo UK & Ireland, believes that this change in rationale for going into the office should be woven into how the space is configured for meetings. Internal meetings between colleagues are increasing, particularly in a hybrid format with some physically present and others joining via video connections. Microsoft recently reported that the number of videoenabled Teams meetings each week has more than doubled globally for the average user since the start of the pandemic.

This rise is reflected in meeting room data across the UK. Richard Bostelmann,

an account manager for Anabas, oversees the offices of a creative agency client. Here, says Bostelmann, meeting spaces are now at 90-95% capacity across the week, apart from on Fridays.

Lewis Beck, head of workplace EMEA at property management agency CBRE explains that use of meeting rooms at the company’s headquarters is currently at 70%. “But at peak times it’s at 100%, as most meetings tend to occur between 10am and noon, and 2 and 4pm.”

Beck says CBRE clients are experiencing similar issues: “There is a lot of friction. It is hard to organise

coming into the office without any calls at all. Sitting in an open-plan office can get very noisy and frustrating.”

Louise Rushmer, workplace experience director at property management firm Cushman & Wakefield, says employees are expecting their workplaces to change, just as they too have had to change their homes to accommodate work in recent years. “They are expecting more space to take those meetings now. Otherwise, why come into the office at all?”

Ennis explains: “We have seen this trend with many of our clients, where the purpose is now of connecting and collaborating with colleagues. If you can design spaces around this purpose, you are more likely to see individuals wanting to return and use your workspace.”

Making ends meet

Many organisations have reacted to new hybrid realities by increasing meeting space volume, largely at the expense of individual workspaces and banks of desks. CBRE’s headquarters in London provide a useful indication of what is happening.

The proportion of space dedicated to desks has fallen from 65% to 32% of floor space. Meeting space has risen from 12% to 20%, while wider collaboration space – such as open-plan soft seating – has increased from 12% to 25%.

It is a similar story across the firm’s client base. CBRE has collated data on the building space it services, covering a headcount of 1.1 million. These spaces saw an 8% year-on-year increase in space dedicated to collaboration in 2022.

Adaptability of furniture, fixtures and fittings to allow for more meeting space when it is required has become a design requirement, says Beck.

“Flexibility in office space design is crucial. Being able to make changes relatively easily, without material change

in the building, allows you to continually adapt to how you’re working.”

This newly required versatility is a key consideration at one of Bostelmann’s agency clients, too. Here, there are at least two floors, previously furnished with banks of desks, which have been stripped out and turned into creative collaboration spaces that can be configured depending on meeting types, be it internal collaboration, pitches to external clients, or meetings with new business partners. “The single-person booths here are not as popular,” adds Bostelmann. “Perhaps that’s because it’s a more creative environment.”

Experts, however, warn against launching into significant changes to floorspace, even if it is more furniture-based than

“Let’s not romanticise 2019. Building occupancy has always been much lower than people thought”

structural, before gaining a full appreciation of its impact. Beck points to the acoustics of collaborative areas, which can create a lot of disruptive noise, particularly if the space is near individual work stations.

Ennis recommends refraining from enacting any suggested changes for at least three months. “Since most people find change challenging, you need to wait for any new behaviours and ways of working to settle in, rather than reacting in a knee-jerk manner.”

The cultural dimension

Businesses and employees alike are trying to replicate meeting practices newly established in the last few years. But how to calculate the right balance? There is a new cultural dimension, says Koh.

“Physical spaces haven’t caught up to hybrid working,” she says. “It’s still brick and mortar; it takes time to change. But neither has human behaviour caught up to the hybrid working environment. A lot of clients have experimented with more meeting pods, and they get brilliant feedback. But should they add more? Probably not. It doesn’t make sense to have 100 people come into your office every day to spend 80% of their time on calls in these pods. You run the risk of building 100 separate offices, or cubicles. You can’t just think about redesigning the space without changing behaviours or processes.”

The problem of matching meeting room demand to capacity has a strong behavioural component. Poor behaviour – such as booking a meeting room and then not using it, or booking a larger room than required – is commonplace, and at a managerial level, bloated calendars packed with recurring meetings instigated during the pandemic have remained, perhaps unnecessarily, in place.

These behavioural problems are nothing new. Workplace heads were fielding complaints about a lack of meeting room space way before the pandemic hit. Corporate real estate association CoreNet

published a report in 2014 about a global bank that suffered from remarkably similar problems: 33.2% of desks sat empty, 44% of meeting rooms were booked and not used, while 70% of meetings for one or two people were held in rooms for six to 10.

The wholly new component is hybrid, with the locations of any group of meeting participants, and the constantly changing mix of home and office attendees, exacerbating these existing meeting etiquette problems.

Ennis says video calls in a typical hybrid working day also fail to take into account one element that remote work had eradicated – the commute. Calls are often back-to-back, resulting in a dash to another meeting room, or spread to the edges of the working day. “This puts more pressure on the end employee,” she says.

Taking back control

Research from Harvard Business School suggests teams and organisations should conduct a meeting “audit” to strip back packed calendars, establishing how each one contributes to a team’s objectives – in other words, whether the meeting has a purpose.

Some firms are empowering employees to decline meetings; some have a blanket ban on scheduled meetings on a particular day. Others have banned the organising

of meetings above a certain level of attendees. When a meeting survives analysis of its value, organisations could encourage teams to meet in their collaborative spaces.

Beck says that to persuade people to have fewer meetings “you need your organisation to get better at distributed work.”

Collaborative technology already allows users to work on documents and projects in this manner, particularly useful across time zones, or when hybrid working locations are mixed. Explains Beck: “Asynchronous communication like this helps to reduce reliance on face-to-face communication and real-time engagement.”

Impact on FM provision

Of course, any change in meeting space use has an impact on how FM teams deliver services. Booking tech performs a central role here. As Beck explains: “You need to ensure it’s as easy as possible to book, and check into, a meeting room – and have the ability to release those bookings if no one turns up.”

Rushmer concurs: “Any booths added to your space need to be bookable in order to be effective. This is a vital part of FM service delivery.”

Ensuring meetings are held in the same part of the building when

not at full capacity makes both energy use and cleaning provision far more efficient, while sensor data linked to occupancy can also help to organise cleaning rosters.

Firms are also using ‘heat mapping’ to understand office worker movements via access control and other means to decipher whether reallocation of space from individual desks to collaborative meeting space would be beneficial. On-site FMs can also add some important additional nuance, with Koh describing FMs as their organisations “covert agents of change”, able “to observe and nudge behaviour”.

Bostelmann, meanwhile, warns of some of the pitfalls of technological reliance in meeting room space. “There’s some great technology out there, but it doesn’t always work for you. We trialled technology which took a snapshot of what a meeting room should look like. When the heat map noted that it was empty, it took another snapshot and highlighted chairs out of place, or a coffee stain on the carpet, and the sensor sent a report back to the help desk. There were two issues here: firstly, the snapshots of the room potentially contained confidential notes. Secondly, our meetings are so busy that we would get a report every time.”

Instead, Bostelmann uses his logistics team, known as ‘floor captains’, who patrol the space. They will ‘reset’ meeting rooms back to a minimum standard.

“That, in turn, drives subliminal behavioural improvements,” says Bostelmann, explaining that if a room’s occupant sees a dirty coffee cup on the side, they are more likely to add to that collection of crockery.

Front-facing

Perhaps the biggest impact on FM service delivery is with front-of-house. Lorna Landells, real estate consultant at Remit Consulting says that post-pandemic, businesses and individuals are more confident about holding meetings with external guests, customers and clients –but their expectations in managing this experience have changed.

For Beck, the issue is one of client comfort. “We have put a big emphasis on having a concierge and a very client-facing aspect to our building, encouraging our

clients to come and spend time working in our building,” he explains.

Bostelmann has also seen a steady increase in visitors. “We get fewer of the one-to-one meetings, but significantly more larger meetings on-site.”

An influx of external visitors to use meeting space could be a taste of the future, as organisations begin to move away from traditional, individual workspaces, in favour of more meeting and collaboration spaces.

Reports vary, but a survey of more than 250 businesses across London and the

South East by real estate consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton indicated last year that firms were looking at reducing their office space by 20% or more. HSBC, for example, has already reduced the space it occupies in its Canary Wharf Tower by 25%, and recent reports show that the global bank is now seeking to relocate its London headquarters to a building less than half the size of its current headquarters.

It’s a shift that meeting space providers are seeking to exploit. American company Convene acquired UK provider Etc in February in a circa £200 million deal because Convene believes “the future of the workplaces is a meeting space”.

For Rushmer, the lesson for FM is the need for it to become a more human-centric, visible service. “We are now focused on the internal and external customer journey,” he says. “It has become important to remove any pain points that impact people negatively. High-quality service is key.”

As they have become accustomed to in recent times, workplace leaders need to be ready and willing to learn and adapt as workplace practices evolve. The easiest way to do that? Have a meeting about it.

“They are expecting more space to take those meetings now. Otherwise, why come into the office at all?”

System

designed by FM professionals with extensive experience of managing the maintenance of some of the UK’s largest blue-chip companies. Ostara was developed to improve the quality of your FM/maintenance activity, improve financial controls, reduce costs and ensure that your buildings are compliant and safe.

Helpdesk and work order management

PPM planning tool

Contractor performance management

Invoice validation and financial management

Auditing

Compliance and health and safety

Extensive Reporting Suite with real time reporting

Mobile App with offline functionality

Asset Management

Internal resource management

The Ostara system is intentionally flexible acknowledging that no two clients have the same requirements. Ostara prides itself on being a market leader in innovation and customer service.

SCOPING MECHANISM

Catering

Couriers

A curtain has risen on an opportunity for FMs to conduct their organisation’s multifaceted orchestra of supply chain providers, thereby playing a lead role in Net Zero strategies and having a controlling influence over indirect emissions covered under the GreenHouse Gas Protocol’s Scope 3. Martin Read reports

How an organisation calculates and reports its Scope 3 emissions could be about to offer up a defining moment for facilities management. Easily the most challenging of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s three emissions streams, Scope 3 covers indirect emissions created by a company’s supply chain, be they upstream or downstream. The key is that these are emissions not produced by the organisation itself but are made by contracting organisations on the original organisation’s behalf as part of their contracted activity. This makes the contracting organisation indirectly responsible for them. Alas, the measurement and reporting of these emissions is fiendishly complicated.

The problem is a deceptively simple one: for many if not most organisations, the Scope 3 emissions for which they are responsible will be typically a higher proportion of their total emissions than those covered in either Scope 1 or 2. David Picton, who is senior vice-president, ESG and sustainability with EcoOnline Global, told Facilitate that Scope 3 emissions “can be up to 10 or 11 times more than the carbon footprint from direct emissions”. But for Scope 3, where does one form of emission end and another begin? There are so many facets to the supply chain.

“Take the example of an organisation in the entertainment sector,” explains Sunil Shah, director of Acclaro Consultancy, former IWFM Sustainability SIG chair and

a key player in the project to develop a Scope 3 FM standard.

“It’s an organisation operating a venue where people go to events. Do you include the emissions that are associated with the general public coming to your site for events activities, or do you not? Such an organisation may say that it has very low emissions because it doesn’t include all of the emissions involved in people travelling to an event. But if you do include it, your admissions are a lot higher.”

“Or how about charging an electric company vehicle from home. Where do those emissions sit? Because actually, it’s your home electricity.”

These overlaps abound, and the minutiae over which supplier operates which form of GHG emitting activity on your organisation’s behalf are legion.

“We’re still in the territory of not being able to compare like for like,” says Shah, “because you can artificially distort what your emissions are by not choosing to include certain things. Allocation of these kinds of emissions needs to be determined so that we have consistency in how they are reported.”

Shah says what’s needed to introduce consistency of reporting is a framework that allows for organisations to declare whether they are including such emissions in their calculations; one that becomes sufficiently embedded within the sector that it allows for benchmarking of service that the market for service provision can broadly accept. But is this even possible? Well, in recent

IMAGE: ISTOCK, SHUTTERSTOCK

years, we have seen something we can offer as a comparable flurry of activity around government legislation and its fallout: with social value, the National TOMs Framework, which started out as a solution for the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, has since evolved into a social value measurement standard with a now well-used module designed specifically for FM. The plan is for a Scope 3 emissions standard that is similarly accepted by all, or at least the vast majority, of market players.

Pushing for boundaries

“One of the key things we have to do for the Scope 3 project is to seek out boundaries for the services we provide,” says Shah. “How do we account for the vehicles a contractor uses for multiple contracts, for example? Where should those documented emissions reside?”

BAM FM’s strategic development director, Reid Cunningham, whose firm is one of several construction and FM providers that are part of the project group behind the nascent Scope 3 standard for FM, talks of a newly identifiable suite of Scope 3 emissions becoming a critical part of future service procurement criteria, incentivising the totality of the facilities service supply chain in a virtuous loop of emissions reduction activity.

“Only when organisations are tracking such emissions and engaging with suppliers to cut carbon can they genuinely claim to be tackling their climate change impacts,” says Alcumus’s Picton. “Otherwise, they could be accused of greenwashing or failing to properly account for their carbon footprints. It is time consuming and expensive, but it is starting to become part of the right to do business.”

In general, service providers are

responding (see box), but as ever they can be constrained in their ability to effect change by the attitude of a client, or the basic contractual arithmetic which forms the basis of their relationship. The sense is that a wave of change has already been triggered by the setting of the 2050 Net Zero target, and with it the competitive response from many firms to achieve their own net zero ambitions ahead of time.

Already, some publicly listed property management firms are noting a spike in Scope 3 emissions, with CBRE forced to explain that the rise published in its market report was in no small part down to the better availability year on year of data, allowing for the replacement of estimates with evidence.

Scope 1 and 2 data is relatively easy to source, but with Scope 3 emissions through the supply chain being typically accepted as the majority – and sometimes vast majorityof an organisation’s total emissions, the sense is of a pendulum swinging.

Yet while the focus from those seeking to measure has shifted, Sunil Shah says that organisations need a better incentive to report their Scope 3s.

The government’s procurement rules, through its Procurement Policy Note 06/21 (PPN 06/21), oblige organisations it trades with to have in place a Carbon reduction plan that details their baseline emissions figures and the steps being taken towards Net Zero. Scope 1 and 2 emissions are detailed in these plans, but for Shah too few Scope 3 elements are obligatory, with the plan not obliged to include an organisation’s emissions from purchased goods or from its ‘captive audience’.

“The two biggest areas of carbon impact for a lot of organisations are not included in what the government has put forward as the carbon reduction plan,” says Shah.

EMISSION CONTROL THE ABC OF SCOPES 1, 2 AND 3

The internationally accepted Greenhouse Gas Protocol, from which the three emissions scopes are taken, breaks an organisation’s emissions down into the following:

Scope 1: Direct emissions from the resources that an organisation owns and controls itself.

Scope 2: Indirect emissions from the energy purchased from a supplier.

Scope 3: All other forms of indirect emissions created by a company’s supply chain, whether that be upstream or downstream. The key is that these are emissions not produced by the organisation itself, but are made by third party providers on behalf of that organisation as part of contracted activity, which makes the contracting organisation indirectly responsible for them.

“So what a lot of companies are doing is producing their plan in line with the government’s PPN 06/21, and then saying we don’t have to engage with our supply chain because it’s not part of the PPN 06/21 requirements.

“That’s our biggest challenge; a sector that isn’t necessarily engaged because all this is complex and difficult to do. And who’s telling them they have, amongst all the other things going on in the world?”

SFMI’s Scope 3 Emissions in FM project

Speaking of evidence, SFMI is an industry initiative run by Acclaro Advisory, Shah’s consultancy business. It’s under the SFMI banner that the Scope 3 standard project is being conducted. Last September, the project’s second stage commenced with the SFMI-badged

“How do we account for the vehicles a contractor uses for multiple contracts, for example?”

. Meet Paul.

Paul crawled underneath patients’ beds in an infectious ward to clear a blocked stack. Without this, the ventilators would have stopped, leaving patients without life-saving equipment.

Drainage, pumps, tankers and plumbing. Find out more: www.metrorod.co.uk

Most people would run away, we’re not most people

project stakeholders embarking on the extraordinary task of developing modules of emissions output that can be ascribed to specific facilities service operations. SFMI is working on a carbon tool for the sector which it hopes to launch later this year and deliver to the wider world in 2024.

IWFM’s head of policy Sofie Hooper says that the institute is fully behind this initiative. She describes IWFM members as being on the carbon reduction frontline, making this a particular critical project.

“Our members are critical to the decarbonisation of the built environment in the operation phase, but the lack of an industry-wide Scope 3 Framework has been a major barrier to driving down carbon emissions,” she says. “SFMI’s Scope 3 Framework tool is therefore much needed; not just to help carbon reductions, but also to show to the world, through the data collected, the importance of the operation phase and its considerable impact on climate change.’

IWFM has played a key role in supporting the tool’s development, being part of a project board that aims to ensure the tool is fit for purpose and gains industry acceptance when it is released.

When it is first published, the SFMI Scope 3 standard won’t be a fixed document, says Shah. It will change and develop as the sector matures and forms of data capture improves the robustness of data from the supply chain and customer

engagement. At the moment, “we don’t have the level of data to allow for those specifics to be brought in.”

3 AND UNEASY

Shah also sees the SFMI project, and the resulting standard, as complementary rather than competitive with other FM standards. “The BSI has given us the 41000 series [of FM standards] and that has hugely standardised the language we use. For me, the two of them should work together nicely. With both we are talking about the language of services provided, the optimisation of those services and how we deliver them.

The Scope 3 opportunity

90%

focused on cost and efficiency. Now, it’s about risk and the reporting that quantifies it. that has significant connotations

What’s tantalising is that Scope 3 can potentially address the classic FM complaint that operational evidence is rarely included in design considerations.

Says Shah:

PROVIDERS’ PLANS

SERVICE

All of this is no small ask for a sector that continues to be challenged by issues such as a lack of skilled employees and client organisations slow to recognise what their FM operations can achieve. But the world is certainly changing. In the past, supply chain conversations have been primarily

WHERE THERE’S SCOPE THERE’S LIFE

Most facilities service providers and property management companies have announced plans to address their Scope 3 emissions. For example:

ISS has committed to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions within scope 1 and 2 by 2030, achieving ‘full-scope’ net zero emissions by 2040.

Sodexo says that its carbon reduction plan has it on track to be carbon neutral for Scopes 1 and 2 by 2025. It has a further target to decarbonise its

entire business, including a massive 90% reduction in Scope 3 emissions from its supply chain and client sites –but this ambitious objective will, it says, take until 2045 to complete.

(“It’s complex stuff.”)

CBRE says that it wants to cut emissions from the facilities and properties it manages for occupiers – the bulk of the company’s Scope 3 emissions – by 79% per sq ft by 2035. For spaces it manages for investors, it wants emissions down by two-thirds over that same time frame.

“Because a lot of emissions from FM occur downstream–type and size of equipment, how the equipment is run, etc. – they can all be managed differently to reduce operational emissions from FM. So if we can show that, say, 50% of FM emissions happen because of how the building was set up, we’ve got a conversation to be fed back at the front end of the process about how we deliver better buildings”.

For Hooper, “FMs and supply chains play a critical role in the decarbonisation pathway. They need to take proactive control of their supply chains. As FMs, we need to educate and challenge ourselves and our supply chain, and, crucially, be innovative in how we engage in the activity and formulate solutions.”

What FMs can’t do, she says, is think that they cannot effect change. “Too many may wish to sit back, saying ‘we’re tied into our contract’ – but this sector’s professionals have such a great reach, both strategically and through their day to day work, to really make the difference.

There’s a CPD aspect, too: the IWFM’s professional standards have seen the competence requirements in the area of sustainability expanded.

Increasingly it seems as if FM will be ideally placed, through its various organisational touch points, to influence and take control of overall emissions. It’s a prize the developers of the SFMI Scope 3 tool believe is well worth attaining.

Get involved: SFMI Scope 3 Scope 3 data for FM project: tinyurl.com/Fac030423-Scope3

SCALE OF THE CHALLENGE

Total emissions bracketed as Scope 3 for some forms of organisation.

Controller for building automation

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VIEW POINT

Where are we now?

AI has been prevalent in the security sector for a while now, but at varying complexities. Typical AI solutions provide easy and automatic access to data, information and reports. The key development revolutionising the use of AI is Machine Learning (ML). ML processes the analysed data and learns to improve the process every time or draw conclusions from it, such as:

● Identifying irregularities and risks;

● Identifying events that may be precursors to potential incidents;

● Provide insight to improve procedures and efficiency;

● Reduce errors;

● Collate detailed reports from disparate information sources; and

● Remove repetitive and bureaucratic tasks that allow colleagues to focus more.

Where do we need to go next?

AI is building a vast data mine. AI and ML will predict incidents before they occur, and automate processes to prevent incidents from occurring; for example, preventing a door being opened if a potential tailgater is present. Ultimately, as more facilities feed data into centralised systems, the fast learning and speedy response of the ML will see incidents prevented, crime reduced by deterring criminals, and

Securing the data mine

Artificial intelligence and machine learning technology are valuable tools for security providers, says Neil

Shanks

security shift to a preventative, proactive service as opposed to reactive.

How do we get there?

Education is required for the security industry and wider business community to be aware of the power and benefits that AI and MLenabled data analysis and profiling can bring. Data we are already collecting is forming new lines of service in security and seeing an increase in the engagement between the public and security. An example would be asking clients and customers to engage directly with the technology, such as registering their users and visitors details on an app that gives them basic access control through

their mobile phone when they arrive on site (for example, at a car park barrier), produce a visitors pass for them, and alert their host when they arrive. By integrating systems (security and non-security) or producing a combined data set, the collective data can be analysed to understand what is happening at the site better than any siloed system can.

AI has a significantly greater capacity to complete these tasks and, with the addition of ML and oversight from a controller identifying the key points, the system will continue to improve this function at pace.

For FM and security to take full advantage of AI and ML, a collaborative approach is required to assist with widespread adoption/ integration, including engaging technology suppliers, software experts, security industry bodies, and private companies. Every modernising step we take in the private security sector gives us greater ability to take preemptive action to mitigate harm, takes us closer to disbanding organised crime, reducing damage and theft, and increasing criminal convictions.

We highly expect AI and ML to be vital tools within Martyn’s Law when it launches this year, as it could be an invaluable tool for identifying risks associated with terrorism and preventing future attacks.

Kat Parsons, Wendy Sutherland, Sharon Slinger, Bianca Angelico

NEIL SHANKS, director of Corps Consult – a division of Corps Security

My son Rowan is 13: creative, meticulous and fervently curious. He absorbs knowledge as readily as he divulges it. Yet he’s also – despite the above – nervous about his future employment prospects.

Rowan prospers when his organisation is rigorous, his biorhythms respected and his environments quiet and composed.

Rowan is a neurodiverse teen and the looming threat of his first job –loud, unpredictable, relentless – feels like an assault on his sensibilities. His perceptions of employment, witnessed vicariously through his mum, are of being beholden to a desk, uninvited phones ringing, last-minute demands buzzing around in his head like mosquitoes – too many uncomfortable stimuli.

Neurodivergence can be debilitating because the world isn’t set up for the divergent. Fortunately, our generation has made neurodiversity a part of the public conscience; we’re more sensitive to and aware of the broad spectrum that is autism, and many of us are realising our lifelong struggles with ADHD.

People are recognising that divergences, while complex, are not barriers

to success. ADHD can be overstimulating, but the ADHD mind experiences hyperfocus and rewards more intensely than the average mind. We have a responsibility to make work rewarding for those that experience the working world so differently from us.

Awareness is one side of the coin; action and accommodation are our next steps. Part of my work at ISS has been within our Abilities ERG, providing awareness and support recommendations for those with disabilities or recognised neurodivergences.

Abilities are a wide spectrum without binary answers or solutions. A truly inclusive workforce can only manifest when we draw on experiences of those with differing abilities. As a society, we’re no longer afraid of that conversation. As a business, we’re not afraid of that commitment either.

My, how things have changed over the last few years – particularly in our working lives. In 2015, I wrote about how contract caterers were replicating high street trends to bring innovation to their food offering, but in the postCovid world there is a new dynamic at play.

The high street is facing its own challenges, with customers demanding value for money as belts tighten, even while expecting a rise in quality and variety. This is also being felt in the food service sector, but the role that food and beverages play in the workplace has swung on its axis.

Workplace feeding has risen in importance as organisations encourage teams to the workplace – if only for a few days a week. Food service providers are creating flexible propositions requiring fewer catering staff and smaller facilities to deliver. Arguably, this follows the high street model, with centralised production kitchens and the use of supplier innovation.

The step change for food service providers, however, is that the high street has become a battleground with only the strongest surviving. Small operators struggle

to overcome the economic blows of staff shortages, rising wages, crippling food and energy inflation, and less footfall as people work from home. This means agile new operators aren’t in sufficient numbers to dilute large brands. On-site catering facilities are being appreciated in a way we haven’t seen for years. Because catering trends need to be reflected in the offering, high street mirroring already exists.

However, when people visit the office, they want to be surprised and energised by their organisation; simply replicating the high street won’t be enough. Which is why food service operators continue to keep abreast of what’s going on, remaining ready to evolve in preparation for the ‘next big thing’.

KAT PARSONS is head of diversity, inclusion and belonging UK & Ireland at ISS Facility Services UK

WENDY SUTHERLAND is managing director at Ramsay Todd Ltd

The role that food and beverages play in the workplace has swung on its axis

People are recognising that divergences, while complex,are not barriers to success

WENDY SUTHERLAND

THE HIGH STREET IS NOT ENOUGH

KAT PARSONS

AWARENESS, ACTION, ACCOMMODATION

THE PLEDGE

Is there an industry that has a bigger impact on society than facilities management? We are one of the biggest employers. We touch lives daily by keeping buildings functioning across public and private sectors.

We really do make a difference, which is why our focus on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) is so important. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we can do better.

Look at our frontline workers – we have a wonderfully diverse group of people of different ages, ethnicities, genders, speaking many different languages and expressing themselves as they wish. Yet when we look at our leadership and management, it is a totally different story.

Diverse talent is not rising through the ranks. We have to do better at talent-spotting, supporting and nurturing. We are in an enviable position that we have diverse talent working

for us already (many industries do not have that), we just need to tap into it and deliver rewards to our people, businesses and clients.

I am pleased to see us making progress on the Real Living Wage, with a number of FM providers not bidding for contracts that do not pay the Real Living Wage.

Paying a fair wage will have one of the biggest positive impacts on EDI. Historically, marginalised groups of people are often amongst the lowest paid. If you are not paid enough to live on, constant financial stress affects your mental health, and you may have to take on extra work, with no time or capacity to upskill. All of this negatively affects the chances of being socially mobile, and the cycle of poverty continues.

By FM providers paying the Real Living Wage, they are giving people an opportunity to grow and succeed. So why aren’t all FM providers making that pledge?

When your team is undertaking an office space reallocation, it can create high levels of stress across the organisation. The logistics behind an office reallocation to ensure a safe, smooth process is always planned and assessed with high levels of detail. But what happens after the move is complete?

Your team is in its newly reallocated space. However, it feels different. They’re not comfortable. This is where the work of guest services comes in. Welcoming people back into a new space and making them feel relaxed, at home, and having a sense of belonging is key to a successful move. The best way to create this atmosphere is to organise fun events in the new space to create a buzz. This can even start before the move takes place.

Creating a party invitation for your ‘guests’ to get them looking forward to the move and the events coming thereafter will help make the move seem less daunting. These pre-communications are essential for keeping all employees informed about what to expect and to get them looking

forward to their new surroundings post-move. When employees arrive in the reallocated space, having an extra special welcome will help to alleviate any nerves they may have, and create a personal feel.

Ensuring the guest services team is familiar with the new space to help the broader team with wayfinding or any FAQs is essential so they know who they can turn to if they have any issues in the new space. If the guest services team doesn’t know, then this could cause a sense of confusion and unwelcomed disruption. All these extra details help to make the new reallocated office space a destination where employees want to be, rather than a space they dread.

SHARON SLINGER is director at Constructing Rainbows Limited

BIANCA ANGELICO , chief daymaker and director, OnVerve

The best way to create this atmosphere is to organise fun events in the new space to create a buzz

Paying a fair wage will have one of the biggest positive impacts on EDI

SHARON SLINGER

MAKE

BIANCA ANGELICO REALLOCATING OFFICE SPACE

Anne Kinder on judging the IWFM Impact Awards 2022

● How and why did you become an awards judge?

ENABLING MEMBERS AND COMMUNITIES

JAMIE MACDONALD is IWFM volunteer partnerships manager

● Category judged: Wellbeing

● What most impressed you about the entries?

How entrants had aligned and embedded wellbeing in their organisation’s strategy, evaluating its impact on employees, customers, services and, in some cases, their wider communities. Organisations succeed best when they continuously evaluate outcomes – and not simply the outputs – of strategies in collaboration with employees and customers.

● What is driving best practice in this category?

Organisations are improving employee satisfaction scores and retention rates, reaping benefits for their customers and business. The Covid-19 pandemic has been a significant driver to enhance wellbeing services to support employees wherever they are working. The judging team has seen excellent examples of facilities teams leading and delivering innovations in wellbeing, and using external research and expertise to inform strategies.

I was encouraged to apply to become a support judge for the Impact on Employee Experience category by my director, Steve Gladwin, given my experience in this area. Steve was involved with the awards for many years and he spoke passionately about it being an opportunity to further professionalise our sector by promoting excellence. My application was successful and I quickly realised what a privilege it was to meet so many enthusiastic entrants. In addition to judging, I have, as a lead judge over the past five years, also been involved in agreeing categories, reviewing processes, writing judging criteria and establishing the wellbeing category.

● What has been the value to you professionally of being a judge?

The best part is being able to continuously learn about the range of work that FMs carry out and the significant impact it has on so many areas. It makes me even more proud of our profession.

ANNE KINDER is senior consultant at Nodus Solutions Ltd, immediate past chair of the IWFM Procurement and Contract Management SIG and, until 2022, a lead judge at IWFM Impact Awards

Irecently joined IWFM as the new volunteer partnerships manager, so I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to introduce myself to IWFM volunteers and members.

A little about me: I have two children, aged 17 and 14. I live in the West Midlands, where I play tennis badly, cycle and walk. I also support the Guide Dogs charity with puppy walking.

At IWFM, I ensure that the right framework is in place to support and inspire our volunteer community, to work with our volunteer groups to deliver our strategy, and to provide value to members, the institute, and the profession. IWFM simply cannot deliver its strategic objectives without the passion, expertise, and advocacy of its volunteer members.

My immediate priorities include engaging and supporting members, understanding the opportunities that enable us to deliver our strategy, being an enabler through effective relationships and providing tools and resources for the growth and development of our community groups, and increasing participation and involvement so all groups reach their full potential.

As for my background, my passion has always been community and

volunteering, so after starting out in the private sector, I amassed 15 years’ experience in the charity sector, working in communities and volunteering with The Scouts, Barnardo’s, and Make-a-Wish UK.

After working in three great children’s charities, I wanted my next challenge to remain in communities and volunteering but in a different arena. IWFM appealed to me as a very different but worthwhile organisation because of how communities operate to support professional and organisational development. The power of volunteering is often undervalued, but it can create fantastic opportunities when delivered successfully. I look forward to working with our valued volunteers and grasping those opportunities together.

The power of volunteering is often undervalued, but it can create fantastic opportunities

DIARY

Events, activities and publications for your attention

KEY EVENT

6 JULY

IWFM North Region Charity Ball 2023

Join fellow workplace and facilities management professionals for a night of networking and celebration at the black-tie Charity Ball. There will be champagne, a three-course meal, live music, entertainment, charity raffle and a DJ playing until 2am. tinyurl.com/Fac23001

INDUSTRY-WIDE

25-27 APRIL 2023 – BIRMINGHAM

The Workplace Event

Enhancing employee experience and workplace performance. tinyurl.com/Fac22041

25-27 APRIL 2023 – BIRMINGHAM

The Health & Safety Event

Share best practices and explore the latest innovations and trends. tinyurl.com/Fac23004

16-18 MAY 2023 – LONDON

Facilities Show

Fuelling the FM supply chain to shape a smarter, more agile and sustainable future workplace. tinyurl.com/Fac22078

IWFM EVENTS

21 MARCH– LONDON

IWFM London Region AGM and Question Time

The AGM is followed by the annual Question Time event. Pose questions and discuss pressing issues such as cost of living, skills shortages and technology. tinyurl.com/Fac23008

28 MARCH– LONDON

IWFM Rising FMs SIG AGM plus Sustainable Circularity talk

The AGM is followed by a presentation by host organisation Kinnarps about how it has achieved sustainable circularity. tinyurl.com/Fac23002

24-25 APRIL– SWITZERLAND

IWFM International SIG study trip to Switzerland

Beginning in Basel and finishing

in Geneva, the group, hosted by Roche, will learn about sustainable Swiss workplaces and FM practices. tinyurl.com/Fac23003

17 MAY– LONDON

IWFM Rising FMs networking event

Network with peers and strengthen the Rising FMs community by sharing experiences, ideas and knowledge with fellow likeminded professionals. tinyurl.com/Fac23005

16 OCTOBER– LONDON

IWFM Impact Awards 2023

More than a ‘ceremony’ – awardwinners and finalists inspire the profession and the industries it services. Past winners showcase the profession's impressive legacy and give evidence of its continued evolution. tinyurl.com/Fac23007

IWFM WEBINAR SERIES

IWFM’s webinar series covers a variety of topics with expert guests. Listings may be subject to change. Visit tinyurl.com/IWFM-webinars

22 MARCH– 12PM

FM’s sustainability landscape in 2023

29 MARCH– 12PM

‘Digitisation in the workplace’ with Planon

19 APRIL – 12PM

Scope 3 emissions

3 MAY – 12PM

FM market trends: the challenges and opportunities

IWFM FACE-TO-FACE TRAINING

17-18 APRIL – LONDON

FM strategy - 2 days

Evaluate and improve your business strategy's impact. tinyurl.com/Fac22015

19-20 APRIL – LONDON

Managing building services - 2 days

Reduce risk and better manage your building services. tinyurl.com/Fac22023

22-23 MAY – LONDON

Operational space planning - 2 days

Design your space to improve the customer experience. tinyurl.com/Fac22018

22-23 MAY – LONDON

FM strategic sourcing: ISO 41012 - 2 days

Use strategic sourcing to reduce costs and improve outcomes. tinyurl.com/Fac22025

24-25 MAY – LONDON

Managing building services - 2 days

Reduce risk and better manage your building services. tinyurl.com/Fac22023

5-6 JUNE

Contract management: commercial models - 2 days

Got a failing contract? Learn how to put it back on track. tinyurl.com/Fac22020

7-8 JUNE – LONDON

FM strategy - 2 days

Evaluate and improve your business strategy's impact. tinyurl.com/Fac22015

19-21 JUNE – LONDON

Effective FM professional - 3 days

Find out how to create and sustain effective operations. tinyurl.com/Fac22014

26-27 JUNE – LONDON

Effective property management - 2 days

Develop a strategy to maintain

your property portfolio. tinyurl.com/Fac22017

IWFM LIVE VIRTUAL TRAINING

24-25 APRIL

Effective property management - 2 days

Manage and maintain your property portfolio with an effective property strategy. tinyurl.com/Fac22017

8-9 MAY

Contract management: commercial models - 2 days

Got a failing contract? Learn how to put it back on track. tinyurl.com/Fac22020

10-11 MAY

Managing building services - 2 days

Reduce risk and improve how you manage your building services. tinyurl.com/Fac22023

16-18 MAY

Introduction to FM - 3 days

Everything you need to know to start your new career. tinyurl.com/Fac22028

26-28 JUNE

IOSH managing safely - 3 days

Practical guidance to ensure that your team is working safely. tinyurl.com/Fac22032

28-29 JUNE

FM strategy - 2 days

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Introduction to FM

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Effective FM professional

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What do you do? I’m the workplace lead for Wise in London. I look after hard and soft services from a strategic standpoint

What attracted you to FM, and how did you get into the industry? I started as a temp after leaving the hospitality industry and realised the positive influence an FM can have on a workplace. The variety of ways you influence people’s day-to-day lives in a positive way has kept me here.

How long have you been in your current role? I’ve been with Wise 11 months, but have been in the industry for over a decade.

Do you see yourself predominantly as a task or a people manager?

Definitely both! Seeing colleagues grow and pushing them to always do better is a hugely important part of what I do. At Wise, we are always looking for ways to innovate and make people’s experience as incredible as it can be, so process plays a huge part in that.

Would you describe your role as predominantly operational or strategic? My role is predominantly

strategic, I support a team who do an amazing job with our operations.

How many people are there in your FM team, and to whom does the FM team ultimately report?

I support a team of four in our London office, but our wider team of 30 roll up into our people tribe.

My top perk at work is… My colleagues. Right across the business I have the privilege of working with some amazing people who push each other to be better every day. Their drive is incredible.

What has been your biggest career challenge to date? Transitioning from an operational role to a more strategic role. Letting go was tough!

If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be? The visibility of what FM teams do. Wise has been amazing at showing appreciation for the things we do.

Any interesting tales to tell?

I once worked at a big tech company who had ‘magic toilets’ with built-in bidets and remotes. Someone once swapped the remotes in two cubicles…

If I wasn’t in facilities management, I’d probably be… Looking for ways to help people become the best they can be or a chocolate taster.

Which “FM/Workplace myth” would you most like to put an end to? People who produce amazing work do make

amazing leaders. This is very much not always the case and they are very different skill sets.

What single piece of advice would you give to a young facilities/ workplace manager starting out? Never stop learning! Once you have learned the workplace, learn asset management, once you have learned that move on to procurement. There are so many sides to FM and workplace to be explored. Also, join the IWFM!

What was the weirdest day you’ve had in the office? There have been a few, but the worst was when our space planner and moves project manager had slept in the office on the day of a big move but didn’t wake up for the move itself.

Early bird or night owl? Could be either/or on any given day, but nine hours’ sleep is always the aim.

What FM job in the world would you love more than anything? I want to be on the cutting edge of FM and workplace. Luckily, it’s something we are working towards at Wise.

And where would FM be an absolute nightmare? Any stadium role. Working evenings and weekends is what drove me away from hospitality.

Your life outside FM mostly involves… Spending time with friends and family but my passion is football. I am an FA qualified coach. Hopefully, one day I’ll get a chance to put it to good use again.

Once you have learned the workplace, learn asset management… once you have learned that move on to procurement

CHRIS BURCH is workplace lead at financial services company Wise in London

What do you do? I oversee the workplace strategy, operations and projects in 21 countries.

What attracted you to FM, and how did you get into the industry? I fell into FM in the mid-2000s, started as an office manager in recruitment and property companies, then made the move to FM working for large construction companies like Carillion and Amey when FM outsourcing became popular. Last year I jumped the fence and went in-house, which I have really enjoyed.

How long have you been in your current role? I joined EQT one year ago.

Do you see yourself predominantly as a task or a people manager? A bit of both. Tasks bring structure where needed, but without good people no structure can be sustainable. Richard Branson once said “look after your people and they will look after your business”.

Would you describe your role as predominantly operational or strategic? It’s predominantly strategic and as my company is growing my operational team is also expanding, which is allowing me more time to strategise!

How many people are there in your FM team, and to whom does the FM team ultimately report? We have a team of 60 people delivering workplace operations and projects plus a lot of consultants and we ultimately report to our COO.

My top perk at work is… Travel! I am fortunate to have a global role which takes me to some amazing cities all over the world. Next stop – Sydney and Hong Kong in March.

Katerina Ford

What has been your biggest career challenge to date?

The pandemic was an extraordinary challenge. I am still so proud of how fast my team took action and supported our offices and customers.

If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be?

More women in FM and CRE leadership roles and in M&E are needed as the industry is still unbalanced. Progress has been made as when I started there were few women in FM managerial roles.

Any interesting tales to tell? Riding up and down the high-speed lift in the BT Tower – ears popping every time and spectacular views at the top!

If I wasn’t in facilities management, I’d probably be… I’d have liked to be an interior designer. I love all interiors (office and home), and transforming spaces through design. Alas, I can’t draw to save my life!

Which “FM/Workplace myth” would you most like to put an end to? To be successful and be a leader in FM you need to have a technical background. While that might help in some workplaces, the key skills an FM needs are great organisational and people skills.

What single piece of advice would you give to a young facilities/ workplace manager starting out? Try different workplaces, ask the dumb questions, and don’t be afraid to challenge the way things are done. FM is a fastevolving industry and we need bright and innovative people to keep up with changes in workplace needs.

What was the weirdest day you’ve had in the office? Being greeted in the morning by a couple of cows in a makeshift pen and protestors outside a building in Whitehall when I was the FM there!

What FM job in the world would you love more than anything? I am really fortunate to be in the role I am in now and all I can dream of is to manage offices in all five continents of the world.

And where would FM be an absolute nightmare? On an oil rig! The H&S requirements and isolation would drive me crazy.

Your life outside FM mostly involves… My family and my dogs take up most of my time. We recently had our first litter of nine French bulldogs, which was an incredibly stressful and emotional experience!

BEHIND THE JOB

KATERINA FORD is the global head of corporate real estate & workplace for private equity firm EQT

KNOW HOW

operational energy of a lighting scheme can be significant

54

Corrosion can cause problems for HVAC systems so watch out for these red flags

When the lifts fail at train stations, airports or any public transportation facilities, the consequences can be severe, with passenger journeys being delayed or even rerouted.

So when we received notification of faults with three lifts at a Network Rail train station, we sought an evergreen solution. Stannah Lift Services maintains the lifts at all of Network Rail’s train stations across the UK. Recently, at the aforementioned station, there were several issues with the drive units in three lifts breaking down regularly and for no apparent reason.

Powering vertical motion

Variable voltage variable frequency (VVVF) lift drives are used to regulate motor speed and torque throughout a lift’s journey, so it draws far less current during acceleration and deceleration.

We noticed that the VVVF drive units on the three lifts were frequently breaking down, causing the elevator to stop working. The station became inaccessible for people with prams or any sort of restricted mobility.

When the drive unit was down, the lift could be non-functioning for one or two days, depending on the availability and size of the necessary replacement part. This caused inconveniences for passengers. We have all been in a situation where we couldn’t get off at our desired station and then had to resort to disembarking earlier or later and finding a new solution for the remainder of our journeys. It’s frustrating.

Whenever Network Rail reported the faults, we’d quickly repair the broken lift and not long after we’d get another report of a faulty lift. We didn’t think it was an incoming supply issue –rather, we believed the problem stemmed from

the electrical power coming into the lift. Not our field of expertise, so we sought help from CP Automation.

The solution

Stannah requested monitoring equipment to check the quality of power going into the lifts. CP Automation responded with a Power Quality Study, which diagnosed voltage transients caused by the rail system power network as being the root cause of the drive failures.

Transients are brief but powerful highvoltage and high-current events that can last up to 100 microseconds. The resulting disruption can produce motor vibrations, noise and excessive heat, which lead to eventual drive failure and increased costs.

To help limit recurrent spikes and surges and the damages these cause, we equipped the lifts with three transient voltage surge suppression (TVSS) devices, which are specifically designed to protect sensitive equipment such as alternating current (AC) drives and variable frequency drives (VFDs). It’s an ideal solution for Network Rail station lifts.

With the devices fitted, it meant we could repair the elevators without the risk that transient voltages would cause any more breakdowns. Since the adjustments were made we have enjoyed months without this problem returning. The number of lift breakdowns has also reduced significantly, and transients are no longer causing routine disruptions.

Suppression tactics

When three lifts at a Network Rail station stopped working, an automated solution was sought, explains Steve Pott s

STEVE POTTS is branch manager at Stannah Lift Services

We hear the terms often: Capex and Opex or capital expenditure and operational expenditure. But understanding their relationship and differences can help workplace and facilities management departments make important budgetary decisions.

Geoff Kontzle, CIPS course director at DPSS Ltd, offers this helpful comparison:

● Capex typically concerns oneoff long-term purchases such as buildings, vehicles, plant, equipment or land; while

● Opex usually concerns shortterm day-to-day expenses such as maintenance and repairs, office supplies, salaries, vehicle expenses.

Capex purchases, Kontzle says, are intended to benefit an organisation for more than a year. This approach can be effective. “If an asset’s useful life exceeds one year, which is typical for this type of purchase, the cost can be expensed using depreciation, normally on a straightline basis over a period anywhere from three to 10 years.”

However, there are also potential drawbacks. Kontzle says: “Money spent on Capex can mean for some organisations that there is less cash available for working capital requirements, which may limit short-term operations.”

Capex items appear as assets in an organisation’s balance sheet and their depreciation is also recorded within the profit and loss account.

Taxed terms

Kontzle says ‘expenditure’, defined in accounting, refers to long-term spending, while ‘expenses’ refer to spending for day-to-day activities.

“Nonetheless, the terms are often used interchangeably for Opex, which is an expense recorded within the profit and loss account.

“One of the challenges is determining from a taxation perspective whether an item is a Capex or Opex for its treatment in charging it to the profit and loss account as a tax-deductible item or

Budget hopping

The

by being permitted to claim capital allowances for the item.

“Tax-deductible expenses mean the expense incurred can be legally deducted from an organisation’s profits, and hence reduces the amount of tax required to be paid.”

Depreciation, Kontzle tells us, is charged as an expense to an organisation. “It doesn’t have any impact in reducing profits for tax

purposes. However, as the tax office recognises that depreciation is a vague concept to collect tax, it utilises the concept of ‘capital allowances’.

“By enabling organisations to invest in new plant, fixture and fittings and machinery, etc, they [tax office?] regularly modify the capital allowances available as deductions from an organisation’s profits, which can benefit the amount of tax paid.”

Capex turned Opex

There are occasions when Capex on the purchase of assets may have been charged to the profit and loss account; for example, fixtures and fittings, repairs and renewals.

“A closer review of the accounts for the repairs and renewals may reveal items of a capital nature, which are not allowable as revenue

blurred lines between Capex or Opex purchases could affect wider FM budgetary decisions

expenditure; however, a capital allowance claim might be possible,” Kontzle says.

HMRC’s BIM35005 document covers the inconclusiveness of the tax position, as there is no single test to determine whether an item was a Capex or Opex expense. The context and purpose of the acquisition matters more.

The blurred lines between Capex and Opex classification can affect how managers and stakeholders make wider FM decisions, particularly when it comes to managing their company’s activities in-house or using an outsourced specialist FM provider.

“By outsourcing, this process can release cash for other organisational development projects, in exchange for a monthly or quarterly service charge payment for the facilities provided, with costs of service being

CAPEX AND OPEX DIFFERENCES

Capex Opex

Capex items are usually a one-off purchase charged to a capital account

Capital items are procured for a long period with a lifespan of many years

Capital items tend to be high value assets

Capex purchases often involve complex decisions with many stakeholders

Capex preparation work usually requires building a business case, investment appraisal and an assessment to buy or lease

Opex items are usually repeat purchases charged to a profit and loss account

Operational items are procured for short-term consumption

Operational items tend to be comparatively inexpensive

Opex is less complex and with repeat spends

Opex is usually straightforward, with predetermined budgets for regular use

met by a budgeted Opex account,” Kontzle says.

“Of course,” he adds, “organisations will need to consider their own tax position and decide upon what process to apply for the acquisition of goods and services, and to assess which route is most suitable for their own requirements.”

FM budgets

When working in the public sector, FM consultant John Bowen used to toggle between Opex and Capex depending on the goal and available funding.

“There was always a pressure on reducing Opex, so budgets tended to get tighter year on year,” Bowen says. “One way to make that work is to spend capital, because a capital project has to ‘cost in’ and benefits will come – in part from working more efficiently. I’d look across the estate and pull several smaller projects into a big one because it’s often easier to get a big budget than a small one, so lumping things together works well.”

Bidding for a single big project carries risk as an unsuccessful bid

could result in no funding for the subsumed smaller projects. But Bowen says it worked for him.

“Calling the big project a refurbishment, or something like that, enabled us to get buildings redecorated, refurnished and upgraded. Within that, we could normally get more people into the space, thus avoiding renting extra space, or reducing our occupancy. Anything we could find that worked as a saving towards the current or next year’s Opex budgets was fair game.”

Using Opex for Capex happens less, “usually when there was money in the open budget and we could get away with using revenue rather than capital”, Bowen explains. “The problem was around business rules on how expenditure had to be accounted for. It is quite easy to bury minor revenue work in a capital project, but to use capital funds on revenue work is normally not possible. We did sometimes do something that would normally have been paid for under a capital bid under revenue accounting, but it was rare.”

Budget reallocation can work well – but not always. “Sometimes it went pear shaped,” Bowen says. “I remember one job where we needed to put pallet racking into an area and we slipped that into the capital budget as part of a wider scheme at that site. All went well until one day when the accountant arrived wanting to see the capital asset. He was totally confused by several thousand square metres of pallet racking when he was expecting one item according to the asset register.”

Looking to switch budgets must be done with the right objective in mind, Bowen urges. “Get the best job done for the business. All the switches I made were done purely for that aim. I used my knowledge of how money moved and where to find it to that end. I needed to make things happen and I did it the best way I could whilst staying within corporate policy.”

Get the best job done for the business. All the switches I made were done purely for that aim

Microsoft’s vision for meeting rooms of the future, alongside the ‘Signature’ Teams Room solution, incorporates enhanced meeting and collaboration tools such as Front Row and integration with whiteboard capture cameras.

Nevertheless, many think videoconferencing has gone full circle, with room solutions looking like traditional telepresence systems. But Microsoft has two main goals:

1. Everyone in the meeting feels included, represented, and productive; and

2. Connections feel natural and immersive.

The design principles drive guidance of Signature Teams Room solutions including furniture, layout and technology, as well as floor and wall finishes, and acoustic and lighting requirements.

No other organisation has yet to put out a similar statement identifying a need to transform meeting spaces to accommodate new ways of working. Cisco, Google and others simply adapt traditional meeting spaces with additional features and enhancements while Microsoft increases its share of the UC market with Teams and broader software integration.

Given the impact on room size, layout, and usage, Signature Teams Rooms and Microsoft’s vision for future meeting rooms require significant investment in, and modifications to, existing or proposed workplace strategy, meeting room quantities, layouts, and capacities. But is Microsoft’s vision likely to become a reality and will it be universally applicable or just for certain organisations or use cases?

For any organisation, let alone those not using Teams as their chosen UC platform, designing offices based on a single vendor’s strategy is risky. However, if companies choose to ignore Microsoft’s approach, they risk missing the next wave of hybrid working benefits. Will other UC vendors do as Microsoft has done?

To scale Microsoft’s strategy documents do not include fully scalable solutions. It has solutions for small and huddle rooms, and medium and larger rooms. But solutions for large areas – training rooms, boardrooms, client suites, divisible rooms, and events spaces – remain undefined.

Microsoft’s best practice information is absent for such spaces, and in creating curated, locked-down solutions for smaller rooms, Microsoft is limiting integration of its solutions in complex spaces. It is left to system designers to develop solutions based on multiple product sets that cannot be given formal Microsoft Teams Certification.

The message from Microsoft is clear: it does not support the use of Microsoft Teams in spaces beyond their standard meeting room designs. So companies face another choice: limit their workplaces to include UC integration only in meeting rooms up to a certain size, or deploy a bespoke solution in larger spaces. Choosing a UC platform requires that technology and spatial needs be considered together.

Experience equity

Experience equity for local and remote attendees is commonly requested, but we often see remote attendees prioritised through expensive and excessive solutions. It’s possible to provide remote attendees with a framed head-andshoulders shot of every local participant, but this isn’t the experience of those in the room.

Better to take a pragmatic approach, blending the possible and practical to deliver a costeffective, functional solution.

Consistency remains a challenge, not in small and medium rooms, but in larger, complex spaces. Designers, consultants and integrators must provide solutions that offer a consistent experience. Ultimately, the sky’s the limit –it’s up to us to bring this back to earth.

Creating inclusive policy is a continuous process. It never stops. It is about constantly re-evaluating the world around you, consulting with others and asking the difficult questions to ensure you are proactively making positive change. Not just reacting to negative incidents that may have occurred.

As part of our inclusion committee activities, we have been reviewing company policy and it became apparent that our policies in relation to change of gender expression were not satisfactory. To the point where people who were to go through a process of change of gender expression were not adequately supported by the business. Therefore, we agreed to create a new standalone policy to support this.

We called in our HR solicitors

The first step we took was to liaise with our HR solicitors and request a standard policy. We received a very cold, hard, factual ‘transition’ policy. After review, we knew this didn’t represent our values and we set about exploring how we could make it more fit for purpose.

We cast the net wider

To do this, we engaged with a wide audience. We accepted that within our teams we did not have enough knowledge to authentically build this policy. Therefore, we reached out to several different groups including our wider team members and LGBT+ in FM for support and advice.

Through the process we worked collaboratively to redefine the original document we’d received and made some key learnings in the process too. We’ve outlined these key areas of improvement in the hope of assisting others going through a similar process.

Key learnings

1. From the outset it is critical to recognise that this is an employee-

led journey. The updated policy ensures there is no obligation for the team member to inform the company unless they wish to do so. The policy cannot dictate to people how to act in this scenario, only provide guidance and support for when it may be needed.

COLIN KIMBER (He/Him) is associate director at Pareto FM

2. No action occurs without consent. The team member is fully in control and the obligation falls on to the employer if, and only if, the employee requests it.

THE GENDER AGENDA

Supporting gender expression

3. Communication and language are key. First, if the team member does wish to communicate their change in gender expression, then they are able to reach out to the business for support. And second, ensuring that we updated the language in the policy to reflect the most inclusive approach.

4. It is important to outline the challenges of transphobia and what to do in the event of an incident. We specifically reference the process for dealing with these incidents, support offered and actions that will be taken. This includes educational programmes to support understanding and tackle ignorance.

5. Recognising this is as law. We make it clear that within our policy, transphobia is clearly identified within the Equality Act 2010, which makes it unlawful to treat someone less favourably for this reason. Ultimately, the key is to be inquisitive. Explore. Ask difficult questions and be ready for difficult answers. The process of continuous improvement can be a difficult one but it’s the only way to continue to build inclusive environments and ensure everyone can be their authentic selves and achieve their best.

Implementing a new change of gender expression policy requires the support of the FM community, says Colin Kimber

By completing one of our internationally recognised, regulated qualifications in workplace and facilities management, you can progress on our professional development pathway and build the career you want. Delivery method Recognised Centres Levels 2-7 or online through IWFM

Are you ready to step up?

Are you due an IWFM membership upgrade? More importantly, are you selling yourself short?

IWFM’s 2021 Pay and Prospects research found that qualifications increase the likelihood of advancement in organisations (and associated benefits, like increased pay). Our membership grades link directly to qualifications and experience, so if you have the right credentials, make sure you carry the post-nominals you deserve.

If you feel you are ready to step up, please send your CV to engagement@iwfm.org.uk

For more information, log into your IWFM account and click on the ‘Membership’ tab.

When an engineer talks about energy used to light a building, they’re usually referring to electrical energy consumed by the lighting scheme in operation. Lighting accounts for a surprisingly high proportion of a building’s overall energy consumption –this could be more than office equipment and second only to heating and cooling.

Additionally, a significant amount of energy will be used, and carbon emitted, in the manufacture and distribution of the luminaires used to light the building, along with the energy associated with mining and refining the raw materials used in luminaire components. This type of energy is known as embodied energy and the carbon emissions associated with it as embodied carbon.

Typically, the embodied energy of a luminaire can be found in its Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). But CIBSE’s Embodied Carbon Calculation Methodology (TM65) provides a way of estimating products’ life cycle embodied carbon, where no EPD is available.

Whole-life carbon

Whole-life carbon emissions refer to operational and embodied energy use over a luminaire’s lifetime. If we are to achieve a net zero built environment, a whole-life approach to carbon emissions reduction would include tackling embodied carbon alongside operational carbon.

So a manufacturer might reduce carbon embodied in a luminaire through:

● Choice of materials;

● Optimising product design; and

● Using carbon-neutral energy from wind or solar to power the production process.

A building operator can reduce embodied carbon of a lighting installation by reusing luminaires from an existing installation, perhaps with an element of on-site refurbishment.

Reusing serviceable equipment is important, as too many luminaires are thrown away before the end of their useful life.

Reducing operational energy

The simplest way to reduce a luminaire’s operational energy is to turn it off but this depends on whether the luminaire is illuminating a task and, if so, whether there is sufficient daylight to enable it

Reducing the carbon impact of lighting

The embodied and operational energy associated with a lighting scheme can be significant, says Simon Robinson

to be switched off. The Society of Light and Lighting’s publication Code for Lighting (2022) includes a schedule of recommended task illuminances.

A more effective way to reduce energy consumed by a lighting installation is to avoid over-specifying the level of illuminance it is intended to deliver in the first place. Then, limit its use through appropriate control to those times when it is needed.

Balancing energy use and occupant experience

Balance needs to be struck between providing good-quality lighting and the energy a scheme uses. It would be relatively straightforward to design a lighting scheme to minimise energy use by simply illuminating a task area and nothing else. But such a scheme would ignore the health and wellbeing of occupants.

An effective lighting design will incorporate localised task lighting combined with background lighting of the walls and ceilings. The same approach holds true for the provision of lighting for home working. Office use has changed and home working now constitutes a part of many workers’ lives. Of course, the issues associated with occupational health and energy use are just as important when working at home and so good lighting is important.

LG7 provides guidance for those creating a home office or converting rooms such as bedrooms into offices. As energy costs have risen significantly and the need to consider the environmental impact of how we use energy are important factors, LG7 discusses the optimisation of available daylight, the correct placing of the user’s desk and how décor changes can help.

ROBINSON is author of the CIBSE Society of Light and Lighting Guide 7: Lighting for Offices

For more information on Lighting Guide 7 please visit cibse.org

SIMON

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

Whole life carbon emissions refer to operational and embodied energy

ARE YOU PAYING TOO MUCH FOR YOUR PEST CONTROL?

Cleankill Pest Control's managing director, Paul Bates, explains how to choose or evaluate your current pest control provider and ensure you have a team you can rely on to keep your premises pest free – without unexpected costs

With budgets stretched and businesses reducing overheads, it’s a good time to evaluate whether your pest control provider is offering value for money.

Don’t assume the big brands offer the best value or service – it can be the opposite. With shareholders wanting better returns, larger companies can put pressure on their salespeople who then become focused on their targets rather than the problem they are trying to solve for the customer. Some will take any opportunity to sell you items or services you might not need.

Consider using smaller regional companies that are large enough to invest in good training, accreditations and the latest products and services, but don’t have the huge overheads and marketing costs associated with national brands. They are normally privately owned. With any pest control contract, look for any hidden costs and extras that may be charged over and above regular site visits. Compare the original contract with what you are actually being charged.

Pricing should be transparent and there should be communication after every visit so you know what has been done and why. There should be justification for any extra costs on top of the regular pest prevention contract. All our technicians use iPads so instant reports can be sent to customers and there are no surprises. We always check with the customer if there’s something

we need to do that’s outside the scope of the original agreement.

Accreditations and standards are also something that should be checked. The European Standard for Pest Control is EN 16636 Certification (CEPA Certified®). This is independently assessed by qualified and experienced auditors with an in-depth working knowledge of the industry.

Also critical is British Pest Control Association membership and accreditations including: Achilles, Alcumus SafeContractor, Altius Assured Award & CDM, Avetta; BS EN 16636:2015, CHAS - Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme, CHAS Premium Plus, Constructionline, EXOR, ISO 9001 Quality Management, ISO 14001 Environmental Management, Safe4Site and SafePQQ.

Accreditations also mean that a pest control contractor will help you to comply with regulations such as:

● Prevention of Damage by Pests Act;

● Health and Safety at Work Act;

● Control of Pesticides Regulations;

● Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations;

● Food Safety Act;

● Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations; and

● Animal Welfare Act.

Evidence that staff are well trained is important. Look for proof such as Investors in People. Also has the company won any awards? It’s a sign that the business has received external scrutiny and is proud of its service.

Insurance should include public liability insurance and employers’ liability – both up to at least £10 million for a regional company.

Bundling contracts with services such as landscaping and cleaning to save money is not a good idea as poor cleaning and landscaping can sometimes lead to pest problems.

It’s far better to let pest controllers be your ‘critical friends’. They will sometimes become unpopular with other contractors but it’s their job to solve pest infestations and these can sometimes require changes in, for instance, the working practices of cleaning staff such as emptying bins at night rather than in the morning.

PAUL BATES MD of Cleankill Pest Control

Meeting the needs of patients and hospitals, air conditioning solutions need to be technologically advanced but easy to operate.

Characteristics and needs

In hospitals, the health of patients and the wellbeing of the staff who care for them are paramount. This application requires:

● Cooling and heating according to area;

● Large quantities of domestic hot water; and

● Constant renewal and purification of air with the elimination of viruses, germs and bacteria.

Clivet’s solutions

Clivet offers the combination of chillers and heat pumps with the Zephir system for common areas, surgeries and rooms. For operating theatres, it offers dedicated AHUs with a high level of sanitisation.

Advantages include:

● Energy savings throughout the annual operating cycle;

● Minimal environmental impact with low-GWP refrigerants;

● Compact size of the systems; and

● Healthy environments thanks to electronic filters, photocatalytic oxidation and UVC lamps.

The Enhanced Hydronic System

The Enhanced Hydronic System is the evolution of the traditional hydronic conditioning system.

The cooling or heating energy necessary for conditioning is produced at condominial level and distributed in the served areas, using cooled or heated water as a vector fluid. The necessary air renewal is made by the full fresh air unit with active thermodynamic recovery.

As autonomous unit, ZEPHIR3 eliminates the plant necessary for the transfer of the vector fluids used in a traditional system with air handling units to satisfy the air primary load and, at the same time, to reduce the dimensions and costs of the heatingcooling stations – chillers, boilers and auxiliary components – that will

be dimensioned only to satisfy the building’s load.

VRF system

The VRF system is the direct expansion solution for year-round air conditioning, particularly suitable for commercial buildings, hotels and offices.

Both on the source side and on the use side, it is based on the direct heat exchange between refrigerant and environment.

The system terminals – namely, the indoor units – are an integral part of the cooling circuit, acting as an evaporator in summer operation and as a condenser in winter operation.

Compared to the SPLIT system, the VRF is characterised by the presence of the electronic expansion valve on the individual indoor units, ensuring greater extension of the system, in addition to a high number and total operation independence of the terminals.

The offer is completed by units for air renewal: HRV recuperators, AQX VRF direct expansion air handling units, ZEPHIR3 units with active thermodynamic recovery.

CLIVET AIR CONDITIONING & COMFORT IN HOSPITALS

When specifying for hospitals, it’s important to balance the needs of the patients with the running costs and technical needs of the hospitals

PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE

Corrosion red flags

Sampling alone will not help you tackle pipework corrosion in your HVAC system. You need a more robust strategy, says Steven Booth

Do you know if there is corrosion in your HVAC system? Even if you have had a recent sample, it only represents a snapshot. By the time it has been processed and analysed by a laboratory – which can take days or weeks – conditions may have changed.

Where sampling is the main source of checking water conditions, true problem solving and certainty of resolution is difficult. Without real-time data, flushing is overused as a remedial measure, causing unnecessary damage if interventions are uninformed.

Sampling does not detect dissolved oxygen (DO) – the precursor to virtually all types of corrosion in closed-loop water systems common to commercial HVAC plants; for example, low temperature hot water (LTHW) and chilled hot water (CHW).

With modern, energy-efficient systems installed with low-velocity water flow

and leaner materials, it is important to monitor corrosion-influencing parameters and maintain the integrity of pipework and components in closed systems.

Looking behind the scenes

Our partner, Hevasure, studied eight years of data from its real-time monitoring systems in 80 buildings, including commercial spaces, hospitals, data centres and residential blocks connected to district heating schemes.

The study looked at how many times specific issues had triggered ‘alarms’, indicating early warning signs that could lead to serious corrosion damage. There were more than 1,800 alarms and over 50% of systems developed problems at some stage – mainly due to excessive DO – which would have been missed by intermittent water sampling.

Seven red flags

1 High DO: 443 alarms (25%) –closed systems need to be air-tight. The presence of DO indicates air ingress. For a typical closed system, DO should be around 0.1 to 0.2 mg/L.

2 Pressurisation: 402 alarms (22%) –to prevent air being drawn-in, positive (but not excessive) pressures must be maintained.

3 Conductivity/dosing: 403 alarms (22%) – if minimum thresholds of chemical concentrations are not maintained, inhibitors are ineffective

and glycols offer insufficient freeze protection. Conversely, overdosing is an environmentally unacceptable and an expensive waste.

4 Temperature: 271 alarms (15%) – a key HVAC system parameter that needs to be constantly checked for efficient operation.

5 pH: 130 alarms (7%) – must be maintained within limits set by the chemical supplier to ensure metals are immune from corrosion or adequately passivated.

6 Crevice corrosion: 129 alarms (7%) – crevice corrosion can occur –even if general corrosion rates are low – in localised regions, such as weld seams, crimped joints or under debris due to differential aeration effects and is a frequent cause of pitting attack and pin-holing.

7 Galvanic currents: 34 alarms (2%) – the current that flows between different metals within a system; for example, steel and copper. Maintaining low galvanic currents indicates low oxygen levels and/or good inhibition of metallic surfaces.

How to prevent corrosion

Real-time HVAC monitoring systems are the only way to detect early signs of corrosive conditions. In comparison to sampling and corrosion coupons alone, these systems look for root cause indicators, identifying ‘red flags’ before damage occurs.

Measuring system behaviours, mechanical events and precursors to corrosion is the best form of prevention. Water sampling alone will only measure the results and effects of corrosion.

Monitoring units can be installed at any stage of a HVAC system’s life, either as a one-off ‘healthcheck’ or as an ongoing management tool. With real-time data to hand and alarms sent direct, FMs can save money long-term by making preventative and targeted service interventions, relying less on expensive laboratory sampling and reducing the risk of breakdown.

STEVEN BOOTH is a specialist water chemist and managing director of Guardian Water Treatment

Catering on location

The manufacturing and distribution sector can be challenging for contract caterers to navigate, but Peter Kent discusses how to manage the industry’s 24/7 shift patterns and supply and demand challenges

Many manufacturing businesses operate outside of the normal working week hours, often running 24/7 with their teams working split shifts. To ensure a consistent food and beverage offering, contract caterers need to emulate client teams by working with separate teams that hand over to each other between shifts.

Tackling hotspots

It can be challenging dealing with hotspots in the working day, To tackle this we installed our own till systems to analyse sales data on a weekly basis. This provides two key benefits:

1. Assessing the hours needed to service hotspots with the highest sales volumes; and

2. Adjusting rosters week to week to align with sector teams’ fluctuations.

Self-service tills are valuable tools to increase productivity from an hourly perspective and to enable catering teams to concentrate on the food and service delivery during times of spiked demand. This means catering teams focus on the customer experience with teams on the floor instead of fretting about the final payment process.

Off the beaten track

To keep logistics facilities – often in out-of-the-way locations – supplied properly, the supply chain needs to be sophisticated. One way to do this, which we have opted for, is to make use of a supply chain scheme that supports SMEs, with more than 70% of supply coming through remote routes.

Making commitments with these types of smaller, local and remote suppliers about order volumes ensures peace of mind regardless of peak seasonal periods. Very rarely do we experience supply issues, as the sales and supply data enable us to predict demand based on the needs of our clients.

Another way to mitigate potential supply issues is by sourcing all fresh meat from the UK. We source core line products directly from UK producers, such as bacon, cheddar, and eggs, for example.

Seasonal supplies

Focusing on UK suppliers also means catering teams can embrace seasonal menus, which is an effective way to ensure high-quality produce while

respecting sustainability in farming and the environment more broadly.

To make sure food provision is always of a sufficiently high quality and is appealing to client teams, it’s important to maintain close relationships with suppliers. This allows chefs to understand the full farm-to-fork journey, what’s available and how they can best prepare to create enticing seasonal dishes.

An example of this is our relationship with one of our partners, Waste Knot, which specialises in taking surplus fruit and veg from farmers’ fields and bringing them to kitchens. Such a partnership enables catering teams to reduce food waste while also providing a hospitality experience that contributes to their own and their client’s sustainability commitments.

Best practice for location catering teams

The pandemic taught us that the unpredictable can happen and we need to be prepared, especially when providing services to sectors that remain active – such as manufacturing and logistics organisations –regardless of the pressures at the time. So teams should:

1. Include regional variety in menus by focusing on what is available from local producers in the area;

2. Be flexible to adapt to fluctuating shift patterns;

3. Invest in every business department, from chefs and baristas to those working behind the scenes in the supply chain, as well as sustainability, technology, and training. With agile and flexible working, we can design a service that works for our teams and our clients.

PETER KENT is managing director at BaxterStorey

ELECTRIFY YOUR HEAT

Electrification of heat – replacing fossil fuel-reliant energy sources such as gas boilers with heat pumps and electric alternatives – is best achieved by switching to heat pumps and other hybrid systems, says Robert Stevens of Integral’s Cooling Technologies Team.

STANDARDS OF CLEANLINESS

Why rely on the British Standard (BS EN 15780) for cleanliness levels in ductwork and the TR19 Guide to Good Practice? Andrew Steel of Airmec Essential Services puts forward five key reasons

Key takeaways

● Typically, TR19 compliance will suffice for duct cleaning;

● In new systems, BS EN 15780 cross-references with other standards for

Key takeaways

● Air source heat pumps and ground source heat pumps get heat from the outside air or directly from the ground;

● The heat is transferred into a building plant room area via plate heat exchangers;

● Heat is circulated to cooling or heating systems through pump sets;

● Hybrid systems work by pairing a heat pump with a conventional gas, liquid petroleum gas or oil boiler; and

● The heat pump provides most of the heating and hot water.

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS

Read

Fac030423heat

The Know How learning continues at facilitatemagazine.com. Here is a summary of the key takeaways from a selection of our onlineonly articles

● Ventilation system specifiers, installers, commissioning engineers, cleaning specialists and facilities managers must all have unambiguous guidance on cleaning standards, procedures, and validation; and

HVAC systems;

● Crucially, BS EN 15780 defines the frequency of risk assessment surveys, the basis of all good management to address current risk;

Social housing FMs should quiz broadband providers on five important factors, says 4th Utility’s Jimmy Acton

Key takeaways

● Full-fibre broadband has taken over the market, replacing copper cables, as it directly provides properties with faster, more reliable internet with less interference;

● Post-Covid, broadband is as important as other key utilities like water, gas and electricity so check if social tariffs are provided;

● Ensure there is additional support or added value from your broadband provider such as installation engineers that care about the residents;

● Good infrastructure is key, especially for those living in multiple dwelling units; and

● Maximise residents’ wellbeing through broadband, even if only in a community room or reception area.

● Read the full article at tinyurl.com/Fac030423broadband

● When building managers can more easily understand their obligations, they can manage their overall running costs.

Read the full article at tinyurl.com/ Fac030423-duct

60 Ian Tidwell explains how SBFM is helping the long-term unemployed into jobs

Ecoserv Group saved from administration

by Facilitate team

About 2,000 jobs have been retained following the sale out of administration of FM businesses Ecoserv Group Limited, Ecoserv Cleaning Limited and Ecoserv Technical Services Limited.

Ian Corfield and Simon Stibbons, partners at financial advisory firm FRP, were appointed as joint administrators for the Ecoserv companies on 9 February and a week later secured a pre-pack sale of the businesses and assets, and shares in Ecoserv South Africa (PTY) Ltd to Ecoserv FM Group Limited – a body owned by the former shareholders and directors.

For more than 25 years Ecoserv Group, headquartered at Howbery Business Park in Oxfordshire, has supplied cleaning services for private and public sector clients in sectors including education, medical and healthcare, offices and commercial buildings, car dealerships, fitness and leisure, industrial,

ATALIAN ANNOUNCES THE FORMAL ACQUISITION OF OCS GROUP

Atalian has confirmed that its UK, Ireland and Asia operations are to merge with OCS Group. The move follows the acquisition of OCS Group by Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R ) last year. Atalian has sold its operations in the UK, Ireland and Asia, along with its specialist automotive division Aktrion, to the private investment firm.

A company statement said that the merger would create “one of the world’s largest international facilities service providers”. Atalian’s group CEO Rob Legge will now become group CEO of the combined businesses, which will merge its operations over the next 12 months. Further details of the company’s ambition and vision will be announced in the coming weeks.

OCS Group finalised the transaction to sell off its facilities services division to CD&R last December after a sale and purchase agreement was announced in July 2022.

retail, and film and TV production.

The joint administrators were advised by Osborne Clarke LLP, and Ecoserv FM Group Limited was advised by Stephenson Harwood LLP.

Corfield said: “Having grown successfully for many years, the group has faced a heady combination of challenging trading

conditions related to and since the pandemic, which was exacerbated by financial obligations arising from a franchisee in-housing strategy… we’re delighted that this transaction has secured a fresh start for the business and its near 2,000 employees whom we wish the very best of luck for the future.”

THe roots of Crawley-based OCS Facilities Services go= back to 1900 and it has since grown into an international facilities services provider delivering services to 20,000 clients. It currently employs more than 68,000 staff. First established as the New Century Window and General Cleaning Company, by Frederick William Goodliffe, his sons developed the business and until a new business, Office Cleaning Services, was founded in 1930. Five generations of Goodliffes havesince been involved in the business as it has expanded its scope over the years.

Ian Tidwell

SBFM, a soft FM services provider in the UK and Ireland, is partnering with employment groups Ingeus, Shaw Trust and Reed to deliver a recruitment support scheme to help the long-term unemployed into sustainable jobs. Ian Tidwell, learning and social impact manager at SBFM, spoke to Facilitate about the scheme.

in facilities management, it allows SBFM to access a wider, untapped talent pool and mitigate the challenges in filling soft services roles, particularly for frontline cleaning operatives. We hope this, in turn, will help to narrow the recruitment gap in the industry.

How will this new partnership equip long-term unemployed with skills for the FM market exactly?

industry. It also enables them to decide if it is the right industry for them before they make the commitment.

Will they be trained in specific disciplines/trades?

Every participant in the programme completes the NCFE Level 2 Certificate in Cleaning Principles, which provides a great introduction to the skills and knowledge needed when starting a career in the cleaning industry. This qualification provides learners with a range of knowledge in both generic and specialist cleaning principles, from dealing with routine and non-routine waste, cleaning of interiors and washrooms, and working with others, amongst other important skills. Once employed, SBFM colleagues benefit from on-the-job training to build expertise in critical areas that form the foundation of the FM roles they perform, and support career development.

How

did the idea for the initiative come about? Was it a direct response to the skills shortages in FM?

By partnering with organisations like Ingeus, Shaw Trust and Reed in Partnership to help the long-term unemployed into sustainable employment, we have an opportunity to give back to the wider community and that was a major driving force behind the launch of the initiative. It affords us the opportunity to provide a much-needed resource –sustainable, long-term employment – to people who need it most.

While the initiative was not introduced as a direct response to the skills shortage

IN BRIEF

Levy involved in rematch with Swansea City Levy UK + Ireland, the sports and entertainment arm of Compass Group, has regained the

hospitality contract with Swansea City AFC at its stadium after a five-year break.

The contract involves match-day services, conference and events catering, working with Jane Byrd, managing director of Compass Cymru, who oversees

The new initiative and partnerships help candidates to acquire new skills, receive practical advice and access experience to increase their employability. As a business, SBFM equips candidates with both employability skills such as CV writing and confidence building workshops, as well as sector-specific training.

All participants are enrolled in a twoweek, pre-employment, sector-based work academy to provide them with the skills needed to hit the ground running in the FM

Will you help to place participants in jobs after they have been skilled up? How will you ensure their long-term success?

The principal focus of this initiative is not simply to place participants in jobs, but to empower them to build a sustainable, long-term career in our industry with support from SBFM. Once hired colleagues benefit from dedicated pastoral support to

Levy UK+I sites in Wales. The club will work directly with Compass Cymru.

Lexington caters for Hurlingham School Education sector aterer Lexington Independents has secured the contract to supply

food services for Hurlingham School’s preparatory and nursery schools in Putney, London. A team of 15 –including two head chefs – is serving up meals for pupils aged between two to 11 years old at the nursery and prep schools on two

separate sites. This includes lunches, morning and afternoon snacks, and a supper club for children attending the after-school club.

The contract also covers hospitality catering for events such as parent evenings and sports days.

PTSG buys

Indepth Hygiene Services

Premier Technical Services Group (PTSG) has acquired fire safety specialist Indepth Hygiene Services.

PTSG said the acquisition bolsters its Fire Solutions division’s

The new initiative and partnerships help candidates to acquire new skills, receive practical advice and access experience

ENGIE gives strong showing in FY 2022

by Facilitate team

develop the confidence and skills required to enjoy long-term success in the facilities management industry. This includes regular check-ins, on-the-job mentoring, and career guidance.

I am lucky to have first-hand experience of initiatives of this nature, having been through a similar programme myself some years ago before entering the world of recruitment. As a mentor for colleagues on this initiative, I try to use this experience to provide the support needed to help them achieve their career goals and progress within the workplace.

What have been the results?

We have already enjoyed considerable success through supported sessions in various regions of the UK, many of which have led participants to secure jobs on our sites across the nation. As a signatory of the Care Leaver Covenant, we can support care leavers to live independently by providing employment opportunities, dedicated career coaching, and pastoral support. Through the initiative, we recently supported an individual who left the care system to complete the sector-based work academy. As a result, she was able to secure sustainable employment with the SBFM team as a cleaning supervisor.

capabilities. The company comprises five divisions – Fire Solutions, Access & Safety, Electrical Services, Building Access Specialists, and Water Treatment –supplying specialist services to the construction and FM industries. Suttonbased Indepth’s

core service offering includes fire damper maintenance and grease extract ductwork cleaning.

Sodexo wins deal with The Insolvency Service

Sodexo has been awarded a three-year contract with The Insolvency Service

ENGIE Group reported a strong financial and operational performance for FY 2022, ending 31 December.

The French-owned utility group’s financial statement (21 February) records a 43% organic rise in earnings before interest and taxes, and cites significant progress with its strategic plan and a planned 65% increase in its dividend owing to an exceptional surge in the cost of power and gas last year.

Revenue came in at €93.87 billion (circa £82.72bn), up 60% on the year on a like-for-like basis.

The group highlights its “leading role” in supporting security in Europe’s energy supply over the past year, as well as its “continued contribution to public policy measures through working capital support, extraordinary taxes and dedicated customer actions”.

it adds that it has made progress on simplifying its business with €11 billion (circa £9.761 bn) of disposals either signed or closed, and €5.5 billion (£4.880bn) growth capex, primarily in renewables, networks and energy solutions. Renewables have been accelerated, with +3.9GW

to provide strategic programme and advisory services to support its ‘Transforming Workplaces Project’.

Partnering with global construction and property advisery Rider Levett Bucknall, Sodexo’s Property Professional Services unit will

support the service –an executive agency of the government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – to rationalise its existing estate and help to deliver a five-year programme of fit-outs, building closures and disposals.

of capacity added in 2022, taking total installed capacity to around 38GW. Progress was also made on exiting coal use, with the fossil fuel now representing 2.6% of centralised generation capacity.

Energy transition

The group forecasts net recurring income of €3.4 billion to €4 billion for this year, in line with analyst estimates of €3.7 billion. By 2025, ENGIE sees earnings of €4.1 billion to €4.7 billion as it reaps gains from renewables investment and its Energy Solutions business.

Catherine MacGregor, group CEO, said: “Notably, we have reached our goal to increase from 2022 onwards the rate of additions in renewables capacity from 3 GW to 4 GW on average. 2022 was also a year of refocus, both strategic and geographical. The completed €11 billion disposal plan will allow us to significantly increase our investments in renewable energy and decarbonisation solutions for our customers. In the new energy order, it is more crucial than ever to accelerate the transition and rely on a balanced energy mix.”

Aston wins trio of retail deals

Aston Services Group (has won three new cleaning and security contracts at retail centres in the north of England.

The contracts are at Ladysmith Shopping Centre in Ashton-under-Lyne, Manchester,  Prince

Bishops Place shopping centre in Durham, and Lakeside Village Shopping Centre in Doncaster. The Lancashirebased facilities services provider will also carry out landscaping and washroom services at the Ladysmith centre.

Wates Group appoints new CEO

by Facilitate team

Construction and property services provider Wates Group has appointed Eoghan O’Lionaird as its new chief executive.

O’Lionaird (top) joined the family-owned group’s board on 20 February.

He will be based in Wates’s headquarters in Leatherhead, Surrey, taking over from interim chief executive Philip Wainwright, who has been in the post since last summer. Wainwright will resume his role as chief financial officer.

Cork-born O’Lionaird joins the group from his previous role as CEO at FTSElisted marine services company James Fisher and Sons plc. He has also held executive positions at Spectris plc, Danaher Corporation, Philips and Mitsui Kinzoku. He has degrees in engineering from University College Cork, and the University of Limerick, and an MBA from the Institute of Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Sir James Wates (bottom), group chairman, said: “Eoghan is a globally

AMULET NAMES NEW MANAGING DIRECTOR

accomplished, motivational leader with an impressive track record in industry and we’re very pleased to be welcoming him to Wates. We’re excited to appoint Eoghan to lead us into the next stage of our history.

“At the same time, on behalf of the board, I’d like to pay tribute to Philip Wainwright for the great job he has done as interim chief executive over the past six months. He hands over a business which is in terrific shape, and with him working as chief financial officer alongside Eoghan, we are confident of the group’s continuing stability and success.”

O’Lionaird added: “What marks Wates out from the competition is how it has rallied its people around a purpose greater than profit alone. This is clear from its commitment to making the built environment more sustainable. I’m looking forward to contributing to the group’s strategy and marshalling the resources needed to achieve its ambitions.”

injury law firm.

Pareto takes brief with Fletchers

Pareto FM has secured a contract to deliver hard services for Fletchers Group, a leading personal

The firm will carry out all associated compliance and engineering services across Fletchers’ Northern UK property portfolio in Southport, Manchester and Leeds.

Fletchers has more than 500 team members and

is one of the largest medical negligence and personal injury practices in the UK. It specialises in serious injury, medical negligence and motorbike accidents, and more recently has expanded into data breach and diesel emission claims.

Wakeley named CEO at Reconomy Circular economy specialist Reconomy Group has appointed Guy Wakeley as chief executive officer. He succeeds Paul Cox, who has transitioned to the role of founder director on the group’s board.

Churchill Group’s specialist intelligence-led security subsidiary Amulet has appointed Kieran Mackie as its managing director.

Mackie has been commercial director at the firm for five years. He has taken over from Darren Read, who has been promoted to the role of chief operating officer.

The colleagues have worked closely during the past few years on developing Luton-based Amulet’s growth path. Mackie plans to further enhance the company as an employer of choice, bringing a new generation of talent into the sector by making a career in security an attractive proposition by instituting training and personal development programmes.

He will also build on technological innovations at Amulet, such as its Churchill Group, a real-time situational awareness software.

Mackie said: “Darren has handed me the reins at a truly exciting time for our industry, and I look forward to cementing Amulet as the security provider of choice by hiring passionate, personable people to look after our clients.

“A valued, supported and motivated workforce is critical to business success which is why I’ll be focusing on hiring, retaining and developing the top talent available.”

Wakeley, who has an MA in engineering science from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in applications of artificial intelligence from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, began his career at Rolls-Royce and has held positions at General Electric, AES

Corporation, Berkeley Group and Amey.

Compass supports veterans Compass Group UK & Ireland is running a series of Military Dependents’ Days throughout this year.

The first event was held at Chelsea FC’s

Compass’s social value exceeds £590m

by Facilitate team

Compass Group UK & Ireland has been assessed by the Social Value Portal, which puts its total social and local economic value at £591 million. This figure is largely made up of local economic value (£587 million) because at least 17,000 of its 45,000 staff are employed within 15 miles of their homes. The group’s work in apprenticeships, community support and social enterprises has also contributed to the overall score.

Using the National TOMS Social Value Framework, the report assessed how the group’s activities and initiatives have been carried out to generate value for the people and communities where it operates.

Last year Compass launched ‘Our Social Promise’ – to support a million people with opportunities and change their lives through job creation, education, training, and charitable engagement by 2030.

Compass has produced a People and Communities Impact Report outlining work to support employees, clients and communities. Highlights include:

● Over 8,263 weeks of apprenticeship training delivered to support 301 apprentices, with another 600 apprentices being supported now;

● £1.2m spent with social enterprises in 2021 and a further £5m spent in 2022;

● Over £230,000 invested in mental health

PAGABO SET TO LAUNCH £545M M&E FRAMEWORK

support for employees; and

● 7,260 hours of equality, diversity and inclusion training delivered.

Chris Chidley, the group’s social value executive team sponsor, said: “We know we already do some great work, but having this insight helps us to identify where any gaps may be and areas that may require further focus. We are looking forward to seeing how our social value has further grown as a result of the activity we have carried out over the past 12 months.”

Guy Battle, Social Value Portal’ CEO, added: “As a leading UK employer, the commitments being delivered through their social promise are phenomenal and demonstrate the significant positive impact organisations can have on local economies and society”

National procurement organisation Pagabo has issued a prior information notice about its new £545 million, four-year mechanical and electrical solutions framework.

The national framework has been designed as a solutions-based offering to complement Pagabo’s existing frameworks suite.

It will also be divided into a number of UK regions and open to all types of public sector organisations, including blue-light services, housing associations, healthcare, education, aviation, highways and infrastructure, rail, and nuclear.

A range of specialist mechancial and electrical subcontractors will be appointed to the framework, which will operate for four years after going live.

Hull-based Pagabo has already been in touch with mechanical and electrical works providers ahead of issuing the notice and was due to embark on a market engagement session with the wider market on 28 February.

To open up the framework to a full range of suppliers it will be split into four lots, allowing organisations to tender for different-sized assignments.

Lot 1 - Mechanical and electrical design consultancy

Lot 2 - £50,000 to £500,000

Lot 3 - £500,000 to £1 million

Lot 4 - £1 million to £3 million

Lot 5 - £3 million and above

ground in January, when the company’s Armed Forces Committee invited Compass military families to a tour of the stadium. Families from all three services were hosted by the group’s sports and entertainment arm, Levy UK + Ireland, and Chelsea FC.

Camilla Howard, chair of Compass Armed Forces Committee, said: “We have hundreds of families of serving military personnel, as well as veterans and reservists in our business, so we have launched Military Dependents’ Day to provide something

special for the military families in our business, who we know so often juggle so much with house moves and when their partners are deployed.”

Andron serves Crown Estate Andron FM has won a five-year contract

to manage support services at the Crown Estate’s commercial and residential properties in London.

About 165 staff will provide cleaning and support services, including waste and recycling, window cleaning, pest control, deep cleans, and washroom and

consumable services.

The estate is one of the largest in London’s West End, with 10 million square feet of corporate and residential spaces.

G4S wins deal at Sizewell C G4S Secure Solutions UK has been awarded an interim

security contract worth £4.3 million by EDF at Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk.

The Sizewell C contract is projected to continue through 2023 and the company is expecting to create at least 100 positions for local people.

FRAMEWORK TENDER

Demand for R&M could fall as costs look set to rise

by Herpreet Kaur Grewal

The FM service market will continue to face difficulty over the next two years, as labour availability and high inflation drive an increase in costs, according to a market forecast.

The Building Cost Information Service’s market forecast states that maintenance and cleaning costs are to rise by 4.8% and 7.7% respectively this year – the latest predictions indicate that repairs and maintenance annual output could decline by around 2.9% in 2023, and general inflation, as measured by the Retail Price Index (RPI), is expected to fall to 7.0% by the end of the year.

The cost-of-living crisis and increase in wages because labour shortages could result in maintenance costs rising to 15.4% over the forecast period (to 3Q 2027). As companies adapt to post-Covid standards, cleaning costs are expected to rise 28.5% over the next five years.

Although energy prices remain volatile, energy costs are expected to decrease by 24.4% in the forecast period, as the markets stabilise.

Basic repairs and maintenance cannot be cancelled or postponed, but some R&M expenditure in the public sector may be held back, as new-build projects under the major hospital, school and prison building programmes are prioritised.

The full five-year facilities management forecast is available in the BCIS Building Running Costs online service.

VIVO partners with Launchpad VIVO Defence Services, the joint venture between Serco and Equans, has begun a twoyear partnership

with veterans’ charity Launchpad and is providing £10,000 corporate sponsorship to help ex-services personnel who need support in transitioning to civilian life.

Launchpad finds accomodation and other assistance for those who have left

the forces and has helped more than 600 veterans over the past 10 years, providing homes in Durham, Liverpool and Newcastleupon-Tyne. More than 90% of veterans seeking support from Launchpad are homeless and need a safe space while they

make the move into civilian life.

BM secures deals worth £20m Caterer BM has won contracts worth more than £20 million in the past six months with businesses in the financial, technology, media, construction, and legal industries.

IMTECH

CLOSES SALE OF IRISH SUBSIDIARY

Technical services group Imtech has completed the sale of its Irish subsidiary Suir Engineering Ltd to London-based private equity investor Duke Street.

On 14 November, Imtech –jointly owned by EDF Group and Dalkia – revealed that it had struck an agreement to sell 100% of Suir to Duke Street. Following fulfilment of customary conditions and regulatory approvals, Imtech has now finalised the transaction. This sale is part of the EDF Group and Dalkia’s aim to prioritise and refocus its strategic activities.

Waterford-based Suir Engineering was acquired in 2007 by Imtech for about €30 million (circa £26 million).

Suir, which employs 1,300 people, said there would be no change to the day-to-day running of the company and operations would continue as normal from its main base in Waterford and other offices in Dublin, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Frankfurt. It said the transaction, which includes investment by the senior management team, would enable it to enhance the services it offers to clients.

The company, which has nearly 40 years of engineering expertise in industries including pharmaceuticals, energy and utilities, food and beverages, and data centres, has an annual turnover of around €300 million (£263 million).

Clients include financial services adviser Lazard, accountancy firm Moore Kingston Smith, and Murphy, an engineering firm. BM has also signed major contracts with several other businesses across London and the Home Counties.

Vertas partners with Trakm8 IFM provider Vertas has partnered with fleet management specialist Trakm8 to enhance the operational efficiency of its 280-vehicle fleet to enable it to become carbon neutral by 2030.

Is your organisation facing extraordinary challenges?

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We help organisations understand their FM matu build their FM strategy, and boost their capabilitie o deliver consistently across their operations and liver tangible business value.

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EPH FM ERA

“New ways of working: for the fi rst six months of 2023, we will be piloting a nine-day working fortnight at Larch. This means that we will take every second Friday as a non-working Friday, and will work longer on the other days. We have found that clients rarely request meetings on Fridays, and we think this will improve the life balance of our team.”

NOW ENCOURAGING TWITTER WORKERS TO DO SO IN PLACES WHERE OFFICES ARE BEING CLOSED

“Last year Pareto Facilities Management Ltd launched a scheme for all employees that gives flexibility around work to donate blood. I’m delighted to say that I’m hooked and now commit to give blood every three months. Just finished my second donation. And the best thing... the free snacks!”

DIRECTOR OF PARETO FM

“My thinking on the Future of Work is broad but two themes are key for me:

1There is NO office ‘amenity’ more valuable than the choice to go there or not.

2We must consider how to bring work to people, not people to work.”

DAVE CAIRNS, SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT OF OFFICE LEASING AT CBRE CANADA, DRIVES HOME IMPORTANT POINTS ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WORK, CALLING FOR BUSINESSES TO CHALLENGE AND STRESS TEST THESE TWO ASSUMPTIONS

“Electric vehicles are an important, but often overlooked, component of net zero strategy for many businesses. Commercial fleets will be a key element in meeting carbon reduction targets in line with net zero agendas and driving EV adoption rates at scale and speed.”

PWC DIRECTOR DERRICK TATE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FLEET MANAGEMENT FOR DECARBONISATION GOALS

“A call to organisations everywhere: Outsource experience. You want a great meal – go to a great restaurant. You want to watch a new movie – go to the cinema. You want the atmosphere of a major sporting event – go to the game. You want access to all of the world’s music – sign up to Spotify. You want a great workspace experience – work in a place where workspace experience IS the service. Outsource it. You do it for almost every other experiential element of your life.”

JOHN PREECE, CHIEF PROPERTY OFFICE AT HUB AUSTRALIA, SAYS TO LET THE EXPERTS TAKE CARE OF YOUR NEEDS

“It may seem obvious, but end user ‘happiness’ should always rank high on the list of outcomes when designing space where they’ll be expected to perform/produce”

JOSEPH K, SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER OF GLOBAL DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION AT TWITTER, PROVIDES A USEFUL REMINDER FOR ANYONE MANAGING A WORKPLACE

“I’ve been volunteering for BIFM/IWFM for 11 years, having joined the South West committee in January 2012. I can honestly say that I have loved every minute and it has given me so much in return. I believe it’s helped shape my career thus far and given me a network of contacts and friends I simply wouldn’t have had.”

ESTATES AND FM

CONSULTANT NICK FOX REFLECTING ON MORE THAN A DECADE OF SERVICE TO THE IWFM, HAVING HOSTED HIS FIRST BIFM SOUTH WEST EVENT IN 2013

LARCH CONSULTING’S LUCY LARCH SHARES HER PLANS FOR HER WORKFORCE

THE FACT THAT MUSK — AN EXTREME SKEPTIC [SIC] OF REMOTE WORK — ACKNOWLEDGED ITS COST-CUTTING BENEFITS ILLUSTRATES THE FUTURE OF REMOTE WORK FOR THE US ECONOMY. IT HIGHLIGHTS THE MISLEADING NATURE OF MANY HEADLINES ABOUT HOW AN IMPENDING RECESSION WOULD LEAD TO THE END OF REMOTE WORK”

AUTHOR AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE REMOTE-FIRST.INSTITUTE IWO SZAPAR NOTES ELON MUSK’S U-TURN ON REMOTE WORKING,

“THE CHALLENGE IS THAT CLIENTS FIND ‘BEHAVIORAL [SIC] CHANGE’ UNCOMFORTABLE, INTANGIBLE, AND ARE OFTEN LESS WILLING TO APPLY ENTHUSIASM, COMMITMENT AND RESOURCES TO IT”

WORKPLACE SPECIALIST

DAVID GEORGE SAYS CHANGE IS NOT EASY

MANAGING

ANDREW HULBERT REVEALS THE PERKS OF DONATING BLOOD