RICS Washes Up in Washington

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29 January 2014 | Updated 01 January 1970

Brian Shillibeer writes: Despite the fact for at least twenty-five years there have been national and international calls for facilities management to be seen as a strategic business function, yet another report, this time from the esteemed Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, has declared that facilities managers STILL need to prove the value of what they do at board level.

The ‘Raising the Bar: City Roundtables Research Report (Phase II)’ calls for new measurement to prove FM’s effectiveness and its impact on productivity and profitability. ‘This will give facilities managers the tools they need to engage with business leaders around the world’, claims the report, ‘who are currently too often divorced from and disinterested in FM’.

RICS claims that facilities managers are being denied access to board level directors. The research found these barriers, which prevent the practitioners from ‘acting more strategically’, are consistent across both geographies and industry sectors.

The report builds on findings from RICS’ 2012 research, ‘Raising the Bar: Enhancing the Strategic Role of Facilities Management (Phase I)’. FM professionals across six continents and 12 economically different cities were surveyed, including London, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney and São Paolo. The survey team identified ‘a dozen challenges’ to the profession answered by ‘a dozen recommendations’ to the FM market.

Johnny Dunford, Global Commercial Property Director at RICS said: “After staff, property is the biggest expenditure of most businesses, hence the importance of integrating FM within the overall business strategy. This research proves that there can often be too many layers between senior FM staff and the CEO. Change cannot be made until FM is taken seriously at board level and to achieve this, the industry must raise its profile with business leaders.

“Based on recommendations within the report, we will work with business leaders to raise the profile of FM by defining professional standards and clarifying FM’s role in helping make organisations more effective.”

Based on the findings of the research, RICS will also:

• Work alongside FM leadership groups, from end-user and service-provider perspectives, to construct a maturity model that will identify the building blocks necessary to achieve FM market maturity
• Build the perception of the FM brand in order to attract high calibre newcomers into the profession
• Continue to develop qualified facilities managers, building on the proven ability to ‘think and act’ strategically.

Develop and advocate a more ‘balanced scorecard’ for addressing the effectiveness of FM.

To read Raising the Bar: City Roundtables Report (Phase II) visit www.rics.org/uk/research

Article written by Brian Shillibeer | Published 29 January 2014

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