BIFM: An exclusive interview with Julie Kortens

UK Construction Excellence speaks with Julie Kortens, Chairman of the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), about her aspirations for the Institute and the future of facilities management in the construction industry.

For the uninitiated, what would you identify as being the core aims and objectives of the BIFM?

At our heart is working with Facilities Management (FM) professionals to equip them with all they need to deliver exceptional FM for their organisation. But hand-in-hand with that is to raise the profile of FM as a profession and educate business leaders and other professions about the value and impact that FM can make to operational performance, for the benefit of business, the economy and society.

What is your own professional history? How did you become Chairman of the BIFM?

Having spent several years working in HR, I took up my first role in facilities management in 1998 and have never looked back. It is an amazing profession, accessible to people from all cultures, all levels of experience and all academic backgrounds and I have been proud to play an active role in the development of the profession. I have volunteered in many capacities for BIFM, chaired the Women in FM special interest group, acted as a Non-Executive Director and have had the privilege of being Chairman since 2014.

How is the BIFM able to support member companies?

We work with employers to develop their facilities management people. The FM professional standards framework maps out the competences required for FM professionals at every stage of their career and through membership, qualifications and training employers can build up true staff development programmes to help develop the skills and expertise of their employees. We have many group members and are working closely to develop true strategic partnerships, helping them tailor and adapt our framework to provide the professional rigour of our standards but also adapt to their corporate goals and priorities.

We also work with businesses operating in the FM space to raise the profile of key issues, conduct research and, as corporate members, they can work with our communities and share specialist knowledge through our special interest groups.

From architecture and interior design to maintenance and waste management, the BIFM’s corporate membership spans a wide range of sectors. Are the fundamentals of facilities management the same irrespective of the industry? Is it at all difficult representing so many different sectors?

We have in our membership both the client and supply side of the profession. For instance, the FM professionals operating in businesses across the economy where the core purpose of the organisation might be anything from educating pupils, to discovering a cure for cancer or producing best in class products. On the supply side we also work with FM service providers and a range of specialist organisations that supply into the FM market, with organisations from interior design, maintenance and waste management.

From my experience I can see that the core of successful FM is management expertise (financial, people and project) and as such many of these skills are transferable across sectors and specialisms. Similarly because of the range of responsibilities FM’s invariably have, there is an inherent need for excellent communication and interpersonal skills to be able to manage the expectations and needs of a range of different stakeholders.

In different sectors there are always different skills and challenges and, as with any profession, you take your core professional skills and adapt them to the environment you are operating in. FM is no different. For example a soft service, customer facing FM role will have different skills requirement than someone who has a building engineering based role.

With the support of an amazing volunteer network we are also able to support a range of specialisms and sector specific professionals. We have special interest groups focusing on core FM specialisms such as Health and Safety, Workplace or Risk and Business Continuity and also sector based communities for example in Retail and Education.

What do you see as being the current issues within facilities management? What strategies are in place to address these issues?

I prefer to describe these as challenges rather than issues because facilities management has come such a long way in recent years. We are valued business partners in most organisations and our impact on overall business performance is increasingly recognised by the C-Suite. However, it is still apparent that in some sectors there continues to be a focus on cost-based procurement processes which do not recognise that it is people, strong partnering relationships and knowledge that deliver the value.

Collaboration with our colleagues in human resources, IT and finance is still a priority for us all. Working together to embed values and business imperatives is essential and FM has a key role to play in this arena. Our BIFM annual conference, ThinkFM, has focused on collaboration and productivity over the past few years to emphasise the role that we can play to create competitive advantage in business and add impact on society.

In your experience, do people fully understand the concept of facilities management and the influence it has on work environment and efficiency?

I think understanding has improved significantly over the past few years. People talk about FM being a young industry, but the understanding of the impact and value that FM can have on organisational performance and productivity, ultimately delivering value to the bottom line, has increased.

However, as with any profession this varies across organisations depending on their understanding of how to leverage FM as part of their strategy. For example we see pioneering companies creating work environments built, sustained and managed with the sole purpose of helping create happy, healthy, empowered individuals. These environments have great workspaces fostering appropriate cultures and collaboration within their business.

However, for others this is not on top of their priority list – perhaps due to other struggles or due to a lack of understanding of the difference FM can make. In businesses where the customer experience is fundamental to the organisations’ success you often see far more buy-in to the role and importance of FM.

Obviously, there is still work to be done recognising the full remit and opportunities that FM provides. But, as well as the institute engaging in cross industry groups, I think it’s so important that BIFM also helps equip FM professionals with the skills and knowledge to be able to champion the value of their teams and the services they provide within their own organisations.

What advice would you have for companies looking to implement a facilities management strategy?

A facilities management strategy must link directly to and generally underpin the strategy of the business. Understanding the values and needs of the business is essential. I think that it’s sometimes forgotten that the facilities management team is often the voice and face of the business, meeting and greeting clients and the public and providing the working environment which is the embodiment of the culture and values of the business.

How is the implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM) impacting facilities management? What advantages does BIM afford facilities managers industry-wide?

Although the BIM agenda has been driven by the public sector in recent years, in my experience there is also an awareness and understanding across the private sector. I believe that many feel that the working practices promoted by BIM already exist, particularly on new build projects. That said it will be interesting to see how this pans out. The good news is that it will continue to raise the profile and understanding of FM as a profession with other construction professionals across the built environment.

Many believe that long-term increased usage of BIM will provide better opportunities for FMs to maintain and engage with asset data which will potentially help expand a building’s lifecycle and increase operational efficiencies. This should also provide metrics that can help record and demonstrate the value that FM offers.

How do you see the BIFM continuing to develop in the months and years to come?

In the immediate future we will be continuing our work with FM employers to develop strategic partnerships through the institute’s learning and development opportunities, and look at ways in which we can progress and advance the skills–base across the sector using our professional standards.

We’re also delighted to have been contacted by an increasing number of international FM professionals and employers, all seeking to take up training and development for their teams, raising standards across the globe and taking full advantage of the BIFM offering.

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