How ‘New Ways of Working’ Affect Our Use of Facilities

How ‘New Ways of Working’ affect our use of facilities

By Morten Kamp Andersen (Aspector) & Peter Ankerstjerne (ISS)

How we work has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. This has impacted our use of facilities, as they support how we work. These changes will continue, albeit at an increased speed, and the effect on facilities, CRE and FM will be equally significant. Customers must understand these changes, and together with their external suppliers, be ready to adapt to New Ways of Working.

Table of Contents

Executive summary

The workspace has undergone dramatic change during the last decade, but this is as nothing compared to how ‘New Ways of Working’, new organisational structures and telecommuting will impact the work environment as we know it in the near future. This dramatic change will significantly impact the demand for new workspaces and hence it will impact the Facility Management industry. Four mega-trends are the primary drivers behind this change: the rise of knowledge workers; the burst of new technology; Generation Y entering the job market; and globalisation.

The New Ways of Working are characterised by being creative project-based work, group- and team-based, conducted in multiple locations, including home and local coffee shops, and with communication tools playing a significant role. This means that offices will be built with shared workstations and drop-desks, and as flexible rooms with multiple functions.

One of the major questions in the FM industry today is how the Facility Manager will seize this opportunity and support the organisations in unleashing the potential that New Ways of Working have to offer. Will the FM organisations respond by working more strategically, focusing on added value instead of playing a pure cost-savings game, and how will they leverage technology? No doubt, in the future, FM will be more than just managing the building envelope. The function of FM must grow into information provision, focus on space utilisation and support the core business of the c-suite with a unique and compelling value proposition.

These demands can only be met by FM though careful selection of, and strategic alignment with, external suppliers who can access the latest developments and international best practices, as well as utilising resources to focus on what is core for the company, including how to attract and retain talent for the future – outsourcing will naturally play a key role in realising the full potential of FM.

Introduction

Work is what you do – it is not a place you go to. This may seem obvious, but historically, work and the workplace have been tied so closely together that the two have seemed to be the same thing. And although workplaces have changed significantly over the last 50 years, there is every reason to expect that they will continue to do so in the future; they will become more intelligently distributed and, in some cases, far more intensely used. This is because the way we work is changing dramatically.

Workplaces will move from being ‘big dumb buildings’ to being active elements in companies’ strategy around people, performance and sustainability. Paradoxically, although technology makes it possible to work from anywhere, workplaces (and workspaces) will become far more important than they are today. This is precisely because many employees are working across spatial and temporal boundaries, which makes the availability of intelligent and responsive services so important (Duffy, 2008). This will be the case regardless of industry, organisational structure or culture. This paper will examine how and why in more detail, but there is no doubt that remote working, collaborative technologies and distributed workplaces will become more common and put pressure on our traditional understanding of what work is and where it should take place.

These changes in how we work and where we carry out our work are bound to have significant effects on corporate real estate strategies, facility management and what customers are looking for from their service providers. The impact of these trends will be discussed in this paper, but already it is clear that corporate real estate will become more strategic in the future and that customers will demand more strategic approaches from their services providers, not just to deliver what customers are demanding but increasingly to help them understand how they should meet the challenge of their workforce. FM is – to borrow an old phrase – moving out of the basement and into the boardroom; or, at least, it has the opportunity to do so.

It seems that how we work, where we work and how facilities support companies’ workforce strategy has changed a lot in the last 15 years. The indications are that this change will accelerate in the future. But how? This white paper will examine how our work patterns are changing and how this is likely to affect us in the workplace of the future.

Major shift in our work patterns

Our patterns of work – or simply just ‘how we work’ – have changed quite dramatically over the last 50 years. The workplace is now immeasurably different from Ford’s assembly lines (production) and paper factories (offices) of the beginning of the last century. This change can best be described as evolutionary; however, the last 20 years have seen an increase in the speed at which changes occur.

Four major trends affects how we work

There are many reasons why our work patterns have changed. We have become wealthier; consumers are demanding new types of products and services, which in turn require new production methods; and we are constantly seeking to increase productivity, which challenges our way of working and organising. Four mega-trends have, however, had a profound impact on how we work which goes beyond the aforementioned reasons: the rise of knowledge workers; the advent of IT and mobile devices; a new generation of workers – Generation X and Generation Y; and finally, the demands of globalisation. Each will be examined in turn.

1. Rise of knowledge workers

A knowledge worker is a broad term that defines a group of individuals who are valued for their ability to act on and to communicate knowledge within a specific subject matter area. In short, knowledge workers think for a living. These individuals use research skills to define a problem, identify possible solutions, communicate this information and then work on one or several of these possible solutions. Their work is non-routine and often requires a significant degree of creative thinking.

Looking after knowledge workers is hugely important. Peter Drucker states that the most important contribution of management in the 20th century was the 50-fold increase in the productivity of the manual worker in manufacturing, and that the most important contribution in the 21st century must be a similar increase in productivity in knowledge work and knowledge workers. Knowledge-intensive companies are the fastest growing and most successful companies in most leading economies today.

As it is virtually impossible to make a single production line that works for all kinds of production, it is also impossible to design workspaces that are suitable for all knowledge workers. The design of the work environment must not only be adapted to specific work needs but must also suit individual personal preferences, which makes segmenting knowledge workers more complicated.

Knowledge work is flexible, and knowledge workers are far more likely than other types of workers to work from home and be more mobile in general. This often leads to the mistake of assuming that the physical work environment is not important to them. In a study from 2002, knowledge workers from 41 companies were interviewed to identify ways to improve their performance, and physical work environment topics came consistently on top.

2. Burst of new technology

IT and mobile solutions have had a profound influence on how we work. The development has been exponential for over 30 years, and research suggests that this exponential advance will continue for at least the next 15 years, generating further advances in multiple areas.

It is difficult to know what technologies may emerge and indeed what impact they will have on business and how we work; things are simply happening so fast today. More than four billion people now own a mobile phone – and the phones are getting smarter all the time. A few emerging technologies are already so advanced that it is possible to gauge their possible influence:

• Real-time speech recognition and translation will support communication across languages. Google is at an advanced stage in developing software that allows the real-time translation of a mobile call, permitting two people to speak to each other in two different languages, each language being translated into the other as the conversation continues.
• Artificial intelligence and robotics are likely to advance further, allowing intelligent devices to analyse and make decisions with no human interference in areas unthinkable today.
• ‘Internet of Things’ – a term coined to recognise when assets themselves become part of a network, able to capture, compute, communicate and collaborate with each other. It is expected that devices embedded with sensors, actuators and communications capabilities soon will transmit information and be able to effect changes in the environment automatically (Bughin et al., 2010).
• ‘Big Data’. Data is doubling every 18 months at the moment. Most organisations are struggling to collect and sort the data, let alone proactively analyse, use and capture insights from it. Ever-increasing processing power and advanced smart pattern recognition software will allow companies to handle big data.
• Collaboration technologies are still in their infancy in many ways; however, they are expected to grow by at least 20% p.a. over the next five years in the areas of video and web conferencing. New solutions in collaboration technologies will greatly increase the benefits of working together at different locations.
• Network organisations will push the boundaries of the organisation, tapping into knowledge from employees as well as non-employees who offer their knowledge and expertise in new ways. While the use of contract or temporary employees has been well established for many years, technological advances will allow organisations to leverage semi-detached talent much more.

Although it is difficult to predict exactly what technologies will dominate in the future, it is clear that the overall reliance on physical location will diminish. Employees – and knowledge workers in particular – will have more freedom to work where they want instead of having to come to the office every morning.

Employers will instead have to focus more on creating work environments that stimulate creativity, performance and job satisfaction for these knowledge workers, with location and traditional office environments a thing of the past.

3. From Generation X to Generation Y

Generation X – or just Gen X, as it is often referred to – describes the demographic group that came after the Baby Boomers. These people were born from the early 60s to the early 80s, are now in their 40s and occupy many senior positions in society today. They have been the primary drivers of the changes in our work patterns for the last 20 years.

Generation Y – sometimes referred to as Millennials – describes the demographic group that followed Generation X. Any company that wants to attract and retain talent from this large and important segment must heed their needs and desires.

Looking ahead to try to understand how work patters will change in the future, it is necessary to understand what Generation Y wants from its workplace. It is of course difficult to describe such a large class, but a few general characteristics are often used (Kane, 2011):

• Tech-Savvy. They have grown up with technology and cannot remember a time without mobile phones and the internet. They have multiple gadgets: laptops, smartphones, gaming consoles, clever TVs etc., and are wired into the internet 24/7. They communicate with friends and colleagues on many different platforms simultaneously. Their ability to use technology to communicate effectively makes remote workplaces possible and even desirable.
• Attention-craving. They require (and need) attention in the form of feedback and guidance, as well as just general attention towards their performance. Good leadership and focus on individual personal development is essential. The workplace must provide ways to satisfy this need.
• Team-orientated. They value teamwork and seek input from others. Contrary to Gen X, Generation Y is skilled in teamwork, and not only wants to be involved and included but is happy to include others in return.
• Achievement-orientated. Generation Y is very confident, ambitious and achievement-orientated. They expect a lot from their employers, they actively seek new challenges and they are not afraid of questioning people, processes or culture. They want a career more than they want a job. They are driven not so much to earn more money as to achieve meaning in their lives and a sense of mission.
• Family-centric. Despite being ambitious and achievement-orientated, they are willing to trade off higher pay for flexible hours and a better work/life balance.

Generation Y wants (completely) different things from their work and workplace than the two previous generations. Research suggests that the biggest gap in expectations from work exists between the people above 45 and younger than 30 years of age. Flexible working times and locations are important; 85% of Gen Ys want to spend 30%–70% of their time working from home. Other differences in what is expected from work are flexibility, a sense of mission/meaning, technology-rich environment and focus on individual career. Clearly, the huge influx of workers from Generation Y will impact how we work.

4. Globalisation and the pressure to perform

Globalisation means that an increasing number of countries are taking part in the world economy. This is changing the pattern of world trade, but also goes beyond the simple exchange of goods; it means opening up countries to wider contact with each other in order to allow for the free flow of goods, services, people and technologies. This means that people around the globe are more connected to each other than ever before, information and money is flowing more rapid than ever and goods produced in one part of the world are available in the rest of the world.

Globalisation affects how we work in two ways. Firstly, globalisation affects the availability of talent – there is simply more talent available. The workforce in developing countries is becoming better qualified and increasingly engaged in more sophisticated, service-oriented activities.

Despite the rapid expansion in the supply of highly qualified workers, most executives believe there is a competitive struggle to attract and retain ‘top’ talent central to their competition strategy. More corporate resources are being focused on attracting, retaining and developing international talent.

The design of jobs, job roles and how work is performed is greatly affected by the fact that talent will be more geographically dispersed. People will be working with coworkers they have never seen, in contexts they are unfamiliar with and in languages they may not master well.

The second way in which globalisation affects work is the ever-increasing pressure to perform. Before the 1980s, companies could produce goods and have a secure home market with limited competition. Now, similar products are sold at similar or cheaper prices with the same or better service, and innovation is copied by competitors within weeks. This means that performance and productivity is high on the agenda, and only the few companies that succeed in constantly improving their competitiveness will survive. This puts a constant pressure on how work is conducted, and places outsourcing and offshoring on the strategic agenda of any corporation.

New patterns in how we work

These four trends have affected – and will continue to affect – how we work, where we work and how we use space and facilities to support our work. Table 1 illustrates how work has changed in three dimensions: how we work, where we work and our use of space.

Table 1: New ways of working

Source: J. Worthington

How we work is increasingly changing from individual routine-based work to creative project-based work. Employees are working more in groups and teams, solving complex problems in teams composed of many different types of people and competencies. The problems are often unique and require divergent and creative thought and work processes.

Also, the places where we work are changing. Historically, work took place at a central office (often, large headquarters), which required a significant amount of travel time. Today, work is conducted in multiple locations, including at home, with communication tools playing a significant role.

How we use space in our work is also changing. Historically, employees had one designated desk, with space allocation according to rank/title in the business hierarchy, so the office of the VP was significantly larger than that of the graduate trainee. These desks were often under-utilised (see also figure 2 below). Now, offices are built with shared workstations, often where employees have no fixed desk, with flexible rooms that can match the task at hand and work settings designed to be used at any time.

‘New Ways of Working’ have been evolving for some time, now, and many of these trends have already affected many workers in most countries. Some may even feel that the New Ways of Working are already a reality. While this is true for a minority, the real impact will only be felt in the coming decade, as the changes will affect the majority of workers, initially in the developed economies but increasingly also for a large proportion of workers in many developing countries.

We are now in the era of the distributed workplace (Keable & Marmot, 2011). Work has evolved to be a continuum from full-time in-office work to mobile, remote, distributed, virtual work, and the facilities must adapt to support this. Indeed, facilities – as a concept – will be broadened from considering just buildings to encompass spaces. The spaces will be faced with four demands (Harrison et al., 2005):

• ability to interact (visually, physically and virtually);
• agility (flexible and adaptable to change);
• diverse (provide for a range of activities and functions);
• capacity (effectively service the user’s physical and virtual requirements).

The buildings themselves will become more intelligent, being bundled with a range of smart technologies. The buildings will be able to report which areas need to be serviced or repaired. For example, sensors will be able to monitor the body temperatures of the employees and adjust climate controls accordingly. This will mean that the buildings can be tailored more to the specific needs of the occupier.

Finally, we believe that the sustainability agenda will continue, but at an even higher level. To date, this agenda has been driven more by image than by a desire to impact the environment. This will change. Sustainability will be an issue not just when constructing the buildings but when considering where they should be located (and thus how far the employees will have to drive), the services they use and a lifespan view of the facilities (from-cradle-to-grave approach).

Impact on facilities management

Companies are under pressure to create and deliver a workforce strategy that both attracts and retains talent and also drives productivity and performance. To do this, corporate real estate and facility management must respond to employees’ New Ways of Working and proactively support the workforce.

New Ways of Working, and their subsequent impact on facilities, will impact FM in at least seven ways:

1. From passive supplier to proactive strategic partner

Workplace strategy will play a significant role for companies in their efforts to attract and retain talent and to remain competitive. This will go beyond traditional asset deployment and facility management, and will extend to focus on how to use space (in the widest meaning of the word) more efficiently and effectively to the benefit of all stakeholders. This is a widening of the FM role and requires close collaboration with other support functions such as HR and IT.

The workplace strategy must be aligned with, and support, the overall company strategy. This can be achieved by using tools such as Balance Scorecard, which can also help identify better FM benchmarks. Traditional FM metrics add little strategic value, and new and more strategically relevant KPIs must be used. FM should measure their impact on outcomes such as: ability and speed of knowledge creation; impact (of office environment) on employee productivity and innovation; impact on culture; customer satisfaction; and ability to adapt to changes in external environment (Turnbull et al., 2011).

FM has not historically been overly strategic, and efforts to try to integrate FM with other internal service functions such as HR, IT, legal and finance, through concepts such as ‘shared service’, have been fruitless. While shared service is gaining some traction, FM is not always present and is rarely the primary driver.

FM service providers will increasingly be asked to participate proactively in shaping and delivering on the workplace strategy. External providers often have better industry knowledge, necessary to support the FM division in its strategy formulation. The service provider may also have a better operational understanding of the service of the facilities, and hence knowledge of the needs and possibilities of the existing facilities. Customers should leverage this knowledge.

2. Value creation – not (just) cost savings

FM has historically focused heavily on costs and spent most of its focus trying to find out how to get more for less – i.e. cost-cutting. Cost-cutting will continue to dominate the agenda, and the opportunities to increasingly lower occupancy costs are vast (see ‘4: Better use of space’, below). However, shifting focus from costs to value is about FM seeing its mission as more strategic and broader than it did previously.

3. Sustainable solutions

Sustainability is an important strategic topic in all business areas today, and probably nowhere more so than in the Corporate Real Estate and Facilities Management area. This is not surprising, given that buildings account for almost 40% of global energy use and close to 50% of the US’s landfill waste; buildings (primarily HVAC systems) consume close to 75% of all electricity in the US and account for almost 40% of the US’s carbon emissions (Jaspers & Teicholz, 2011).

FM responsibilities on sustainability are increasing. The majority of facilities managers have responsibility for energy management, health & safety, waste management, recycling, water consumption and carbon footprint management. These responsibilities have increased over the last 10 years and will continue to expand over the next. Training employees in maintaining a sustainable workplace is an example of a responsibility new to many FM professionals.

Because sustainability is so high on the agenda – even at board level – the pressure will increase on FM to deliver sustainable solutions across all platforms and activities and reduce energy levels, waste, water and carbon footprint significantly. New technologies will help achieve this. Computer-based energy planning models of the entire property portfolio and all building systems will reduce the total energy consumption. These emerging technologies will make it possible to schedule asset energy consumption based upon the availability of green energy.

FM will be forced to rethink all of its existing assets and systems into a sustainable framework, including making life-cycle assessments and undertaking life-cycle building management. Pressures from stakeholders and cost concerns will increase (today, the primary driver for implementing sustainable practices is ‘Corporate Image’ and ‘Legislation’, whereas cost reductions and pressures from stakeholders are much further down the list). Corporate FM must demand of external vendors that all solutions are sustainable, and KPIs for continuous reduction in waste and carbon footprint should be an integral part of any vendor contract.

4. Better use of space

Office space utilisation rates are quite low for most companies, most of the time today. Many industry studies show that the average maximum utilisation rate throughout the day for most office space is just 45%–50%. This is a combination of employees not being in the office on that day (approx. 20%) and a large group of employees being only temporarily at their desks or in the office that day (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Average desk utilisation rates

The utilisation rates can be significantly increased – with impressive cost savings as a result – by adopting new workspace designs. Flexible workstations, distributed workplace strategy and mobile workplace strategy are just a few such ways of maximising the value of the current properties. Reinvestment can be focused on “less space but better space” propositions (Bowen & Hood, 2011).

A case study from the Home Office in the United Kingdom illustrates this potential (IFMA, 2011). The Home Office was planning a move from seven buildings to two premises. Its aim was to save money and energy by introducing a totally flexible workplace with few fixed desks. Its utilisation study, undertaken before the move of 2,500 desks, revealed a 56% occupancy rate. The employees were trained in the new work environment, basic workplace etiquette was introduced, so that people understood that working in a break-out space was considered acceptable, and three work styles was introduced: fixed, mobile within the office (the default) and mobile in and out of the office. New software was introduced to allow maximum flexibility within teams, and new solutions were introduced so that employees could work on both PCs and laptops.

The result of the move was an increase in utilisation rate to 80%, a desk sharing ratio of 8:10, support for up to 4,940 employees within the building (compared to 3,800 previously) and a fall in facility management cost per occupant of 20%.

Interestingly, in the case from the Home Office, the FM service provider saw an increase in workload. Expectations rose from the employees in terms of quantity and speed of work. Also, supporting more people with the same number of desks meant that floors were used more heavily; printers, copy machines and PC broke down more frequently; and bins had to be emptied more frequently and toilets cleaned more often.

5. Leverage technology

The shift in focus away from workplace to workspace means that FM professionals move away from thinking just in terms of buildings and include leveraging technology in their service offerings. For knowledge workers in particular, the idea of workplace includes concepts such as the virtual workplace, which falls within the domain of FM and must be considered in the overall service offering. While IT plays a big part in setting up and maintaining a virtual workspace – the devices, the network connectivity and the applications – FM (and HR) is also important.

Technology is important for FM professionals for two reasons. Firstly, technology impacts both how we perform our work and where we work. New and different types of workplaces – such as assigned workplace, shared workplace, home office, virtual workplace and flexible office – emerge. FM must understand and proactively respond to this. Secondly, FM professionals must use technology to make these workplaces/spaces efficient and effective by taking all available technologies and applying them to support the employees.

Many FM technologies are already available, and they must be used and leveraged optimally. New and emerging technologies are also just around the corner, and they must be evaluated and embraced when available. Jaspers & Teicholz (2011) list a number of current and emerging FM technologies:

Current:

• Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a real-time collaboration tool for architects, engineers and contractors for agile project management of constructing or renovating buildings. It creates a 3D representation of the building. It can cut costs dramatically for CRE, and it can do so for FM.
• Building Automation Systems (BAS) controls the building systems for climate control, lighting and safety. Open standards make it possible to connect different vendors’ systems, and new generations of BAS can optimise the efficiency of equipment, energy and the people maintaining it.
• Access and Security Management Systems (ASMS) manage access profiles and smart cards for access to spaces within buildings. ASMS know how many people are in the building, and where they are, and this data can provide workplace capacity data to optimise user efficiency.
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) store and use geographical data. This can be used to set up work schedules for maintained staff who are geographically dispersed, and for evaluating property propositions.
• Digital Signage helps employees identify where work space is available. This is important for flexible workplaces, as the productivity gain from this way of working is often lost if it is not utilised optimally. But “by integrating digital signage with space management and workplace reservation systems, people can check for availability on-site as well as remotely.”
• Sustainability and Energy Management at the workplace uses computer-based energy modelling of the buildings and its systems to reduce total energy.

Emerging:

• Application of Sensor Networking Around the Workplace includes simple sensors, such as infrared, to complex ones, such as temperature, video and sound sensors. The data from these sensors is recorded, computed and transmitted to the rest of the intelligent building.
• Smart Grids are electronic networks that can intelligently link the cheapest and most natural energy to the network of facilities and consume it at times when the sustainable energy is most likely to be generated.
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) can be used for real-time location of people and assets, and can be combined with sensors and GIS.

Technology is an important component in FM’s quest to become more efficient and effective, and is essential in responding to the demands of New Ways of Working.

6. Becoming information providers

As corporate FM and the service providers leverage technology in their efforts to support the performance of the company’s employees, they will find themselves with significantly more data on buildings and, significantly, also on the employees. This data may initially be simple, such as location- or composition-based data, but when FM combines information from BIM, ASMS, RFID and BAS, FM will have rich data that extends far beyond this.

Managers and HR conduct surveys and employee interviews to understand how employees interact, exchange information, network and collaborate across the company. This information is important in understanding how to support performance, attract talent and increase productivity. FM is already in possession of some of that data, and soon will be able to use all of the employees’ information and map it visually to show who interacts with whom, where they interact, how long they work together, how they move and speak, and how comfortable they are during their interactions. FM will know how their employees work, how productive they are and what they think of their work environment… and much more.

The future FM value proposition extends from ‘just’ managing assets and buildings to managing spaces and ultimately supports employees’ performance. FM is already in possession of certain data (who is formally meeting with whom, internally and externally) but does not use this information proactively, nor sees information as a core product. This will change.

7. Personalised service

Because most buildings are reasonably similar – especially in the UK and North America – service providers have so far been able to offer a fairly standard service. This service can be adjusted to specific customer requests, but such adjustments are minor. This will change, as FM will move its focus away from servicing buildings to supporting workspaces for three reasons: firstly, buildings supporting New Ways of Working will be more fit-for-purpose and hence unique from company to company. Secondly, companies’ workspaces are more individual than their buildings are. Finally, the companies’ strategies, and consequently their workplace strategies, will differ from each other. This will make customers demand a service tailored to their exact, specific needs.

It is possible for service providers to deliver such a personalised service. The technological development, the higher degree of FM expertise and the general professionalism of the FM and service industry will make it possible to offer more personalised services at little extra cost. It will, however, require the provider to understand the business and workplace strategy in depth.

The personalised service goes beyond managing the assets and systems. Customers will require that the service provider understand their business and train the front-line service employees to be able to deliver on this understanding.

Impact on choice of service provider

FM is faced with a number of pressures: changing work habits of employees, a demand for a more strategic approach and a wave of new technologies. Corporate FM must respond on all fronts and, to do this, it must demand more from its service providers. Only through support and alignment with its suppliers can it deliver value through its workplace strategy.

The service provider must, as a minimum, fulfil the following criteria. It must:

• have a strategic focus;
• be sustainable and effective;
• embrace new technology;
• understand space planning;
• see itself as more than just a service provider;
• offer a personalised service.

Building long-lasting and sustainable partnerships with FM service suppliers will be a key component for workspace success. Finding the right FM partner will secure continuous workspace optimisation and access to the latest developments and international best practices, as well as unleashing resources to focus on what is core for the company, including how to attract and retain talent for the future.

Conclusion

How we work has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. This has impacted our use of facilities, as they support how we work. These changes will continue, albeit at an increased speed, and the effect on facilities, CRE and FM will be equally significant. Customers must understand these changes, and together with their external suppliers, be ready to adapt to New Ways of Working.

There are many reasons why our work pattern is changing. Four mega-trends are having a profound impact: 1) Rise of knowledge workers, who are far more likely to work from home and are more mobile in general. Their work environment is the most important supporter of their performance. 2) The burst of new technology profoundly influences how we work, diminishing reliance on physical location and giving employees more freedom to work where they want. 3) Generation Y (born 1983–2000) is entering the workforce. They are tech-savvy, team-oriented and family-centric, and want completely different things from their work. 4) Globalisation affects how we work, as it opens up access to a larger (global) talent pool and puts ever-increasing pressure on organisations to perform.

New Ways of Working are characterised by being creative project-based work. Employees work more in groups and teams, solving complex problems in teams composed of many different types of people and competencies. Work is conducted in multiple locations, including at home, with communication tools playing a significant role. Offices are built with shared workstations, often where employees have no fixed desk, with flexible rooms that can suit the task at hand, and work settings designed to be used at any time. This will greatly impact the demand for facilities.

New Ways of Working, and their subsequent impact on facilities, will impact FM in at least seven ways:

• Proactive strategic partner. Workplace strategy is about using space more efficiently and effectively to the benefit of all stakeholders. It must be aligned with the overall company strategy.
• Focus on value creation. FM has historically focused too much on costs and too little on value. Cost will continue to dominate the agenda but, by shifting focus to value, will be more about FM seeing its mission as more strategic and broader than previously.
• Sustainability is an important strategic topic, as buildings account for almost 40% of global energy use. FM responsibilities on sustainability are increasing, and the pressure to deliver will increase.
• Better use of space. Space utilisation rates can be increased by adopting new workspace designs such as flexible workstations, a distributed workplace strategy and a mobile workplace strategy.
• Leverage technology. FM must use technology to make these workplaces/spaces efficient and effective by evaluating and embracing all available and emerging technologies.
• Becoming information providers. The vast amounts of data on buildings and employees will make FM able to map visually who interacts with whom, where they interact, how long they work together, how they move and speak, and how comfortable they are during their interactions.
• Personalised service. FM must move focus away from servicing buildings to supporting workspaces and this will require a more customised, personalised service to satisfy customers’ specific needs.

These pressures that CRE and FM face can only be satisfied though the support of, and alignment with, its external suppliers. Finding the right FM partner will secure continuous workspace optimisation and access to the latest developments and international best practices, as well as unleashing resources to focus on what is core for the company, including how to attract and retain talent for the future.

References

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Bughin, J., Chui, M. & Manyika, J. (2010). Clouds, big data and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch. McKinsey Quarterly

Coles, D. (eds.) (2011). Work on the Move – Driving Strategy and Change in Workplaces. IFMA Foundation

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Harrison, A., Wheeler, P. & Whitehead, C. (eds.) (2005). The Distributed Workplace. London: Taylor & Francis Group

ISS 2020 Vision – Scenarios for the Future for the Global FM Industry (2011)

Jaspers, E. & Teicholz, E. (2011). Technology and the Future of Facilities. In: Coles, D (eds.): Work on the Move – Driving Strategy and Change in Workplaces. IFMA Foundation

Kane, S. (2011). Generation Y. http://legalcareers.about.com/od/practicetips/a/ GenerationY.htm

Keable, E.B. & Marmot, A. (2011). Evolution of the workplace. In: Coles, D (eds.): Work on the Move – Driving Strategy and Change in Workplaces. IFMA Foundation

Turnbull, P., Cimbalo, J., Doherty, P., Johnson, C., Nabholz, R., Norbut, D., Redlein, A. & Sanquist, N. J. (2011). Workplace Strategy: What It Is and Why It’s Important. In: Coles, D (eds.): Work on the Move – Driving Strategy and Change in Workplaces. IFMA Foundation

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Company profiles

Aspector A/S

Aspector is an HR consultancy company. We offer services within Human Capital, HR strategy development, organisational culture, change management, HR value impact analysis, HR audits & Human Capital due diligence. Our aim is to enable our customers to meet strategic goals in a sustainable and profitable way by aligning HR activities with business strategy.

Aspector is based in Aarhus, Denmark, and helps clients around the world. We combine the hardcore disciplines of strategy and finance with the soft areas of psychology and human relations. This combination provides the best platform for effective HR management. We believe that all organisations have unique employees in unique situations, and our methodology, approach and tools are always tailored to each special context.

For more information on Aspector, please visit www.aspector.dk

ISS World Services A/S

The ISS Group was founded in Copenhagen in 1901 and has since grown to become one of the leading Facility Services companies in the world. ISS offers a wide range of services within the following business areas: cleaning services, support services, property services, catering services, security services and facility management services. The ISS Group’s revenue amounted to DKK 74 billion in 2010 and ISS now has more than 540,000 employees in over 60 countries across Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Pacific, serving more than 200,000 business to business customers every day.

Every day, ISS employees create value by working as integrated members of our clients’ organisations. A key component of the ISS HR strategy is to develop capable employees in all functions. Team spirit and self-governance are encouraged, as is voluntary participation in additional training and multidisciplinary workflows. Besides developing our employees, ISS ensures compliance with Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) regulations. We demonstrate our social and ethical commitment through the ISS Code of Conduct, our membership in the UN Global Compact and by honouring the principles laid down in the Union Network International (UNI) agreement.

For more information on the ISS Group, please visit www.issworld.com

Visit the ISS Learning Zone online by scanning the QR code below, using a smart phone: