Give us a call
1-858.454.7326
“Don’t pontificate. Go make decisions. There will be a good one, there’ll be a bad one, but whatever it is, you’ll learn from it and you’ll make a better one the next time.”
(10:11) – Stan Mitchell
“A lot of people think FM’s are about building services and assets and that kind of stuff, but it’s not. It ultimately is all about people.”
(19:09) – Stan Mitchell
“If you have a common language across the world, across all those countries and organizations, that provides facility management services to their people… then we have, we’ve got a common way to move forward.”
(21:21) – Randy Olson
“If it’s all about people, can we create a standard about how FM affects people and how people affect our ability to deliver FM.”
(25:48) – Stan Mitchell
“Nobody in the FM world has it got all the answers to anything. That’s a bit of a bold statement, but the more you think about it, the more it’s true. You started this off at the beginning, talking about education. That’s what you get. If you participate in developing ISO standards, you get education.”
(28:39) – Stan Mitchell
The FM Evolution podcast is here to bring trends, innovations, and advancements to the facility maintenance universe. In this episode, we got to spend time with Randy Olson of Pro FMI and Stan Mitchell, CEO of Key Facilities Management International. Stan has been in the facility maintenance world for over 35 years, and we were honored to get to hear his heart behind the longevity of this career path. Not to mention Randy’s entire purpose behind Pro FMI, which is to empower and educate those in the FM world to reach their full potential!
FM is about people, and between the three of us on the show today, you will know that’s what this whole podcast is for, you guys! This episode dives into ISO standard’s impact on the global FM industry, but at the heart of it, it’s people helping people, and we can’t get enough of that.
Stan Mitchell began his venture into FM as a merchant marine until 1990, when he started his own facilities management company. At the time, no one really knew the term “FM,” and that was not going to help his business get off the ground. He needed to promote the company, but it needed to be seen as a strategic professional discipline alongside well-known trades like architecture, engineers, and so on. There needed to be an international standard to gain client trust and recognition.
“I realized that it had to have credible international standards or nobody was going to take it seriously.”
(5:39) – Stan Mitchell
Although developing standards was not his initial passion point, he knew that was the only thing to answer his dilemma. Thus began the long and winding road of all things in the ISO 41,000 standards development.
If you have ever needed a concise explanation of ISO, we believe Stan gave one of the best:
“[ISO] is a very bureaucratic, long-winded way of documenting what’s deemed to be best practice.”
(6:09) – Stan Mitchell
Currently, Randy Olson is leading the design development distribution marketing of the Pro FM credential program. Through multiple global events, Stand and Randy have formed a friendship bonding over ISO. The two have spent many years in the minutia of ISO standard development. Those standards are actually the basis for the ProFM program. Just as Stan found himself in the weeds of their development, Randy and the Pro FM’s holistic, comprehensive, facility management education and credential program qualification program score a globally recognized credential developed on top of the ISO 41,000 standards.
There are 166 countries that are members of ISO. For each country that participates, it needs to create a company that specializes in that topic, and that goes the same for FM. To get involved, you call ANSI, the national standards body for America, and you ask about the FM committee, and you will be welcomed. They desire for volunteers to step up and be engaged in the discussion and development.
ISO 41,000 is best explained as a family of standards, and all of the block of numbers correlating to FM will be 41, followed by three other digits. The technical committee, established in 2012, has published five standards with six more underway. Those published thus far cover vocabulary, strategic procurement, and FM agreements, and FM strategy. Human experience, technology, and emergency management are all being worked on at the moment.
“A lot of people think FM’s are about building services and assets and that kind of stuff, but it’s not. It ultimately is all about people.”
(19:09) – Stan Mitchell
Overall for Stand, the passion in ISO development stems from the relationship between asset management, professional discipline, and management discipline. By getting credibility through global standards, FM can work alongside other accredited fields such as property managers who work alongside FM to improve experiences for customers and clients. We cannot say it enough; it is all about people.
Randy went on to explain how ISO standards affect more than most would know. Whether it is giving a common language to FM vocabulary worldwide, creating a strategy for well-being in and out of the office, culture creation, or innovative best practices for the pivots of the 2020s, ISO standards are there.
“When we went into development of Pro FMI we started with the ISO standards as the key input into our body of knowledge, into our roadmap for building the program.”
(20:54) – Randy Olson
This episode of FM evolution is brought to you by Pro FMI. How do your FM skills measure up to the global standard? Try our free map your gap self-assessment at profmi.org/evolution and check out ProFM’s credential course!
Thank you for tuning in to this week’s FM Evolution Podcast! Continue to stay updated with the latest Trends, Innovations, and Advancement of the Facility Management Universe!
Fm Evolution is committed to bringing you the latest news of the FM World, keep up with us each week to hear the current facility maintenance trends, innovations, and advancements. We are excited to see how we can all play a part in the sustainability initiatives taking hold worldwide!
Overall for Stand, the passion in ISO development stems from the relationship between asset management, professional discipline, and management discipline. By getting credibility through global standards, FM can work alongside other accredited fields such as property managers who work alongside FM to improve experiences for customers and clients. We cannot say it enough; it is all about people.
Randy went on to explain how ISO standards affect more than most would know. Whether it is giving a common language to FM vocabulary worldwide, creating a strategy for well-being in and out of the office, culture creation, or innovative best practices for the pivots of the 2020s, ISO standards are there.
Thank you for tuning in to this week’s episode of Service Evolution! What are you interested in hearing about? Leave us a comment and keep up with us by following us.
BE A GUEST