Turning Your 2022 FM Staffing Challenges Into Opportunities

Quotes:

“Hitting those [challenges] head-on with complete courage and not going into every situation with fear… which over the past couple of years, there’s been so many ups and downs to what we’ve all been doing. And I think it’s time to hop in there and let’s take the hill, right?”

(6:17) – Randy Olson

“Our theme really this year is just simplicity, trying to make things simpler for our clients and our teams, everyone, because it’s so complex.” (6:55) – Shawn Black

“And in a lot of cases you’ve got to kind of hire for potential right? They may not be fully up to speed on what a facility manager does, but hire somebody who can critically think and has a curiosity for different tasks and train them with a program like the Pro FM Credential Program.” (12:42) – Randy Olson

“And every time a retiring employee walks out the door, that’s information walking out the door that you’ve had for 15, 20, 30 years. These employees we have in the facility space are like walking encyclopedias. They are hard to replace.” (14:26) – Suri Suriyakumar

Turning Your 2022 FM Staffing Challenges into Opportunities

“So what we have identified as the biggest problem in the construction space or in the build space is the lack of access to critical building information at the time technicians and engineers want it. (18:56) – Suri Suriyakumar

Challenges are inevitable, but being prepared for them is a choice. The FM Evolution podcast created this special episode to focus on turning challenges into opportunities. On this episode will dive into the labor shortage, AI advancements, and how your team can adapt to the Great Resignation by building up the next generation.

Our guests include Randy Olson of ProFMI, a program that provides a holistic and fully integrated comprehensive solution and training system for facility managers. Pro FMI encompasses everything that the facility manager needs to do to operate on a daily basis. By offering soft skills and collaboration tools, they can build out and elevate an FM’s role within their organization. Our other guest is Suir Suriakumar, CEO of Arc Facilities. Arc Facilities has spent over 30 years operating in construction documentation and information management. Recently Arc Facilities has developed a technology specifically for the build space to manage and maintain buildings.

How To Prepare for 2022

While 2020 and 2021 were both years filled with challenges and surprises, 2022 will be the year that we have to find the best way to deal with the aftermath, Suriiakumar explains. Everyone has had to pivot and has had the time to adapt and evaluate the best way to move forward, and now is the time to implement those new systems.

The biggest obstacle? The labor shortage. Although the fear used to be that Americans would be out of jobs, now the trepidation comes from a lack of employees. This severe labor shortage will have an even more acute effect on the FM realm for three specific reasons.

1. Facilities Maintenance and Management is an aging industry.

FM is largely made up of baby boomers, and most are either planning their retirement now, wanting to in the next few years or have already done so. Although this problem occurred before the pandemic, it has accelerated in the past two years.

2. There is a shortage of adequately trained professionals.

There were never enough college aid programs, training institutes, or trade schools, specifically for the purpose of training facilities managers. The already burdensome skills gap is now crucial to fill.

3. We are not incorporating the technology we have to elevate productivity, programs, and skills in FM.

Pro FMI and Arc Facilities both have the heart to transform the FM world into a place that can meet the challenges and needs of today’s world. Both think the answer lies in education and having the right tools.

Arc Facilities focus on the problem surrounding the lack of access to critical building information that technicians and engineers want. Although almost every other business has moved to digital, many FMs will still find their information tapped in paper or on the desktop of a soon to retire employee. 86% of the buildings in the United States today continue to have building information on paper.

Suriyakumar then gives us a sobering example of why this statistic matters. Suppose you are the largest bank in the U.S. or are a sophisticated research hospital, or even a company using space-age technology; if there was a water leak, then there is still an 80% chance that the information you will need to fix it will be found on paper.

“So in short, information is trapped in hard copy documents or digital documents in the facility space, which is a big burden on the labor force.” (20:12) – Suri Suriyakumar

The technology that Arc Facilities has developed fundamentally liberates this trapped information. It delivers information into the hands of the technicians and engineers while improving the efficiency of said tasks. Also, it allows you to protect the information using artificial intelligence and machine learning to make it available on mobile devices.