Brady & Sheridan Promote IFMA's Sustainability Platform
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Shelia
Sheridan
Chairman
David
J. Brady
President
and CEO
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Making the case for where the International Facility Management
Association (IFMA) can take the profession and develop its
members are the chairman, Sheila Sheridan, and president and
CEO, David J. Brady. Serving as president for another year,
Sheridan reflected on the achievements of the Association
this past year during her World Workplace address in Dallas
in October. Her platform will lead IFMA through another year
that will focus on a greater awareness of environmental issues
and sustainability. To meet this challenge, IFMA expanded
offerings to help educate and support members in their efforts
to lead their own companies in environmentally responsible
practices. Further, the association, with 17,000 members worldwide,
is engaged in partnerships and participates in group efforts
to promote these issues. The proceeding is based on conversations
with Sheridan and Brady and excerpts from their addresses.
"IFMA recognizes that the bottom-line impact of adopting
sustainable practices was an important benefit for facility
professionals to use in persuading their companies and agencies
to join the movement," said Sheridan. "With the
support of Antron Carpet Fibers, the IFMA research department
was able to survey members (in fall 2002) on their sustainability
practices. Ninety-five percent of those surveyed said they
envision sustainability will become an important focus for
the profession, and the majority reported pro-active steps
to implement environmental consciousness."Further, the
World Workplace conference itself was certified by Leonardo
Academy as a Cleaner & Greener event, largely because
IFMA committed to minimizing the environmental impact. The
Academy's Cleaner & Greener Program recognizes companies
and organizations that make a concerted effort to reduce pollution
and waste. |
New educational opportunities included, "Leading the Sustainable
Revolution," and it focused on the opportunities for sustainable
FM practices for existing buildings. This course was designed to
give attendees the opportunity to develop a systems-based leadership
model, a toolkit of sustainable practices and an action plan tailored
to their specific facilities. The Association also has been involved
in lighting research and workshops in conjunction with the California
Energy commission, studying new lighting technologies for high-performance
buildings.
Vision and mission
Brady, charged with appearances in Washington to lobby on behalf
of issues affecting those who manage the workplace and addressing
IFMA chapters nationwide, expounds on IFMA's vision, mission, and
core purpose. Its revised vision of this past spring is to serve
as the ultimate resource and representative for facility management
vs. its vision statement of 2000 when IFMA sought to universally
represent FM as a profession. Today, IFMA's mission is to guide
and advance the professional development of members and all FM professionals
throughout their careers, providing the necessary tools and services.
In 2000, it was to lead and sustain progress of the FM profession.
Today, IFMA is a member-centered organization that exists to guide
and develop FM professionals. In support of its members, IFMA promotes
the FM profession by providing leadership, recognition and standards
of excellence. Just a few years ago, IFMA's purpose was to strengthen
and advance the knowledge-base needed for the integration and optimization
of the built environment worldwide.
The profession
The practice of FM will demand more from the professional. Brady
details some of the acknowledged and anticipated changes:
- Strategic facilities planning and budgeting will be more complex
and require longer term scenario planning
- FM will be evaluated on financial performance
- Increased partnership with HR, CRE & IT, and
- Greater focus on formal training at the university/college
level.
FM as a profession will require new "soft" skills such
as motivational training,
communication, project team building, multi-tasking, internal P.R.,
adaptability, and
cultural diversity. The new "competency" skills required
include energy management, productivity measurement, security, financial
analysis, negotiation strategies, outsourced services management,
and strategic planning.
Where are all the people?
The coming labor shortage (a topic that McMorrow Report will explore
in-depth in upcoming issues) and its impact on facilities management,
is an area FM will affect, according to Brady. FM as a human resource
initiative is coming sooner than people had anticipated. The transition
will be made from FM cost control to supporting development of human
capital with resources, education and training. A comprehensive
plan for building the best workforce will be needed for acceptable
retention of employees. There will be an increase in expectation
for workplace amenities. IFMA anticipates that HR issues will make
FM responsible for facilitating distributed work as more "Free
Agents"-the independent professional work force, becomes the
norm. Corporations will accept that work is integrated into life
and done wherever worker is located; Team/Group Work Increases Significantly;
Generation Y will be the Leaders and the new illiterate are those
who cannot unlearn.
FM will change and will be changed by developments in technology,
like common global standards and the ability to obtain enhanced
performance measurements. Security will evolve to become the means
to a corporation's greatest end, business continuity planning. The
facility manager will become the organization's chief protectorate
in collaboration with HR. Security, contingency planning and business
continuity will receive ever increasing strategic focus and security
eventually will become the 10th core competency of FMs, says Brady.
Getting greener
Sustainability is experiencing a paradigm shift in environments
where sustainability is looked at from an operating cost perspective
to a total cost of ownership over the life cycle. Sustainability
will be a key to maximize ROI for facilities; an expectation by
workers and the community with the community and occupants engaged
in the planning process. Global environmental policies and regulations
will help sustainability take hold.
Because partnering is also critical to IFMA's future, Sheridan
cited new initiatives. For example, Brady and Sheridan attended
the Association Summit on Sustainability in Georgia, hosted by Interface
Carpet. The Summit allowed IFMA to participate with other groups,
such as the: Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), International
Interior Design Association (IIDA), Institute of Real Estate Management
(IREM), Urban Land Institute (ULI), Association for Higher Education
Facilities Officers (APPA), American Institute of Architects (AIA),
American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), American Society
of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Inc. (ASHRAE),
Society for College and University Planning, Constructions Specifications
Institute (CSI) and U.S. Green Buildings Council (USGBC). The goal
was to strategize on individual and joint sustainability projects
and to establish communication vehicles to assist in sharing future
efforts.
IFMA also has worked with the U.S. Green Buildings Council to clarify
and drive access to information about sustainability issues, and
there will be more in the near future. For instance, Sheridan has
been serving on the Council's LEED-EB Certification Committee, and
for the first time, LEED-EB training was offered at World Workplace.
Additionally, IFMA will be working again with both Antron Carpet
Fibers and USGBC in preparing a sustainability seminar called "High
Performance Green Buildings" for delivery in 2004. This seminar
will be coordinated with the National Building Museum's touring
exhibit, "Big and Green." Last year, IFMA also was a charter
participant in the Green Design Education Initiative, a strategic
partnership with the Interior Design Educator's Council, IIDA and
Metropolis magazine, with the plan of pooling resources to gather,
share and disseminate information about green design.
Going outside
Outsourcing-acknowledged as part of the business of managing facilities-has
reached a mature stage in the profession, says Brady, with 30 percent
of FM outsourced in 2002 in the USA. Businesses are retaining their
core functions. Services are increasingly brokered to companies
by consultants. More FMs are finding they will work for multiple
companies when they become employed by a services firm. Their skill
sets travel with them to many companies.
"We continue to recognize that facility management is a constantly
evolving profession-one requiring that facility professionals become
adept at a wider array of core competencies," says Sheridan,
adding that IFMA will offer more professional development opportunities.
Other "mega issues" on the IFMA horizon: physical limitations
of the workplace; human factors and how they drive innovations to
improve productivity; safety and flexibility; and changing demographics
of the facility management profession and the customers it serves,
as well the impact of the globalization of businesses.
All of these assumptions about issues affecting the profession
have now been incorporated into IFMA's Strategic Plan. "They
have been foremost in our minds as we developed a new vision, mission,
purpose, goals and a new definition for the profession," says
Sheridan. "They also will be influential drivers for future
offerings from IFMA's professional development team, member resources,
communications, events, administration and operations."
For more information about IFMA, go to www.ifma.org |
