RICS is launching a strategy paper at Mipim entitled ‘Raising the Bar’ with recommendations on how the status of facilities managers (FM) can be raised so that they gain a bigger voice in corporate boardrooms.
The recommendations are aimed at FM leaders in occupier organisations and senior executives in service provider firms. To highlight the occupier perspective, RICS will also host a roundtable discussion in Cannes under the title: ‘What does corporate real estate need from professionals?’
‘In a competitive, global business environment, it is increasingly recognised that facilities management has a strategic role to play in the experience of the end-user of buildings and facilities, and ultimately the success of the organisations operating from them,’ said Paul Bagust, RICS UK commercial property director.
But to achieve that, the role of the FM manager needs to be redefined, Bagust stressed in an interview with PropertyEU. ‘We need to reposition facilities management as a profession, its perception needs to change.’
The term FM can be an ‘unhelpful label’, he noted, as it is perceived as focusing on the physical environment alone. This detracts from its impact on the most important organisational resource: the people who use those workspaces to produce value for the business.
