Planning for prosperity

“Facilities management is the integration of processes within an organisation to maintain and develop the agreed services which support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities.” This is the definition of FM provided by CEN, the European Committee for Standardisation and ratified by BSI.

Facilities management professionals are responsible for services that support business. Their roles can cover management of a wide range of areas including health and safety, risk management, business continuity, procurement, sustainability, space planning, energy, property and asset management. They are typically responsible for activities such as catering, cleaning, building maintenance, environmental services, security and reception.

Facilities management encompasses multi-disciplinary activities within the built environment and the management of their impact upon people and the workplace.

The evolution of FM
Some key points in the development of facilities management include the cost-cutting initiatives of the 1970s and 1980s under which organisations began to outsource ‘non-core’ services, and also the integration of planning and management of a wide range of services both ‘hard’ (e.g. building fabric) and ‘soft’ (e.g. catering, cleaning, security, mailroom, and health and safety) to achieve better quality and economies of scale.

The formation of the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) in 1993, followed by the development of specialised training and a qualification was also a key point, along with step-change with the Private Finance Initiative (now Public Private Partnerships), becoming an integral part of large-scale projects to manage, replace, and upgrade the country’s infrastructure and public service facilities. This new approach was swiftly followed in the private sector and abroad.

Effective FM
Effective facilities management, combining resources and activities, is vital to the success of any organisation. At a corporate level, it contributes to the delivery of strategic and operational objectives. On a day-to day level, effective facilities management provides a safe and efficient working environment, which is essential to the performance of any business – whatever its size and scope.

Within this fast growing professional discipline, facilities managers have extensive responsibilities for providing, maintaining and developing myriad services. These range from property strategy, space management and communications infrastructure to building maintenance, administration and contract management.
Excellent facilities management can, amongst other things:
• deliver effective management of an organisation’s assets
• enhance the skills of people within the FM sector and provide identifiable and meaningful career options
• enable new working styles and processes – vital in this technology-driven age
• enhance and project an organisation’s identity and image
• help the integration processes associated with change, post-merger or acquisition
• deliver business continuity and workforce protection in an era of heightened security threats.
Successful organisations should will approach FM as an integral part of their strategic plan. Those organisations that treat FM as a ‘commodity overhead’ will be at a significant strategic disadvantage.

Facilities management today
The FM sector is now large and complex, comprising a mix of in-house departments, specialist contractors, large multi-service companies, and consortia delivering the full range of design, build, finance and management. Estimates vary; market research suggests that, in the UK alone, the sector is worth between £40bn and £95bn per annum.

The facilities management profession has come of age. Its practitioners require skill and knowledge. The sector definition continues to expand to include the management of an increasingly broad range of tangible assets, support services and people skills.

FM and the NHS
The driver for all NHS facilities managers is to meet the government’s Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention (QIPP) initiative. The NHS must achieve up to £20 billion of efficiency savings by 2015, and facilities managers have a substantial role in this target. Strategic Health Authorities (SHA) have been developing integrated QIPP plans that address the quality and productivity challenge. One of these tools is the new ‘Premises Assurances Model’ (PAM). This toolkit has been developed to give trusts a method to provide assurance that space, activity, income and operational costs of the premises meet the requirements of the efficiency programme in the delivery of improved clinical and social outcomes.

Efficient use of space is a key priority for successful FM. PAM means looking at the space within buildings, and ensuring that every inch is used in the most cost-effective way to meet the business needs. If the estate is old, delivering effective healthcare is a challenge, especially converting space in older buildings.

South London Healthcare NHS Trust has been one of the trusts trialling the beta-test version of the Premises Assurance Model (PAM) for NHS London, and has been piloting new methods of working to maximise the efficient use of space. Depending on the outcome of the trial, PAM could possibly be rolled out nationwide. Here Carolyn Lewis, head of estates performance & governance at the South London Healthcare NHS Trust gives us her take on effective space utilisation.

Top tips on space utilisation
Trust-wide engagement, working from the top down is critical. Senior managers must be on board. They can set an example of hot-desking for others to follow. Many senior managers can spend more than 50 per cent of their time in meetings, if they can give up their offices and share space this sets a great example to everyone else to follow.

Clear communication to ensure that everyone feels part of the process. HR can be used to engage all employees. Staff forums should be set up where they can have their say and feedback on big changes to the workplace. There will have to be compromises from both parties, but the sooner and deeper the engagement the better.

Confidentiality – in an open plan office employees discussing patients can be a breach of confidence. There is always a need break out spaces for private discussions, such as personal medical matters and there will always need secure space for some records such as medical.

Make it easy for employees when having to share space. Rather than having multiple systems try and keep it simple, such as room booking via an open access online facility.

Finance in the NHS is a big concern. Changing the way space is utilised needs an initial financial outlay. For example hot desking requires the right desks, chairs, computers, different terminals and the right telephony system. Budget holders are likely to be sceptical on such items but it is essential that that the right equipment and environment is created to maximise the efficiencies.

Some office suppliers will let you try new furniture etc. for free to help you evaluate whether to purchase or not. This improves staff engagement provides essential feedback. It also provides the opportunity to see how the solution will fit the workplace. The supplier also gains a showcase of their products.

The NHS is has huge ground to make up in utilising space and it is well behind other sectors. In the current climate there is no room for error, the NHS cannot afford to the luxury of “getting it wrong” and must learn from others FM solutions – and mistakes.

Case study – Lost in space?
Take a walk around your estate. How many clinical or therapy rooms are unused at the moment? How many staff work spaces are unused? How many look like they’ve been unused all day? For how much of an average week is your own work space unoccupied?

These were the questions Andrew Lawley, head of estates and facilities at Sandwell Primary Care Trust, was asking himself not too long ago. His perception was of poor utilisation levels yet he continually had to deal with internal customers demanding still more space.

Knowing that any additional space, acquired at great expense and effort, would be similarly underused Andrew searched for an alternative way.

18 months later the PCT’s headquarters building in the West Midlands accommodated 25 per cent more staff in the same space but with 10 per cent fewer desks.

Apart from meeting rooms, the workplace had previously been wall-to-wall desks save for a small, low quality, staff room. The refurbished workplace returned unused desk space back to staff in the form of high quality break-out areas, quiet rooms and touchdown spaces. The result is an open, spacious look and feel.

As a direct result of the increased building capacity achieved through a fully desk-shared environment, the PCT has been able to achieve considerable cost savings by terminating a number of building leases.

These aren’t what you would consider mobile employees. Andrew Lawley points out: “These space economies were achieved for HQ staff, employed in what you would consider to be desk-based roles – and in an environment where home working is not encouraged.”

Workplace utilisation study
The PCT partnered with workplace consultants, Plan B Solutions Ltd. It was Plan B’s workplace utilisation study that provided the evidence for Andrew Lawley’s perception of poor workplace utilisation. Moreover, the study confirmed the extent and areas of poor utilisation, the exact scale of the opportunity for working differently and provided the undeniable evidence for change to supporters and doubters alike.

“There’s nothing unusual about Sandwell PCT’s levels of utilisation” says David Grant of Plan B Solutions. “We’ve undertaken something approaching half a million utilisation study measurements finding that, even during core working hours, work space utilisation rates average only 50-55 per cent.”

Of course, things have changed for the PCT over the last 12 months since the Department of Health’s white paper. Since the headquarters is now a proactively managed workplace – through the use of Gingco, Net New Media’s workplace booking and utilisation tracking system – the PCT has real-time visibility of the building’s headroom and is now engaged with a number of agencies in the region to bring multiple services together under one roof.

Increased productivity
It’s a very productive roof too. The staff benchmarking work which Plan B Solutions undertook with the PCT examined workplace satisfaction and productivity levels. David Grant says: “The most satisfying result of this project wasn’t actually the 25 per cent reduction in property requirements but the substantial swing in workplace satisfaction levels of staff, and in the significant improvement in productivity indicators achieved at the same time.”

It’s interesting to observe the impact that a project of this kind has on carbon reduction. By seeking leading solutions in facilities management an organisation can remove 25 per cent of its property requirements in one fell swoop – and forever. Suddenly, changing a boiler seems a little trivial.

The partnership between Sandwell PCT and Plan B Solutions Ltd was recognised at the end of last year when the project won two national awards including the British Institute of Facilities Management’s (BIFM), ‘Impact on Organisation and Workplace’ 2010 award.

For more information
Tel: 0845 058 1356
info@bifm.org.uk
www.bifm.org.uk