IFMA is stronger than ever! Find out more in the 2022 Annual Review.
Facility or facilities management (FM) is a profession dedicated to supporting people. It ensures the functionality, comfort, safety, sustainability and efficiency of the built environment - the buildings we live and work in and their surrounding infrastructure. As defined by ISO and adopted by IFMA,
Facility Management is an organizational function which integrates people, place and process within the built environment with the purpose of improving the quality of life of people and the productivity of the core business.
This combination of job responsibilities supports the operations of each organization to create an environment where the systems work together seamlessly, from the parking lot to the executive suite. Facility managers are the people who make sure we have the safest and best experience possible, by coordinating the processes that make the built environment succeed.
What do facility managers do?
Whether the space is a factory, office, hospital, shopping mall, airport, museum or stadium, someone makes sure the building and all of its components work properly. That person is a facility manager. Facility managers (FMs) make sure systems in the built environment work together as they should, that buildings fulfill their intended purposes, and that personnel are healthy and productive.
Facility managers have many different titles and career paths. They often aren’t called facility managers even though they are responsible for aspects of facility management, including planning, evaluating and maintaining building systems. Facility managers hold a variety of roles, including:
- Building operations like cleaning, security, maintenance and grounds management
- Return-to-work processes and policies
- Emergency and disaster mitigation and response
- Sustainability planning
- Project management and budgeting
- Real estate management and space planning
- Business continuity planning
Why is FM relevant?
The FM industry is growing rapidly, and the COVID-19 pandemic made safety and health a top priority. Changes to technology, green initiatives and other current trends are changing how FM teams conduct business and respond to everyday challenges.
Facility managers are a crucial part of every organization because they ensure that the places where we work, play and live are safe, comfortable, sustainable and efficient. Facility managers contribute to an organization’s strategy and bottom line in a variety of ways.
- Contribute to operational efficiencies
- Plan and deliver infrastructure needs to support productivity
- Manage risks including those to facilities, employees, suppliers and business reputation
- Mitigate and reduce environmental impact
- Promote sustainable tactics for long-term cost management
- Leverage technological solutions
- Mitigate and overcome effects of natural disasters
- Guarantee compliance
- Leverage security
FM continues to be an important part of returning to the office after the pandemic. Ensuring that offices meet the needs of changing organizations and evolving workforces, and guaranteeing the safest workplaces possible, has become the focus of many facility managers. The profession is also starting to impact environmental, social and corporate governance issues. Facility managers help support how each organization works toward social goals, including responsible and ethical investing, sustainability and overall impact, instead of only focusing on the bottom line.
What skills do facility managers need?
FM is a varied career. FMs could be working on a maintenance budget one day, overseeing work on an HVAC system the next and making real estate decisions the day after that. In order to stay on top of the profession, facility managers should be knowledgeable of the 11 Core Competencies of FM.
Advance your career
Your community is waiting for you
IFMA is your professional association for growth, networking, connection and advancement. There’s never been a better time to elevate your career.
Studio Voltaire presents Infrastructure, an exhibition that explores the visible and invisible systems that govern our lives. Ranging from belief systems to built environments and the internet, these structures intersect, forming a ubiquitous, largely invisible network that shapes who we are and what we can do.
INFRASTRUCTURE 1. An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system. 2. The basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society, such as transportation and communications systems, water and power lines, and public institutions including schools, post offices, and prisons.
The exhibition brings together artists from London, Edinburgh, New York, Seattle, Amsterdam, and Bulgaria, including:
Richard Galpin
Charlotte Ginsborg
Anthony Gross
Victoria Haven
Kirsten Lyle
Chad McCail
Svetlana Mircheva
Ian Monroe
Angelina Nasso
Luke Oxley
Kiki Seror
Robert Yoder
Infrastructure also forms an extension of the curator, Therese Stowell’s, individual practice as an artist. Stowell’s own practice involves constructing systems of meaning, frequently in the form of arrowed diagrams, which connect words or sentences to create networks of explanation. These works present seemingly authoritative and rationalised realities, often employing the use of information presentation tools of science and business to affirm their status as believable truth. This seduction is, however, ultimately undermined by the knowledge that the works are created from an individual subjective viewpoint.
For her contribution to Infrastructure, Stowell will create an overall diagram that maps and connects the systems present in the featured artists’ work, while also placing them in wider socio-cultural and every day contexts. Reproduced as a poster and invitation for the exhibition, the diagram will attempt to represent the vast network of facilities and processes that enable us to live the way we do. In its own idiosyncratic mediation of the exhibition Stowell’s contribution will also both enact and make visible her complicit role as curator.
Supported by the Embassy of the United States of America, London.
Image credit
Infrastructure, curated by Therese Stowell, 2005. Installation View, Studio Voltaire, London. Courtesy of Therese Stowell, the artists and Studio Voltaire, London.