Peter McLennan, Senior Lecturer in Facility Management at the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University of London, speaks to 'Real Return' about the seminars he facilitates with IPD for FM professional.

IPD’s Facilities Management Seminars now attract many leading corporate and civil service occupiers, who want to develop their strategic decision-making knowledge during a gathering of their peers. Some fourty organisations have participated since the seminars were started, and many attend regularly, working together towards the goal of raising performance in FM management and service delivery.

This year’s four quarterly seminars, each of which is concentrated into a half-day, have been focusing on the theme of innovation. Those so far held have covered ‘strategy and structure’, ‘performance measurement’, and ‘CSR and sustainability’. The fourth, to take place in November, will look at ‘space and place’.

“At the start of each seminar I typically introduce a journal article which sets out the key issues that are relevant for analysis and decision-making in the particular topic area,” explains McLennan. “We then go on to discuss the theories from the article within the group, identifying key variables and linkages, and follow this up with a workshop in which some real data are fed into the models. The sessions finish with a wrap-up, when we discuss what has been learnt and how it can be applied in the participants’ day-to-day business.”

“Take the first quarter’s topic, strategy and structure,” he continues. “When we were looking at the structure of the facility management operation to develop some basic ratios of FM staff per employee, a number of managers were surprised by the high proportion of FM staff. This only came through when analysed in this way and indicated the effectiveness of different FM operations.” 

“Similarly the second seminar on performance measurement particularly highlighted the need to focus on developing a strategic model for selecting FM activities for outsourcing. As a result of the workshop, security was identified as one of the outsourced activities which is becoming increasingly important at a strategic level.”

McLennan believes that providing the tools to enable facility managers to make the link between strategy and operations is a key benefit of these seminars. “Some of our participants are responsible for very large parts of the business in terms of both staff and budgets,” he explains. “On occasions these entail larger staff and budgets than their management contemporaries with P&L budgets within their organisations. So these individuals can make a big impact, and this kind of modelling exercise can help them develop frameworks that allow them to refine their decision-making and also to communicate their strategies more clearly to their colleagues throughout the business.”

The seminars have benefited from the rapport that has developed between the participants. A core group attends most of the meetings while others come on a more adhoc basis. “People in this field don’t tend to be competitive in this kind of environment,” says McLennan, “so the discussions are always very open and collaborative. We also have a non-disclosure agreement for the seminars – in effect Chatham House Rules.”

Part of the seminar involves a survey amongst the participants on the subject area to be covered, so that there is some real data available to think about. 

“A particularly interesting survey was done on energy use, in advance of the third quarter’s seminar on CSR and sustainability,” explains McLennan. This is a subject on which very little data is available, and quite a number of the participants contributed, so that it was actually a useful research exercise as well. The seminar highlighted how actual energy use is often completely different from the planned optimal energy use which could be possible based on building design: occupier behaviour is often far more important than the qualities of the building itself. This is just one of the challenges that Facilities Managers face in developing, implementing and monitoring environmental strategies within their portfolios.”

IPD is planning to hold another four seminars in 2010 – with McLennan once again moderating - along broadly similar subject headings. A steering group drawn from the existing membership will work out the precise schedule at a meeting this November. McLennan says he is particularly keen to attract more organisations where FM is closer to the core of their activities.  “Leisure, higher education, healthcare and the museum sector would be especially welcome,” he comments, “as these groups are under-represented at present. There could well be some interesting lessons to be learnt between these sorts of operators and the corporate occupiers who dominate the existing group. Our current participants find the seminars a very effective use of their time – these are very interactive 3 hour sessions – so everyone should benefit by the creation of an even more diverse group of occupiers.”

To find out more about IPD’s Facilities Management Seminars, or to register for the November seminar, please contact Hermen Van Ree, Hermen.van.ree@ipd.com, +44 (0)207 336 9232.