THE BATTLE FOR TALENT

Is facilities management’s greatest strength also perhaps its Achilles heel? In the battle for talent I suggest it may be. Other industries, such as quantity surveying, nursing or accounting, are vocational in nature. Practitioners follow a tried and trusted route. They progress in the footsteps of those who have trodden the same path before them, mentored and supported through a well-planned and mapped out journey from tertiary education to autonomous practitioners and senior management.

FM, on the other hand, is more of a convergent industry. Practitioners evolve into it from a wide range of sectors – surveying, engineering, catering, security, cleaning and general management to name but a few.

Current research appears to suggest that this facet of FM may be a major benefit; I was particularly struck by a article from November 2016, entitled ‘Why diverse teams are smarter’. In it, authors David Rock and Heidi Grant referenced a wealth of research that underlined the benefits of working in the type of divergent teams that