Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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FM must focus on people, not buildings
Mitie, the facilities management company, has found that half of the UK's service sector employees are being hampered by inadequate workplace management and design.
The findings, based on a nationwide survey of 2,443 service sector employees, show that FM needs to put people ahead of buildings. The research was announced at The Facilities Show.
Employees aged 20 - 29 were especially critical. Two-thirds of this group felt that their offices were not designed to optimise productivity.
Finance and legal workers felt particularly let down by their workplaces, with almost half of feeling that their workplaces did not optimise their productivity.
These two sectors were also emotionally disengaged with their workplaces. Fewer than 35% of finance and legal workers identified themselves as 'emotionally attached' to their workplaces.
However, those working for not-for-profit organisations were most damning. Over 90% of these employees were emotionally detached from their workplaces, whilst only 30% felt that the not-for-profit workplace maximises productivity.
The Quora report, commissioned by Mitie, showed that 80.3% of those surveyed agreed that Facilities Management is a core people-facing operational function.
"Business faces an urgent challenge. Service sector workers are clearly disappointed by their workplaces," warned Martyn Freeman, managing director of Mitie's FM business.
"We must listen to this call for change. We need to ensure that FM serves employees and not buildings. We need to be flexible towards individuals and not enforce a blinkered one-size-fits-all approach.
"Every effort must be made to ensure that FM, in unison with other business functions, puts people first."
18th June 2015