The facility management market has witnessed significant growth over the past few years and is expected to grow further. According to Goldstein Market Intelligence, it is set to reach $73.8bn by 2024, at a CAGR of 8.4% over the forecast period. New market prioritisation and entry of new players in the FM industry are driving the growth of the revenue.
Changes in the employers’ and facility managers’ priorities after Covid-19 can greatly explain this shift. Companies today are not only looking at expanding their workforce but are more concerned with how to maximise space for employee wellness and sustainability. As companies increasingly embed well-being into their people strategy with benefits such as work-life balance, personal time-off, mental health programs and more, ensuring that work facilities accommodate employee well-being is no exception. Facilities management does not only cater to employee well-being on work premises but extends to remote work.
Initially, companies were resistant to changing their office design due to privacy and cost concerns. However, FM has been found to reduce costs through CAFM (Computer-aided Facility Management) that enable predictive maintenance planning, optimised space management, tasks automation, enhanced energy savings and reduced employee turnover. As employers have seen tangible results of creating synergistic workplaces that promote collaboration and productivity, companies began to realise that employee happiness and wellness is key to long-term success and longevity.
Matthew Smith, associate head of the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University Dubai, discusses how employers are leveraging CAFM to ensure employee well-being.
AI-technology
There is no doubt that remote and hybrid work has led to changes in the way we work. Companies have been paying special attention to equipping employees with the tools to support social connections at work. Additionally, employees expect a change in the way their productivity is measured – with value over volume, and impact over output. All this has created emphasis on manager-employee communication. For that to be possible, managers need to be able to have the time and capacity to have more one-to-one communication with their teams.
Research by Harvard Business Review shows that up to 65% of the tasks that a manager currently does have the potential to be automated by 2025. Managerial tasks that can be replaced include scheduling, approving expense reports, and monitoring direct reports’ completion of tasks. The next generation of technology will start to replace additional managerial tasks, such as providing performance feedback and supporting employees in building new peer-to-peer connections.
Additionally, studies have proven that the less mundane tasks employees are responsible for, the more productive they can be. According to McKinsey, 40% of workers surveyed reported spending at least a quarter of their week on manual repetitive tasks. Additionally, one-third of the activities that make up a specific job could be automated. AI has already been utilised in collecting, storing, and analysing massive amounts of data in seconds. This is sure to boost employee productivity through freeing their schedule for more mentally demanding tasks, which would overall support their wellbeing.
Internet of Things (IoT)
Increasing space effectiveness and using innovation in the workplace provides staff with more control over where and how they work. The Internet of Things (IoT) Band smart technology is known to reduce the likelihood of employees running into logistical issues in their office that could cause distress and loss of time. IoT can create an ideal environment for the needs of employees including heating, lighting, and ventilation systems that operate with sensors that detect entry and other factors.
Sensor-based occupancy data points enable building management systems to automatically adjust light and temperature according to the number of people present, which significantly reduces energy spending. According to the Quadrennial Technology Review, sensor-driven building optimisation will typically achieve savings of 15% to 40% of the total energy spent. Finally, automated task alerts can certainly reduce strain, especially on cleaning, maintenance, and helpdesk staff.
Optimised Space Management
Although many businesses were already aware that their office spaces were not used efficiently, remote work has encouraged companies to rethink large meeting and conference rooms that were seldom put to use. According to PwC, the primary purposes of the office post-COVID will become collaboration, accessing company resources, meeting with clients and colleagues, and training and career development.
With the emphasis on flexible and activity-based working, allocating single desks to individual employees and offering limited conference rooms compromises the current primary function of the workplace: Collaboration.
Therefore, implementing technology that allows employees to easily book desks, meeting rooms, or other office spaces when need became vital to achieving this flexibility. Space management software can help employers visualise spaces, track utilisation, and reconfigure as needed to optimise space within the office for different functions. For example, this could be establishing dedicated “silent” spaces so employees can focus on their work without risk of being disturbed, comfortable creative zones designed to spark ideas, or welcoming communal spaces where your teams can unwind and socialise. CAFM can determine efficient ways of allocating space and making the workplace hospitable and convenient for employees. Most importantly, considering health and safety requirements, space management will ensure employees are spread out as safely as possible.
Overall, the well-being of employees has implications that exceed performance and productivity and has implications on families, relationships, and society. The use of technology to support employee well-being on-site and remotely can help employees transition into higher-skilled tasks that would afford them more freedom and creativity. This is powerful enough to introduce immense possibilities for innovation and advancement in the workplace and universally.