Future FMs: Are the signs already there?

One of the most hotly debated topics in the Facilities industry at the moment is the question of how we get young people to choose a career in FM. Well we could try answering that question about the future, by taking a closer look at the past. Specifically: our own pasts.

Here's another interesting question: what sort of young person would choose to work in FM?  It sounds tongue-in-cheek, but it’s a serious question. Whilst most FMs will freely admit they fell into the industry, as result of chance, luck, bad-karma, etc, at some point or another they all made the choice to stay. The first question: Why?  The second: With the benefit of hindsight, could we have predicted that they would? Were the signs there all along?

Should I stay or should I go (now)

I am an FM who chose to stay. In this blog I'm going to take you on a jouney into my deepest, darkest, past. Think of this as either as a journey of self-discovery, or if you prefer, an accident investigation.  Cue the wobbly screen effects.........

I'm turning back the clock to the early 1990’s.  Thatcher is still running the country, Rave music is on the rise and we are all about to discover that Robin Hood was actually an American.  Oh, and a scrawny fellow called Jason is starting his teens: the beard (and glasses) are a decade away. Ever safety conscious (even then), he uses enough hair product to make his head  impact-resistant.

As a kid I think I was (relatively) normal.  Well, I wasn’t (exceptionally) weird. I mean, I wasn't still hanging out with my imaginary friends at secondary school and I didn't sit around quietly pulling the wings off of butterflies. Outwardly at least, there seemed no sign that I was destined for a career in FM.  Actually, there was no real sign that I was heading in any particular direction at all.....  Maybe that was the first sign.

Lacks direction.......

If you’d asked the pre-beard Jason what he wants to do when he’s older, he’ll confidently tell you that he wants to work in an office.  He’s going to spend the rest of the decade figuring out that an office is a location, not a career. 

Looking back, I don’t think I wanted to work in an office, I just didn’t want to do manual work, education, healthcare, the forces, or any of the other options that seemed available.  Mind you, none of the traditional office careers appealed either. I didn’t mind accounting, sales, marketing, etc, I just don’t think I wanted to commit to one thing the rest of my life.  I guess somehow, I just had the feeling that, in the meritocracy of the commercial world, I’d figure it out somehow.  In a sense I did.

When he sets his mind to it........

Lack of direction probably wasn’t the only sign. I do know some people who describe me using the words “academic” and “intellectual” but scoot forward a handful of years to my GCSEs and I have the exam results to prove that I'm neither.

I took my GCSEs in 94 and my grades were straight across the middle of the spectrum (predominantly B's).  For years, my school reports had read “could try harder” and my exam results were no exception. But still, they were probably better than I deserved and many teachers expressed surprise at just how well I’d done, considering the effort I’d been putting in. These days I think of it as an early example of my possessing one of the most useful skills in an FM’s toolkit: the ability to pull a rabbit from a hat when it really matters. 

You see, when it came to exam time, I figured out that the things I would be tested on were actually all in the syllabus. I took the view that I wouldn’t worry too much about  the stuff I knew reasonably well, I’d focus on my areas of weakness and I’d pretty much disregard all non-syllabus stuff, so that it didn’t take up valuable short-term memory space.  I might not have worked hard in the run up to the exams, but my revision plan was actually pretty tightly focussed for rapid up-skilling in a short space of time.  It meant that, although I didn’t get the top results, in most cases I got at least one grade higher than predicted. Knowing how to prioritise limited resources in order to achieve a result is essential for an FM. 

Asks a lot of questions.....

Those who’ve only ever known me as an adult, where I’m renowned as a voracious seeker of knowledge, skills and qualifications, are often amazed to learn that I mostly found school boring.

At school, I couldn’t see how the things I learned would be of use to me. With hindsight, I think some of my teachers struggled to convey those practical uses to me.  It wasn’t because they didn’t understand it, it was just that they had never actually used their skills in anger, and lacking practical experience to fall back on, their teaching just seemed to lack depth. So when my teachers tried to impart their knowledge, I tended to probe and challenge it, to see how much they really knew.  I’m sure it was very irritating for some of them, although those who really knew their onions, never seemed to mind. 

This willingness to challenge an expert about their subject matter and put their knowledge to the test can be irritating in a teenager, but it can make adults extremely effective and I think schools should do more to encourage it.  As FMs we deal with experts all the time and we need to level the field, making sure that what they say actually makes sense and is not just an attempt to blind us with science is incredibly important.

Should focus on academic subjects.......

Another reason I found school a little boring, was the pressure applied on me to take academic subjects:  yes I could do them, but I would have probably found practical subjects far more engaging. 

As a boy growing up at a time when there were only three TV channels, I spent a great deal of time playing with Lego, putting together Airfix kits,  making tree-houses and generally doing practical things.  But a few years later, all my teachers saw was a child capable of achieving academic results. It was implied to me that if I could achieve academic results, practical subjects were in some way inferior.  It’s not a view I subscribe to at all.  I think my life might have turned out very differently indeed with a couple of decent results in Design & Technology related subjects.

That said, I never lost was my ability to use tools and generally do things of a practical nature as the staff at my local DIY store will attest.  I can safely say that, a willingness to get one’s hands dirty and an ability to handle a screwdriver the right way round, are also very useful FM skills to have.

What’s the story?

So what has this trip down memory lane taught me? It’s taught me that if we want to attract young people into FM, we could do worse than starting with those young people who might end up getting into it later in life anyway: Good all-rounders who know how to work smarter, rather than harder. The kind of young people who aren’t sure what they want to do, but who enjoy doing practical things and have the cionfidence to challenge their experts. Some of these young people, might well be the FMs of the future.

So........  Having given my story; my challenge to my FM colleagues out there, is to share theirs.  There’s a comment section below, please use it to tell me your story and let’s see if between us we can identify some of the FMs of tomorrow.