Ilfryn Price

New patterns in facilities management: industry best practice and new organisational theory

Examines best practices in several areas of FM, based on case work completed over the last four years by FMGC (formerly UFMR). Compares them by reference to two dominant paradigms, or patterns, of modern organisational theory and argues that a view of organisations as living, learning systems better explains ‐ and more importantly better enables ‐ best practice. The challenges facing facilities managers in the future are, as in other areas, those of finding new ways of leading, of cultivating environments for performing, and of finding new conversations with clients, customers and staff.

Business critical FM

FMs failure management to capture its cherished place in the business support pantheon has been subject of much recent comment. This paper presents an overview of how that contribution might be expressed drawing on research‐based evidence from offices, universities, hospitals and retail facilities. Only in a business that conceives itself as running a facility will FM approach a core competence, that is to carry both strategic and operational risks of failure. Business critical aspects of FM in a given context are those where the operational risk of failure is high yet the service is not a strategic competence of the organisation concerned. Operational risk is conceived along two dimensions: impact on the “customer” and impact on licence to operate: the legal, social and employee respect a business needs. While some correspondence with Nutts four alternative trails can be seen as applying more strongly in separate fields of the resulting impact matrix there is no conclusive fit. The financial trail is arguably important in any sector but requires providers armed with skills and knowledge relevant to the critical impacts on the sector served and “clients” skilled at managing relationships. Otherwise different alignments are suggested of FM with, respectively, HR/KM, sales and marketing, operations/engineering or strategy in the four quadrants of the model presented. Rather than seeking one coherent future the argument is therefore, offered that business critical FM concerns itself more with different competencies in different sectors.

Can FM evolve? If not, what future?

Facility/facilities management’s (FM) continuing struggle with its search for a strategic identity is attested by publications of many leading authorities in the field. Some advocates of the alignment of strategic management with the real estate of facilities resource argue for new terms, for example infrastructure management or real estate asset management. This paper argues a different approach. FM is considered as a replicating memetic discourse; one that has traded the original strategic vision of the discipline’s founders for wider spread. To close the gap between strategic business alignment and operational management FM must learn to consider its performance with language and measures relevant to a particular business sector. While one can argue that core businesses should change the language in which they speak of FM, the blunt assertion is that most of the effort must be the other way. The alternative is that some other discourse will capture the strategic niche.

Input versus output‐based performance mesurement in the NHS – the current situation

The concept of service provision through output specifications rather than input‐based specifications is currently occupying directors and managers within the service. While the debate continues, little research has been undertaken to find out the current spread of the new output specification and how it operates in NHS Trusts compared to the longer established input‐based service specification. This paper presents a study of around one‐third of the Trusts in England and provides a comparative analysis of the different specifications in use, whether in‐house or outsourced providers deliver the services to these Trusts, and how these providers are assessed for satisfactory performance. In addition, through a series of structured discussion forums, users’ requirements for the development of standardized performance metrics are established for the future management of output specifications.

An output approach to property portfolio performance measurement

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the analysis of portfolios of office properties using measures of business outputs, namely occupation efficiency and staff satisfaction.Design/methodology/approach – Satisfaction is measured using a proprietary online survey instrument that has proved highly reliable and repeatable in three separate trials. The data on 192 buildings are analysed using data envelopment analysis.Findings – Instant and significant differences are revealed between clusters of buildings and individual properties. The approach reveals inefficiencies that are concealed by more conventional cost‐based metrics.Practical implications – The study has proven to be of use in gaining organisational commitment to strategic property improvements.Originality/value – The authors are not aware of this approach having been applied elsewhere in either research or application.

The selfish signifier: meaning, virulence and transmissibility in a management fashion

Purpose – Management fashions can be, and have been, conceptualized as narrative elements competing for replication and resources in the wider managerial discourse. Most wax and wane through a life cycle. Some achieve an extended place and even a transition to quasi‐ permanent institutions. Facilities/Facility Management (FM) is one such example, the purpose of this paper is to explore this.Design/methodology/approach – The case draws FMs history since 1968 and asks whether it is compatible with recent and classic Darwin, thoughts on cultural evolution as a selection process between competing discourses.Findings – Several properties of that history are argued as compatible with the theoretical stance taken particularly the mutation of the syntactic content to suit local circumstances and the dilution of the terms intent. Success attributes in the selective competition include contingency, securing an organizational home and mutability (what was represented became, more operational, less virulent but in ...

Leadership conversations: the impact on patient environments

Purpose – The aim of this study is to examine 15 NHS acute trusts in England that achieved high scores at all their hospitals in the first four national Patient Environment audits. No common external explanations were discernible. This paper seeks to examine whether the facilities managers responsible for the Patient Environment displayed a consistent leadership style.Design/methodology/approach – Overall, six of the 15 trusts gave permission for the research to take place and a series of unstructured interviews and observations were arranged with 22 facilities managers in these trusts. Responses were transcribed and categorised through multiple iteration.Findings – The research found common leadership and managerial behaviours, many of which could be identified from other literature. The research also identified managers deliberately devoting energy and time to creating networks of conversations. This creation of networks through managing conversation is behaviour less evident in mainstream leadership li...

Exploring inter-departmental barriers between production and quality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the value of adopting an organizational ecological perspective to explore behavioural barriers in a UK operations & production management (OPM) setting.Design/methodology/approach – An ethnographic case study approach was adopted with a narrative ecological stance to deconstruct the perceived realities and the origins of the inter‐departmental barriers applying Scott‐Morgans unwritten rules methodology.Findings – Despite an improvement in the physical proximity of the production and quality control departments, the qualitative approach revealed that latent, socially constructed drivers around management, interaction and communication reinforced inter‐departmental barriers. Conflicting enablers were ultimately responsible derived from the organizational structure, which impacted the firms production resources.Research limitations/implications – As a case study approach, the specificity of the findings to this OPM setting should be explored further.Pra...

Excellent patient environments within acute NHS trusts: External influences and trust characteristics

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible common factors in 15 Acute Hospital Trusts in the UK that achieved excellent scores at all their sites in four years of national Patient Environment audits.Design/methodology/approach – A desk‐based study tested for external factors, organisational commonalities or particular contractual arrangements which the sample might have in common. A second piece of work was then undertaken; an ethnographic study that examined the behaviours exhibited by 22 managers in six of the trusts. The second phase of research will be described in a separate paper.Findings – The research found that no external, organisational or contractual commonalities could be identified as shared by the trusts that formed the Research Group. This led the researchers to ask further questions as to the management/leadership of the FM Managers who had achieved consistantly high standards of Patient Environment over the four year period.Practical implications – The research re...

Operationalizing Lean Health Assets

Objective: To demonstrate the potential of employing unconventional facility/facilities management (FM) performance indicators in healthcare settings to enable more strategic conversations between FM and business users concerning asset performance. Background: The theoretical background for a Lean asset approach and a high-level analysis of data from hospital trusts in England have been published elsewhere. This paper reports on the first uses of that approach in operational settings. Method: Observations are drawn primarily from three case studies. Results: The individual studies support the premise that the conventional emphasis on cost per square meter (m2) as a preeminent measure of FM disguises a portfolio of too much underutilized space. They provide a means of putting a healthcare estates strategy in terms that will engage business users. Conclusions: Despite a growing interest in Lean approaches in healthcare, the philosophy has not yet been extended to the estate. This study demonstrates that alternative benchmarks are possible.