Building Operating Management September 2011 - FacilitiesNet

uildingoperatingmanagement
SEPTEMBER 2011
51
FM Careers: Who Delayed Retirement?
Of facility managers who responded to the FM Pulse survey, 21 percent
reported that they had delayed retirement because of the recession.
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
by age
65%
44%
26%
5% 13%
Of those
35-44
15%
Of Facilies
Coordinators
Or Supervisors
Of those
45-54
17%
Of VPs/
Directors
of Facilies
Of those
55-59
ABOUT THE SURVEY
23%
Of those
60-65
Of Facility, Building
Property or
Project Managers
Of those
65 or older
33%
Of Physical
Plant Directors
Information for the survey was gathered through a series of emails to facility professionals,
including subscribers to Building Operating Management and Maintenance Solutions
magazines and electronic newsletters, and NFMT and webcast attendees. Conducted during
June and July 2011, the survey included 2,451 responses. Salary and raise information
is reported as the median amount, which indicates a middle point of data. Half of those
who responded are below the median, while half are above. Numbers that are extremely
high or low do not distort it. Some charts may not add to 100 percent because of rounding.
vacancies, SAP uses contract employees.
“That gives us flexibility on staffing
levels as well,” Morgan says.
Because staff numbers are down,
the FM team has to be more effective
and efficient. For example, instead
of washing all the windows semiannually,
it is possible to wash certain
parts of the windows at certain times.
Morgan says that the company looks
for the “pain point,” or the place right
before austerity measures begin affecting
morale and productivity. The
pain point, he says, is different for
different lines of business. Another
example is when touch up painting
might be done instead of repainting
an entire room. Most of the belt tightening,
not surprisingly, is in repairs
and maintenance, since fixed costs,
such as leases, utilities, insurance and
so forth, cannot be easily altered.
Lakeland Health and Healing is
taking a similar approach. “Yes, we
have to get the job done, but there are
some deferred items. You don’t get as
much painting done, or not as quickly
as you would like to,” Kastner says.
The Outsourcing Option
The facility management team at
ADP has also reduced its U.S. staff, according
to Art Elman, vice president
of corporate real estate and facilities.
“We reduced headcount by about 10
percent,” Elman says, but the reductions
were “mostly organic,” through
retirement or normal attrition. A
slowdown on new hiring was also instituted
as the company studied its
true staffing needs. “We’ve eased up
on that this year,” Elman says. Most
significantly, the company radically
changed the way it handles human
resources when it began outsourcing
its facilities management about twoand-a-half
years ago. ADP retained
six people in-house. Previously, more
than 200 decentralized staff worked
in ADP’s U.S. buildings, where each
facility was fairly independent.
“The good news is that for our associates
who work in our buildings,
[the transition] was almost invisible.
To the people who got outsourced,
it was major,” says Elman. The employees,
as well as outside service
providers — for example, the window
washing company — switched their