Social butterflies

If you want to raise your profile in your company, you could do worse than adding social  events organiser to your list of FM responsibilities, says Bernard Shockley

13 May 2005

The FM in  many companies is often perceived as the person who has to look after all the boring stuff that no one else has the slightest interest in. The only time that other staff become interested is when something stops working or some day-to-day function that normally operates 364 days a year without any issues has a slight hiccup. Then you become the focus of their attention, and sometimes even their irritation.

A facilities manager is someone who has to juggle many  issues and responsibilities at once and whose job scope covers a whole range of varied and fluctuating aspects of any company’s operation. This is a double-edged sword, as in one sense it means you are expected to have a wide range of knowledge on many different subjects but you must also be expert in all of them. This can sometimes be a real challenge.

So how can we all raise our profile in our company and help ourselves become a real focal point of everything that goes on, and in doing so, give us an image which is both highly regarded and respected by everyone? I have found that by taking on the role of social events organiser for the company, I have been able to help to do this. Wherever I have worked I have always been involved with organising social activities. This has previously just been something which I have done as an aside to my normal FM role, but in my present position it has actually become a recognised part of my role within the company.

You may wonder how this can help me with my work in FM? The answer is that first and foremost it puts you at the forefront of people’s attention. Employees are always looking at what the company can do for them in terms of offering something that other companies may not. We all want to work for a firm that recognises and rewards achievement and by doing so, engenders a really good working atmosphere. Every company wants to have a workforce that really care about the business and enjoys what it does. Too idealistic? Impossible to achieve? Not necessarily.

I have always had a strong belief that the most important part of any company is the people who work for it. If you don’t look after them and give them an inspiring and enjoyable work environment then that will affect the way they work and therefore the way the company operates as a whole. Part of looking after the workforce is to encourage an active social scene with regular events that can involve everybody. A lot of companies have had to cut back on expenditure over recent years and management has always viewed spending money on social activities for the staff as an area where unnecessary expenditure can be reduced. I would argue that this is a false economy and one that is seen by the majority of staff as the sign that their employer doesn’t care about them. It does not always equate that to have an enjoyable time, you have to spend a large sum of money. A lot of things can be done relatively inexpensively, but can achieve big returns on staff morale and employees’ perception of the company.

So who better to lead the way in this crusade than the FM? Here is someone who can lead by example and be seen as a beacon of light showing all the good aspects of the work environment and how to get the best out of people.

So would any FM have the time to fit this into their already busy workload? I’m not unrealistic and I fully understand that it may not be possible for every FM to become the social activities organiser alongside their usual role, particularly in large corporate organisations. However in medium-sized companies, with a workforce of anything up to 500 it is possible, with the right structure and organisation.

So how can this help make the FM’s job easier? By raising their profile in the company and helping to create a better working atmosphere and environment, the FM is then seen by many as the ‘good guy’ and not the person who has an office in the basement or back end of the building and is only seen in the plantroom, lift motor room or car park.

I have certainly found doing this to be useful for me, and it has really helped to raise my own profile in the companies that I have worked – particularly so with my current employers. Managing the social activities can also lead to opening up other avenues within a company where the facilities manager can become involved in different aspects of the business, time permitting. Another string that can be added to the already multi-functional instrument that the FM has to play.

Bernard Shockley is a facilities manager and editor of myStore