Key Facility Management Trends in 2018: Recruiting Talent

This is the third post in my series on trends affecting facilities management (FM) professionals. Today’s employees work differently. One distinction is that they expect a higher level of service. This challenges organizations looking to recruit the best talent to offer an agile, attractive workspace supported by customized services and leading edge digital technology. (By an agile workspace I mean one in which seating and desk space are unassigned, provided as needed when employees are in the office.)

Why the need to provide the latest technology? One reason is that increasingly, today’s workers are true “digital natives,” a term generally referring to individuals born after the widespread adoption of digital technology. These workers have grown up using technology like the Internet, computers and mobile devices. This exposure to technology in the early years is believed to give digital natives a greater familiarity with and understanding of technology than people who were born before it was widespread.

For instance, workers in this demographic are attuned to solutions such as follow-me-print capability, which enhance mobility. An employee travelling from the company’s Dallas office to New York headquarters for a meeting might not want to print and carry a large document on the trip. With follow-me-print technology, before leaving the employee can input the document into a network print queue set up on the company’s print system. Upon arriving at the New York office, the employee can swipe an ID card at a page counter terminal attached to a MFD (copier) or public printer. The print system recognizes the employee’s Dallas location and moves the print job from database storage to a print queue that routes pages to the printer at the New York location.

In my next post I’ll look at another factor that comes into play when trying to attract the best of a new generation of workers. This is the strategy of integrating what Canon refers to as a community management model into the company’s range of facility support services. In the meantime feel free to visit the Facilities and Logistics Management Services page of our website. There you will find additional insights on industry trends and best practices include case histories, whitepapers and more.