1 July 2014
It is this time of year that we like to communicate with our members, and the profession as whole, to outline the successes and development that we have achieved in the first six months of the year.
In short, the first half of 2014 has been a rollercoaster ride, but the next half promises to be even more exciting.
Our strategic intent was outlined at the end of 2013 and at the heart of it was to be "the internationally recognised voice of facilities management." No mean feat, but we have been busy putting the vital foundations in place that will allow us to achieve this.
First, we have restructured and recruited to put in place a team that will be focused on creating and managing our insight and content; if we are going to have a voice we need something to say.
As a result we have a number of projects that are under way to ensure that we are assessing, analysing and challenging the current and future trends of the FM profession and its impact on business, the economy and wider society.
We also saw the first public manifestation of this shift at our Th!nkFM conference in May. A change in format and content saw us begin to change the conversation towards one which positions FM as a strategic discipline and saw speakers from outside our immediate universe talk on the key issues facing business, the economy and society as a whole - and where FM can make a real difference.
This evidence-based approach was also supported by the launch of FMTV - our project in association with ITN Productions, which showcases a number of projects and organisations. Look out for more on this in the coming months.
Perhaps the most significant development so far this year came in the form of the announcement we made at Th!nkFM concerning our collaboration with CIPD on a number of research and insight projects on the evolving workplace. Bringing these two organisations together, and the professional communities we represent, is a seismic shift from anything we've done before and helps to put FM on the leadership agenda.
It is still early days, but we've had our initial conversations and outlined what we want to achieve and how we intend to get there. We plan on engaging with a whole host of stakeholder communities in our programme of work, which aims to embed FM at the heart of the business conversation.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind the scenes we have seen our communities grow both in size and reach with a number of developments overseas, and we continue to make improvements internally to ensure that we can achieve our ambitious targets and support the profession as best we can.
We look forward to updating you later in the year with a number of projects as part of our continuing development and hope as many of you get involved in whatever way you can as we continue to advance our profession.