Archive
are your KPIs a helping or hindering (and do you know)?
The other day Martin Read was posing the question of KPIs in the FM World Think Tank. This is a topic Dear to me heart as previous columns here show and I am firmly of the opinion that there is too much made of measurement in general and KPIs in particular. Read more…
the missing piece of the jigsaw
Last week I had a bit of a go at the appraisal system and suggested that we all scrapped it; have you done that yet? You really should consider it, regardless of what your HR colleagues may say. Read more…
communicating in a crisis
As I write this the world is waiting for news of Malaysian Airways flight 370 and my thoughts are with the families and friends of those missing for there can be little hope now of finding survivors. I’ll not waste time speculating on the cause of this loss, but instead look at the issue of communication in crisis management. Read more…
the rioja revelation; a seasonal tale
Les Floggit left the sales conference platform on a personal high and to seemingly rapturous applause. They would all repair to the bar now no doubt to enjoy the remaining hours of their two day, three night break in Malaga far from the cold of pre-Christmas Britain. A five o’clock check in tomorrow would see them all hung-over no doubt, but for now the moment of triumph was his as he headed for his hotel room. Read more…
midweek musings on Edinburgh
It is hard to believe that two weeks have passed since I paced my Murrayfield hotel room rehearsing my presentation for the next day at the BIFM Scotland region conference. With four runs through the session coming out at 25 or 26 minutes I was comfortable that I had it down pat and was ready for a good sleep. This evening I am in another capital city hotel room and an ocean away from Scotland, but I’ve just been sharing experiences of public speaking with a guy who has gone off to his room to rehearse his slot at a sales conference tomorrow. I wish him well. Read more…
customer service is an attitude of mind
I usually end up writing about customer service when I am over in the USA and this time I had barely arrived before a striking comparison between how things work in the US and the UK arose. Read more…
musings on the role of FM
It is almost 45 years since I left school and went to work, ironically in some ways, in what we might now call FM as I was taken on as a trainee building surveyor for my first proper job in the back end of the sixties. Whilst most of what we dealt with was domestic property it did give me an introduction to a range of commercial properties from, shops through industrial buildings and on to farms and through that a graphic understanding of the need to maintain the asset and the issues of prioritising expenditure, especially when money is scarce. Understanding that linkage between the premises and the business should be at the heart of the debate over the future of the FM profession because there is always a driver there. At the simplest level this can be the the way an arable farmer will have different priorities to a livestock farmer, or the way that a shopkeeper will spend more on front of house than in their stockroom, but you can scale this principle up and apply it to Facilities Management as we now know it. Read more…
Caveat Emptor – still as true as when the Roman’s coined the phrase
Buyer Beware, or Caveat Emptor as the Romans used to put it, is still very much a truism despite all of the legislation that successive Governments, and the EU, have tried to impose to protect consumers. For business folk, who enjoy less protection with their working hats on than they do as individuals, more care has to be taken over what you are buying and who you are buying from.
Due diligence is a term often applied to this process, and when done well it is applied not just to the initial, pre-contract stage, but also over the duration of the contractual relationship. A while back we had the adulterated meat problem whereby what was being delivered was not what was expected. As this was an end product being supplied to consumers the problem was picked up through random testing as part of the consumer protection process, but apparently not by the purchasing organisation(s) concerned. I saw the other day a large sign in one store saying that all of their meat was 100% British or Irish. That may have been intended to reassure, but it could it doesn’t preclude it being 100% horse, rat, dog or any other sort of meat; caveat emptor again perhaps. Read more…
What’s your business all about? Do your people know?
Those who delve into the deeper corners f my social media output will be aware that recently I have been working on developing one of my various ventures into the retail arena. So why am I taking on a project like this? Read more…
is it unreasonable to be focused?
There was something on one of the internet forums last week about whether or not an “Unreasonable Leader” could succeed in Facilities Management. I did have a quick look, but had a lot on the go at the time and so didn’t follow up and read the post or its follow up comments. However, I would offer the observation that firstly yes they can (and do) and am living proof of the point. Read more…
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the Monday Musings column from that consultant bloke 