The workplace world spins madly on

Acting as a solid foundation for the IFMA event was the rather nice idea that humans come first. People and planet pip profit to the post, or so conversation at the conference suggested. The event explored FM’s role in breathing life into the fourth ‘P’, purpose, reiterating the recently discovered reality that the majority of people in today’s world want their working lives to count for something more than a cog in a corporate machine. 

The following week’s CoreNet summit in Anaheim unravelled the idea of engagement through experience. Underpinning the diverse programme was the question – ‘What role does corporate real estate play in leading, creating and fostering experiences that enable business success?’ The answer, it seems, is a big one. 

Both events shined a light on the ways our human-to-machine world is ramping up employee expectations. There were a lot of whispers about ‘Industry 4.0’, the new buzzword. It means we're on the cusp of a fourth industrial revolution that will be dictated by machine learning and artifical intelligence. Much like previous revolutions, the last of which was triggered by the computer, this will change the way we live, work and learn. 

“It’s the space between tech and humans that’s the interesting bit,” suggested Advanced Workplace Associates’ Chris Hood at the IFMA conference. A sentiment shared by Emily Thrasher of Proxyclick on the IFMA Workplace Evolutionaries stage. Thrasher stressed that tech will not replace human interaction; it will just make it easier. “Tech’s only bias is in favour of efficiency,” she said. “It can help us work smarter.”

One thing’s clear; we cannot plan for the future if we fail to reocognise that the world is not going to stay the same. FM language has already shifted. We hear the words ‘people’ and ‘colleagues’ more than ‘employees’. There is more focus on ‘experience’ than ‘productivity’. And the obsession with profit is taking a backseat to allow for better human outcomes. For facilities management, then, it is about bringing different points of view and multifaceted skills together in a pragmatic way to create immersive, experiential and people-focussed workplaces. 

Jo Sutherland is MD and IFMA UK chapter board director at Magenta Associates.