Now might not be the best time to put a lot of faith in polling data, but I think it’s worth noting that three broad indicators in our annual FM Pulse salary survey are all pointing in the same direction: up.
The FM Pulse survey aims to do what its name suggests: take the pulse of the field of facility management. To do that, we ask not only about salaries, raises, and bonuses, but also about staffing and budgeting. The survey results have tracked a slow but persistent recovery since the Great Recession. (You can read our article rounding up our FM Pulse data here.)
The data suggests that something changed for the better in 2016. Take staffing. We asked if facility manager added positions, eliminated positions, or made no changes in the current year. For the past few years, the survey has shown that about the same number of respondents added FM jobs as eliminated them. But in 2016, the job gains number jumped sharply to 32 percent, while the figure for job cuts fell just as sharply to 9 percent.
There was more good news when it came to 2016 capital and operating budgets. The survey asks how much those budgets gained or lost in the current year. Nearly half of respondents indicated no change, but among the rest gainers outpaced losers by a substantial amount.
A last point worth noting is average raise. Across almost all of the building types we surveyed, the reported raise percentage grew. Even state government facility professionals, who haven’t seen an increase since 2008, reported a small raise.
This year’s pre-election polls should provide a dose of humility for anyone extrapolating from survey results. Even so, the FM Pulse numbers do suggest that 2016 was a pretty good year in the FM field. Was that your experience? Let me know how it went for your department.
Tell me what you think at myfacilitiesnet.com/edsullivan
