Finding qualified job candidates remains one of the biggest challenges facing facility management operations. And with more Baby Boomers reaching the end of their career, things won’t get any easier. Luckily, in facility management, many hiring issues are self-inflicted, and can be rectified with some sudden tweaks.
For starters, human resources departments and hiring managers can stop with those unnecessarily confusing job titles.
“Many organizations often use terms like ‘engineer’ and ‘operations’ in their job titles,” says Alana F. Dunoff, strategic facility planner & instructor, and executive at Philadelphia-based AFD Professional Services. “[So] when a candidate is searching for a position they might see an engineering position and believe it to be a technical position requiring an engineering degree; or if a candidate is searching for a position their key words might be ‘facility manager’ or ‘facilities coordinator,’ which means they may not even find positions that might be a match.”
Instead of continuing to cause confusion, facility managers need to have a real discussion with their human resources colleagues to come up with job titles that not only be simple to interpret, but also easy to find in a web search.
Facility managers can also better spot qualified candidates by meeting them where they are. At Temple University in Philadelphia, where Dunoff works as an adjunct professor, global companies are often on campus to meet with and recruit undergraduates studying facility management. So, facility managers should look for colleges and universities in their region that offer similar programs. Once those schools have been pinpointed, head to their campus with internship opportunities — something all college kids covet. The student gets to work toward graduation requirements and gain experience, while facility managers get, at worst, some short-term help, and at best, someone to come on full-time upon graduation.
Of course, a candidate doesn’t have to have gone to school for facility management to have been taught in the profession. Dunoff suggests zeroing in on candidates who have general credentials like Facility Management Professional (FMP), Sustainability Facility Professional (SFP), and Certified Facility Manager (CFM). For facility managers in specific industries, like healthcare, there is the American Hospital Association’s Certified Healthcare Facility Manager (CHFM) credential.
Another way to know you are hiring someone with expertise and competency in FM is if they have earned any of the Facility Management credentials that are out in the marketplace, some are general facilities knowledge and competency, while others are industry specific. International Facility Management Association offers the FMP (facility management professional), the SFP (sustainability facility professional) and CFM (certified facility manager), there is also the ProFM, BOMA has the FMA, APPA has the CEFP, and the CHFM is healthcare.
Dunoff is certainly an advocate for facility management education and credentials. However, she says it’s important to not dismiss those whose work experience or education comes from outside the industry. After all, the people who first constructed the profession came from a variety of backgrounds.
“In a recent credential class I had two students who had been in the food service industry and were transitioning to careers in FM,” explains Dunoff. “Running a restaurant is pretty similar to managing any building — there are tons of transferable skills from purchasing to customer satisfaction to ensuring the equipment is running optimally, the bathrooms are clean and the HVAC is working. The point is that hiring great people might mean looking at adjacent industries with similar schools or looking within your own organization to find some who are looking for an exciting new challenge.”
So when facility managers find themselves in another hiring rut, they’d be wise to try something new.
Jake Meister is a freelance writer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
