Category: Management & Leadership

Commute Times & Teleworking – Making the link

Yes, there is a link, and because of gridlock, the time is right for more alternate work arrangements at the office. Not to mention the high cost of real estate. There you go, two drivers (pun intended), one for the employee, one for the employer.

20 years ago, the Corporate Real Estate department I worked with was very progressive in trying different things for the company. We were implementing green initiatives, trying to get the occupants involved in reducing energy, investing in technology, implementing universal space planning and trying work share, hotelling and teleworking.

Unfortunately, some of those CRE initiatives didn’t work as well as hoped – they were simply ahead of their time. Costs hadn’t risen significantly yet and commute times were relatively modest, so making change where change wasn’t wanted was a painful initiative that didn’t create enough benefits.

In two recent ranking studies of international cities, the Economist 2011 Liveability Ranking and the Conference Board of Canada’s Scorecard on Prosperity 2011, there is an interesting characteristic at play. While both studies give give very different rankings to the same cities, a key characteristic for Toronto, Canada had an impact on its ranking, which were #4 in the Economist report and #8 in the Conference Board’s report.

Posted by Michel Theriault Apr 25, 2011

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Facility Management Magazines Listing : A Great Source for Information, Solutions and Ideas

Magazines are a great way to learn and to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in the Facility industry. Even if you can’t read every article, you are likely to find something you can use, and if you pass your magazine around your office, everyone will benefit.

Many have on-line content so you don’t necessarily need a subscription. Some are free to qualified FM professionals, some are association publications provided to members and others require a paid publications.

This is a fairly comprehensive list of magazines from around the world, directly from the ‘References’ section my new book, “Managing Facilities & Real Estate”. In my book, I also list associations and conferences.

The list is alphabetical and mostly includes magazines that deal with FM in general with a few that focus on specific facility types, such as hospital, retail or corporate.

Whether or not you’re in the specific industry or country where the magazines are from, check them out on-line and you may find useful information, ideas and solutions you can use.

If you know of others, even specialized magazines targeting suppliers and contractors in the industry (such as janitorial, plumbing, etc. ), please feel free to add them by adding a comment below with information about the magazine.

Posted by Michel Theriault Apr 10, 2011

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The Ideal Facility Manager

This is a quote I’ve had in my files almost since I started my career in Facility Management 20 years ago. Almost everyone in the Facility Management profession can relate to this: The Ideal Facility Manager Juggling

Posted by Michel Theriault Apr 01, 2011

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Earth Hour – A focus on Facilities and the Built Environment

Have you seen media reports about Earth Hour?

By far, the images used most often to illustrate participation (or non-participation) in Earth Hour are buildings. Here is an older image that illustrates the point, by Ryan McCarthy.

Some of the recent media highlighted successful participation and others are talking about lagging participation. In the Toronto Star, they had photos of buildings that you would think would have participated, but were still lit up, such as the building owned by Ontario Power Generation and Toronto Hydro’s building.

Either way, buildings that are dark, semi-dark or even fully lit are in the news everywhere. And that includes iconic buildings, ordinary office buildings and even homes.

Posted by Michel Theriault Mar 27, 2011

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Do you have an FM System Yet? Here are 5 reasons why your organization should support it

FM System CMMS CAFM IWMS I’m constantly surprised when I talk to FM professionals who haven’t implemented an FM system to manage their responsibilities, whether it’s CMMS, CAFM, IWMS or other systems for managing processes, space or maintenance.

Having started my career over 20 years ago at a company who had an FM system back then, to not have an FM system today given the flexibility, availability, benefits and relatively low-cost of many web based systems is surprising. It’s an essential tool for effectively managing facilities.