Two years after launching the Asia-Pacific Facilities Management Certification, CBRE shares how becoming an IFMA education supporter has helped the program reach a wider audience in China, a key growth market, and how the partnership continues to attract talent, accelerate careers and promote excellence in the facility management profession.

With terms like the Great Resignation and war for talent gaining global traction, a key challenge in Asia-Pacific’s (APAC) FM market is attracting talent to the industry. As FM leaders, CBRE identifies the need to contribute to the professionalization and advancement of FM, both as a practice and as a career. In 2020, CBRE launched the comprehensive Asia-Pacific Facilities Management Certification Program to attract, develop and retain top talent.

Program overview

CBRE designed the program with two certification levels: Core Certification and Advanced Certification. The first level, Core Certification, is appropriate for FM staff with less than five years of experience, including those who are new to their role or pursuing a career in the FM industry. Core Certification focuses on building a consistent foundational knowledge across key competencies.

Those with more years of experience or skills pursue the second level, Advanced Certification, in which they can build and enrich their existing knowledge. This approach ensures CBRE’s clients receive a consistent level of service and expertise, allowing CBRE to provide an engaging employee value proposition anchored on a clear career development pathway for staff.

For the program to be successful, designing a comprehensive curriculum that resonates with FMs was critical. It had to be robust, credible and relevant, giving participants both formal and informal qualifications and credentials, which could only be accomplished by collaborating with industry experts and professional associations.

The program integrates content and industry best practices including courses from world-class professionals from Harvard ManageMentor, LinkedIn Learning, as well as highly sought-after industry-recognized qualifications from IFMA and the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH). In addition, customized content was developed by CBRE subject matter experts covering topics including health safety environment (HSE), workplace strategy, procurement, experience services, along with multiple courses on energy and sustainability to align with CBRE’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy. This holistic and collaborative approach not only provides FMs with the knowledge and skills they need in the present, but also gives them professional industry recognition for the future.

The collaboration with IFMA helps CBRE bring world-class professional certification to the APAC region, providing systematic training to employees at scale across the region. This provides a consistent high level of quality in CBRE’s professional services and instils professional distinction in employees.

Why focus on China?

As the FM industry continues its rapid growth, resourcing and developing people has never been more crucial. This is particularly important in a key market like China where FM is not as established as an industry, or career choice compared to real estate, banking and finance. The industry also faces the challenge of a declining mature talent pool and a shortage of younger workers, as the concept of FM is relatively new from both a professional and an academic perspective.

Universities and tertiary institutions in China do not have FM majors or programs to support the FM industry. Traditionally, people join CBRE from different majors like business, engineering or electrical.

CBRE creates opportunities to grow the FM industry and reduces the talent shortage of FM personnel. The industry must attract young and diverse talent into the workforce and provide more opportunities for people from varied backgrounds to learn about the industry and available career pathways.

Translating for growth

CBRE’s strategy for the program included prioritizing the translation of more than 90 courses across multiple platforms to Simplified Chinese. CBRE partnered with IFMA as an education supporter to translate the Essentials of Facility Management and the Facility Management Professional™ (FMP®) credential to Simplified Chinese. This allowed CBRE to broaden its audience without compromising the integrity and comprehensive nature of the program.

IFMA-CBRE Pull quoteImportance of investing in career development of our people

Developing people is critical to attracting and retaining excellent talent. To make a difference, organizations must consider creating a key differentiator to ensure the success of their efforts.

In a recent new hire survey, 71 percent of respondents said they joined CBRE for career development. Through targeted marketing and talent acquisition conversations, new hires recognize that the FM industry is growing, offering significant career opportunities. With growth in popular sectors like technology, CBRE can attract and recruit younger talent into the FM industry in China. Key development programs like CBRE’s FM Certification can help accelerate their technical knowledge and embed well-trained staff into the FM industry via world-class certifications early in their career.

CBRE’s APAC FM Certification offering is unmatched in the market, and the Simplified Chinese version enhances and expands the company’s ability to find exceptional new employees. This helps differentiate CBRE as a leader in talent development and emphasizes that people are the most valuable asset.

Engaging our people through learning

Since launching the Asia-Pacific FM Certification program, there has been an upward trend in the overall employee engagement score across CBRE’s FM workforce. This data reinforces that the organization is focusing on the right people investments, which impacts engagement positively. Research provided by Kincentric showed that highly engaged employees lead to better organizational outcomes, such as increase in revenue and sales growth, better business performance, improved customer satisfaction and talent retention. Therefore, creating enhanced outcomes not only benefits CBRE, but also its clients.

Celebrating our people’s success

As part of driving engagement and building a strong learning culture, CBRE has a robust process in place to reward and recognize people, which has been an extremely important component of the program. The day-to-day role of an FM is demanding and recognizing and appreciating their efforts is important for personal and professional development. Participants receive pins and a card at each level of completion, which they can wear and display. In addition, they receive recognition emails and certificates for relevant courses and credentials, as well as an overall CBRE Asia-Pacific FM Certification upon successful completion.

Winning formula for our people and clients

Integrating both CBRE’s internal world-class people, programs and technology and highly sought-after external industry recognized qualifications from IFMA and IOSH has been instrumental in the program’s success. Participants feel valued and the holistic approach gives them tangible qualifications and professional industry recognition.

“The Asia-Pacific FM certification course integrates international certifications, and constantly adds best practices from CBRE. It is a unique FM professional training system of CBRE. CBRE’s FM experts will provide world-class service experience for CBRE’s clients, which enhances their impression that CBRE is a world-class facility management expert, and continuously improves the influence of CBRE as a leader in the facility management market,” said Sean Lu, associate director and participant in the advanced certification in China.

The benefit to CBRE’s clients is substantial. They will have people with access to world-class learning with high international standards. Clients can be confident that participants who receive the Asia-Pacific FM Certification have completed all the courses across both soft and technical skills and services. If participants do not pass certain qualifications such as IFMA courses, they will not receive their overall FM certification. This assures clients that CBRE is serious about setting high standards for FM professionals and for the industry.

Further building environmental sustainability capability

In today’s dynamic business landscape, many organizations are discovering how professional FM services can enhance employee experiences, help conserve energy and natural resources, as well as contribute to sustainability efforts. One of the key trends in Asia-Pacific is that, in countries such as China (mainland and Hong Kong) and Singapore, governments are setting greenhouse gas emissions targets, as well as policies and incentives to accelerate progress on renewable energy and energy efficiency as part of many corporations’ ESG programs.

As the world’s largest commercial real estate services provider, CBRE is committed to implementing environmentally sustainable best practices for its own operations, continuing to invest in dedicated talent, resources and technologies around environmental sustainability, while also assisting clients in their efforts to address environmental concerns.

FMs play an integral role in managing and delivering these environmental sustainability initiatives at client sites, and CBRE is committed to educating regional and global teams on sustainability and the technology solutions to support these initiatives. The Asia-Pacific FM Certification is one of the tools used to educate employees. Seven modules were created by CBRE energy and sustainability subject matter experts to upskill the FM teams around fundamentals relating to water, waste and energy conservation, as well as providing insights on the features and benefits of ISO 50001 Energy Management Systems and the key role an energy manager plays. The relevant modules also met the approved standards of IOSH, which provides additional quality assurance from this leading professional body. This knowledge, along with their existing skillset, provides better recommendations and programs to our clients on how they can achieve their sustainability goals.

What’s next?

Looking forward, CBRE will continue to enhance its business and people strategies to ensure it offers the best work experience and career development opportunities for its people, while also achieving great outcomes for clients’ evolving needs. CBRE’s Asia-Pacific FM Certification Program will continue adapting to the latest industry trends, innovations and client needs. The collaboration with IFMA and local chapters provides a valuable platform for the FM community to share and discuss the latest trends, strengthening the industry across Asia-Pacific. CBRE leaders are also playing a key role in facilitating discussions from the training to continue embedding and reinforcing best practices. We remain committed to promoting the program and driving uptake and completion to help accelerate careers and attract top talent.

By developing exceptional FMs through the program, CBRE is championing excellence within the profession and creating more visibility for FM as a respected and valued career of choice.