Valuable Contributions

The counselor would then extol the virtues of a college education, including the financial benefits that come with graduation from a four-year college program.

Flashback: The company president is working on a proposal and a light starts flickering overhead. The company president calls the mailroom and tells someone to fix it immediately. A mailroom employee arrives minutes later and replaces the light quickly with minimal disturbance; so, the company president asks, “While you are here, can you fix…?”

As a result, duties increase for the mailroom employee. Monitoring and directing the janitorial crew. Getting repairs done on the elevator. Moving personnel from one area of the building to another. Was this the start of facility management?

Much of FM focuses on professional education and career development. IFMA offers training and credentials to facilitate this growth, from the Essentials of FM through competency courses, credential programs and certification. The IFMA Foundation focuses a large portion of its resources on supporting higher education FM degree programs. Yet facility management’s origins are in blue-collar workers.

Doing the work

The blue-collar workforce consists of skilled individuals who work primarily with their hands. They keep the lights on, buildings standing and energy flowing. Blue-collar jobs include preventive equipment maintenance, troubleshooting problems in the workplace and general manual labor. For every professional who has earned an IFMA credential, there is a support staff working with them. These facility technicians do the heavy lifting in in a facility, and without them, all the smartest plans would just sit nicely on a shelf.

Blue-collar responsibilities sometimes require physical labor with machinery, vehicles or equipment. Work is hands-on and often physically tiring. Labor may be skilled or unskilled, sometimes requiring the use of specific software, tools, or highly specialized skills and expertise. These jobs are endemic to fields like construction, maintenance and FM, and they range from plumbing to electric, technology to logistics. Some of the most common blue-collar jobs include welders, mechanics, electricians, plumbers, furniture repair, move management, computer technicians and construction workers. Other jobs may be more specialized, calling for dexterity, agility and diligence, attracting people who have skills and interests that are different from those who work in offices or call centers.

Most managers in the office and service sectors have come up through the ranks, having earned their positions by working directly in the areas that they manage. This provides them with an in-depth understanding of the challenges their staff face and proper policies and procedures their responsibilities dictate. When it comes to blue-collar work, though, many managers have never done the actual work their staff performs. For example, an FM may not be expected to fix a chiller or repair drywall. This is why it is imperative to recognize facility technicians for the work they do. They must be trusted to do the job well, respected for the knowledge and skill it takes to maintain the facility, and left alone to ply their trade. Facilities staff cannot be micromanaged.

A huge assumption by white-collar managers is that people are always looking for ways to advance their careers. This is why elaborate goal plans are set up for people to move into supervisory positions. Encouraging employees to climb the ranks is a smart decision for management. Recognizing blue-collar workers by offering the opportunity for promotion to decision-making roles may prove beneficial in some instances. It is advantageous to have diverse leadership. All too often, there is a disconnect between decisions that are made and the reality of the work done in the field. However, not everyone wants career advancement. Many blue-collar workers enjoy hands-on work. Successive promotions typically take people further away from physical labor into more administrative work. This can add stress related to people management, and the demands of more responsibility may end up demotivating people rather than motivating them.

Many facility technicians are content with doing their jobs. They prefer to perform straight- forward work that they understand well. They take satisfaction from a job well done and take pride in the efficiency and quality of the facilities they maintain. They are content with where they are and with what they do.

What goes around…

As new generations join the workforce, combined with the shifting global economy, trends have led to a cultural rejection of these jobs. Young workers once saw these roles as obsolete and flocked to office jobs. Today, the switch flipped. While most economies are now highly knowledge-based, and the manufacturing base is much smaller, hard-working blue-collar teammates are still critically and fundamentally important. The dearth of workers willing to get their hands dirty, along with the omnipresent need for maintenance and repair, has created a massive demand for well-paid, highly skilled blue-collar workers.

While it is not news to many companies that workers of any type are hard to find, it is harder to find blue-collar workers than white-collar workers. This reverses a decades-long trend in the U.S. jobs market. The growing blue-collar labor shortages result from converging demographic educational and economic trends in the global business world. As the population attains more education, the number of individuals entering the job market with a bachelor’s degree has grown, while the numbers without one have shrunk. Those who have invested time and money in a formal education do not want to feel that education was wasted by working with their hands. Another factor is that the baby boomer generation, a segment of the workforce that once held many blue-collar jobs, continues to retire in droves. Also, since the mid-1990s millions of non-college graduates have left the labor force due to disability, adding to the worker shortage. Meanwhile, as the pool of blue-collar workers has shrunk, the demand for their services has increased.

Since 2010, fewer manufacturing jobs were offshored from the U.S., and less productivity growth from automation took place than in the previous decade. This has led to a continuous demand for U.S. workers. In FM, this demand will increase, as current technicians tend to be older, leading to many retirements over the next few years. In the coming decade, the extent of challenges created by blue-collar labor shortages will depend on three factors:

1. To what extent employers realize that many blue-collar jobs cannot be automated;
2. How many additional individuals are brought back into the labor force; and
   
3. How many workers move into blue-collar jobs from other parts of the labor market?

The way the situation is developing, companies looking to attract enough blue-collar workers will have to continue increasing wages, which will affect their bottom line. Well-run facilities with experienced technicians can mitigate these losses through cost avoidance and streamlined efficiency. These circumstances benefit blue collar workers. Compared to a decade ago, they are much more likely to have jobs that satisfy them and experience rapid wage growth.

In the facilities space

Recognizing facility technicians’ contributions to the workplace is of paramount importance and should reflect the nature of their job. FMs must identify what would be the best way to engage them and show they are valued. Facility walks and participating in some activities is one way an FM can show their interest and appreciation of the work being done. This should be part of an FM’s daily routine. It will allow an FM to get to know the technicians better and achieve an understanding of their challenges and experiences. Working at a desk is different from working in a noisy central plant, outside in the rain or in small electrical closets. If an FM shows that they are willing to get cold, wet and dirty, it can improve trust and respect from their staff.

Communication within the department is critical. Facility technicians have much more specialized knowledge than most FMs. Developing continuous and relevant dialogue will benefit the department. An FM must always search out their opinions, get their suggestions and empower them to develop solutions to challenges. When an FM is willing to be flexible and consider input, they are more likely to get better constructive collaboration in the department and a more receptive and productive team.

The other side of the dialogue coin is the manager's responsibility to share information with their staff. It is important to help those within the department understand how their work fits into the larger picture. A technician’s work can be very specialized and compartmentalized. They all may have specific functions – HVAC technicians manage mechanical issues, carpenters build things, welders weld things. Even though the plan is to eventually have them all cross-trained, their expertise is still isolated from the overall business of the company.

Because the nature of the work is often narrow, an FM should improve unity and collaboration where possible. They need to help their team understand the dynamics of the entire department, and how their work contributes to it and the company. They should identify various internal customers, discuss their needs and expectations, and talk about what each team member can do to provide better customer service. They should encourage their team to think about other parts of the department. This will help them make better decisions and, hopefully, improve their overall performance. Informing them of company plans and progress will create more interest in helping the company succeed.

It makes sense in the context of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Two of the most valuable psychological needs for humans are to have a sense of belonging and being appreciated. This is why recognition and verbal appreciation are fundamental to the success of any facility department.

When discussing their jobs, one thing facility technicians bring up is the difference between a standard maintenance position and their role in the facilities department. On a typical maintenance service call, they gather their tools, show up where there is an issue, fix the problem and leave. In FM, the techs get the additional satisfaction of knowing the people they help, of being able to put names and faces to their customers.

This personal side to the services they deliver adds value to the jobs they perform and transcends the gratification of doing a job well. They get to see the positive results of their efforts and may even get verbal appreciation from those they help. It is this personal interaction that helps motivate them. There is also FM’s holistic side that engages and empowers them.

Flash forward: In facilities, the need for technicians is an ongoing necessity if the workplace is going to operate efficiently and effectively. Every executive making key decisions needs a place in which they make those decisions. Their offices must be comfortable, healthy and functional. FMs are responsible for ensuring those criteria are met, but facility technicians make it happen. It is a segregation of duties, with everyone fulfilling their role. Dismissing the importance of any of these aspects of a business operation would be a critical mistake. Recognizing the contributions of the blue-collar workers, those facility technicians who keep a building purring, should be a continuous practice.