Celebrating The Vital Role Of Facilities Managers

New Zealand's hard-working facilities managers will pause today to celebrate the important role they play in ensuring the collective spaces we live our lives in are safe, healthy, sustainable, productive and fit-for-purpose.

The theme for this year's World FM Day - 'Standing Tall Beyond the Pandemic' - focuses on the vital role facilities managers have been called upon to play over the past year. Their immense efforts have allowed key services, businesses, government departments and other organisations to continue to operate as effectively and efficiently as alert levels have allowed.

“Facilities managers across New Zealand continue to play a vital frontline role in ensuring and enabling the operational health and safety of our workplaces and business environments,” says Gillian Wess, CEO of FMANZ, the association representing facilities management professionals in Aotearoa.

"Today is an opportunity for the FM profession to stand tall and tell the world what the industry has achieved over the past year and continues to deliver."

The theme of this year's FM Summit - to be held on 6-7 July in Auckland - reflects the theme of World FM Day. "‘The Way of the Future' explores how we can build a new future for FM out of the ‘new normal’ we find ourselves in,” explains Gillian.

“Along with the myriad challenges and seismic changes that Covid has brought, the global pandemic presents facilities managers with an opportunity to pause, re-evaluate and look at ways to build a better post-pandemic world.”

Embracing this theme, industry leaders at the two-day FM Summit will explore new ways of working, sustainability, future technologies, economics, change management, digital transformation, climate change, how we interact with each other, and the vital role facilities managers can play in the new world we find ourselves in, as custodians of the built environment.

Speakers include Tony Alexander, Independent Economist; Grant Blackwell, Chief Scientist with the Climate Change Commission; Sheridan Broadbent, Director and Business Advisor; Thomas Irvine, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei’s Chief Operating Officer; Dr Rachel Morrison, Associate Professor at AUT, and many more. Go to www.fmsummit.org to find out more and to register.

An initiative of Global FM, World FM Day is an opportunity to highlight the contribution of facilities management to business and society. Facilities management is a US$1.15 trillion global industry, employing more than 2,000,000 professional and industry practitioners worldwide.

The Facilities Management Association of New Zealand (FMANZ) represents Aotearoa’s community of FM professionals and supports professional development, networking and knowledge sharing for members. Members include in-house facilities managers, FM contractors and external FM consultants working to ensure our public spaces and workplaces are safe, healthy, sustainable, productive and fit-for-purpose.

Definition of Facilities Management: 'An organisational function which integrates people, place and process within the built environment with the purpose of improving the quality of life of people and the productivity of the core business.' (ISO 41011:2017)

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