Millions of companies across Britain have been warned to prepare for Russian cyber-attacks as the UK placed sanctions on three wealthy allies of Vladimir Putin and five banks in response to the 'renewed invasion' of Ukraine.

A four-day working week is to be trialled for six months in June 2022, and it’s not just for office workers. Six companies have signed up for the flexible working experiment, including Canon’s British office.

Great Facilities Managers are in such big demand, and this is only expected to grow. According to a report by International Facility Management, the FM sector is currently facing a shortage of professionals and urgently needs to attract new talent to the industry. There’s been an imbalance between supply and demand for years in FM for the right people, skewed in favour of candidates. Despite being a booming, multi-billion-pound industry, the lack of skilled workers could greatly affect businesses across the country.

As public pressure grows for property owners to reduce their carbon footprint, attention has shifted to renewable energy, especially solar and wind power, with some moving toward complete electrification.

In this current post pandemic climate there has been a tendency to see facility managers as just ‘site managers’ without recognising their role as more strategic influencers which is indeed the case.

In order to ensure improved productivity within the company, the facility management professional should be responsible for these operations by using maintenance information and daily operations reports to identify the best solution to any problems that may ultimately have a negative impact on productivity in the workplace.

The challenge to the facility manager is to translate the bottom line into actionable items that meet the facility needs of the organisation and stay in alignment with the organisations commitment to corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Facilities Management qualifications can be confusing to say the least. There is a lot of information out there and you certainly don’t want to waste your time studying something that won’t be beneficial. They range from courses for those who are totally new into the industry, (providing a good understanding of the roles, and what a Facilities Manager’s responsibilities are) right up to courses for the directors of a company and their strategic roles within the Facilities Management industry.