Facility management

those of us that are passionate about FM are passionate about it because of the people.

And you don't come into this to get kudos every day like, that a boy, you did a great job.

It's because you see things being created and creating new leaders.

And I practice day in and day out.

And I ask for feedback.

Welcome to Connected FM, a podcast connecting you to the latest insights, tools, and resources to help you succeed in facility management.

This podcast is brought to you by IFMA, the leading professional association for facility managers.

If you are ready to grow your network and advance in your career, go to ifma.org to get started.

And it feels a lot.

And I've been thinking a lot about that because if we need business to move and as FMs, if we have to stay aligned with our organization, you know, if they're moving to the right, we got to move to the right along with them, not like a couple of days or a couple of years later.

We have to be in that rhythm with our organization.

So how do we stay in tune? And so I've been thinking a lot about what are the things that FMs do to stay consistent? And so in my mind, I've been thinking a lot about preventative maintenance, right? Because preventative maintenance is a prescribed regular activity that we do in FM, right? We're going to change our filters.

We're going to do our cleaning.

We'll do all the things.

And we can be really strategic partners to the organization, right? Um, if we do what is they sometimes against maybe how we feel like we often like to fly under the radar, like a good day in FM is when, you know, nobody calls and there's no chaos.

And yet we're also the people who jump in when there is chaos because we know what to do and how to respond.

I have not seen that product, but I think that could be pretty cool to check out.

Then we've got an AI toolkit launched for cleaning and facilities management.

Artificial intelligence is becoming a bigger conversation in the cleaning and facilities management industry.

And this month, three international industry organizations have launched a new AI readiness toolkit.

The organizations involved are the European Cleaning and Facility Services Industry, the World Federation of Building Service Contractors, and the Building Service Contractors Association International.

The toolkit is designed to help cleaning and FM understand how they can introduce AI into their operations.

It includes guidance on AI policies, assessing how prepared a business is, governance and practical applications.

The toolkit has been developed specifically for the cleaning and facilities management sector rather than being a general AI resource.

Standards are what make data consistent and comparable across every site.

They help create data topologies that quantify outcomes, enable benchmarking, improve the value FMs deliver every day.

So, whether you look after one building or 1,000, this is where good decisions start, high-quality data.

So let's get into it.

And as we all know, the, the speed at which the technology's moving, and the data is a very integral part of that technology movement, I believe we need to communicate better how FM should be involved in this entire process or in this change or in this journey.

So I plan to communicate some of the technical data science concepts and, and lingos that can be easily understood by FM professionals, not only that they can understand and relate, but start applying some of, some of those concepts in their day-to-day job.

So I'm coming from an angle, how do I make it easy for our FMs in the field?

Great.

You know, I'm definitely not an expert in everything that we do, but I have amazing leaders within my team who I can lean on.

[upbeat music] Welcome to Connected FM, a podcast connecting you to the latest insights, tools, and resources to help you succeed in facility management.

This podcast is brought to you by IFMA, the leading professional association for facility managers.

If you are ready to grow your network and advance in your career, go to ifma.org to get started.

In today's episode, host Wayne Whitzell speaks with Tracy Hawkins, the vice president of real estate and workplace at OpenAI.

She highlights how focusing on team psychological safety, authenticity, and practical AI tools allows facility and workplace teams to eliminate friction and focus on what truly matters: supporting people.

Now, let's get into it.

Welcome to the Connected FM podcast series once again.