6 Real Estate Trends That Will Massively Change Facility Management

Current developments in the real estate sector, new working environments and digitalisation are changing the job profile and the requirements for facility management. In the other blog posts in this series, the relevant real estate trends, the status quo of the industry and the opportunities that arise for clever facility managers are highlighted.

Focus on employees

Those companies that manage to get the best employees on board will continue to be the most successful in the future. An end to the “war for talent” as a real estate trend is therefore not foreseeable.

Once these employees are part of the company, it is important to retain them for as long as possible. The costs of staff turnover – from the time-consuming search to training to lost knowledge – are relatively easy to estimate.

At the end of the day, it’s also about performance in the workplace and helping employees be productive.

All these factors have one thing in common: they are massively influenced by the working environment or are closely interwoven with it. The employee-centric view is therefore becoming more and more important.

So how can existing properties meet the increased demands of smart workers? Which investments make sense in the long term?

Changes in user behavior

Fixed working hours are a thing of the past in many companies. Even fixed workplaces are no longer a matter of course. This real estate trend is impacting building operations.

How should heating and ventilation be adjusted? When should it be cleaned? And how much space is really still necessary?

Buildings as brand ambassadors

Buildings also play a role in brand communication in general and the “user experience” in particular – whether for partners, customers, suppliers, politics or the media.

There is a growing awareness that the company’s infrastructure is an important touchpoint and therefore must not be neglected.

Shorter decision cycles

Takeovers, mergers, reorganizations, start-ups – in many areas, the speed at which far-reaching decisions are made is increasing significantly. As a result, the space requirements are also changing, both quantitatively and in terms of the necessary equipment.

How can we react flexibly to this? What if only half of the space is needed in the short term?

Real Estate Trend Transparency

It is not only the increasing regulatory requirements that make more transparency necessary, but also from the owner level downwards, real-time reporting, more accurate forecasts and data-based strategies are playing an increasingly important role.

How can facility management meet these requirements?

Increasing cost pressure

The need to reduce costs is nothing new, but the pressure is increasing. This is especially true when facility management is seen purely as a cost generator instead of (also) as a value-creating factor.

A slowing economy or even a recession intensifies the cost focus all the more.

How can costs be optimized?

Real estate trends as an opportunity for FM

The real estate trends described above mean that facility management will be able to substantially determine the competitiveness of companies in the future.

However, the mere management of the building infrastructure will not be sufficient for this. Instead, there will be a demand for active designers who take up the corporate strategy and make a measurable contribution to its implementation.

More in our practical guide:

You can read how smart buildings and IoT help to adapt to changing requirements in the practical guide for facility managers.

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