‘The IWFM: thirty years in thirty stories’ by Martin Read, Facilitate magazine Editor 

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It was an age in which John Smith, not Tony Blair, seemed destined for political greatness; in which the whole concept of the internet itself was still alien to most; and in which the nascent facilities management sector, having experienced its own 1980s ‘big bang’, had somehow managed to get itself represented by not one but two UK membership organisations. 
 
No, facilities management itself didn’t begin in 1993 - but it did gain a single national institute, dedicated to furthering the aims of the discipline and cultivating awareness. The thirty years since the then British Institute of Facilities Management first came onto the scene have seen the sector altered significantly by no end of political, cultural and technological upheaval. 
 
In September, Facilitate magazine celebrates the Institute’s anniversary in two ways. In print, we look at the sector’s development through six five-year spreads, charting the cultural, political, technological, and legislative drivers of change from 1993-1997 to 2018-2023 - and how the sector evolved through each. We also look at how FM itself was triggered into life by events in the 1960s onwards. 
 
Online, who best to tell this story than the people who were there? In our Thirty Years through Thirty Stories, for each year of the IWFM’s life, we’ve spoken to one person who started out in FM at that time, asking what motivated them, what it was like when they started - and what’s changed. It’s a picture of a rapidly evolving profession told by the people who were – and in many cases still are - there. 
 
Go to the year in which you started or read them all from 1993 to 2023. Either way, you’ll get a sense of the changing practice and priorities of the profession. 
 
QUOTES: 
 
“The biggest challenge was probably lack of organisation and consistency. This was just before the explosion of the internet; my mobile phone was the size of a brick and had a 90-minute battery life.” 
 
“There was a notable lack of collaboration between resource specialisms that reflected decades of protecting respective trade skills and years of indoctrination of worker productivity.” 
 
“Back in the mid-2000s, diversity was focussed on young people and apprenticeships. It hadn’t blossomed into mental health, neurodiversity, LQBT+, ethnic diversity and general inclusive thought.” 
 
“It feels like the old days of just going into an office, sitting at a desk and getting on with your work, five times a week is long behind us.” 

To read online copies of Facilitate magazine, visit our Insight section by clicking here.