Winning IWFM nominees innovate, inspire and ignite at 2024’s Global FM Awards of Excellence 

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It’s a hat trick for IWFM on World FM Day 2024, as IWFM nominees win Gold, Silver and High Commendation plaudits at the Global FM Awards of Excellence.

This year’s World FM Day draws on the theme ‘Inspire, Integrate, Innovate: Ignite Your Career in FM’, so it’s appropriate that Global FM recognises organisations that’ve saved lives in the Antarctic, boosted the employee experience and invigorated schoolchildren with hospitality skills.

The diversity on display expresses the range of workplace and facilities management (WFM) career paths that IWFM facilitates through its advocacy, education and training.

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Facilities and Estates team leads innovative facilities management practice while supporting partner businesses and positively impacting the wider economy. In the toughest of environments BAS provides extensive FM capability to the UK and international science community through complex Polar research operations.

A key example of success was BAS’s Cambridge HQ team working alongside an on-station Antarctica team to fix a power outage as the outside temperature of the base plunged to minus 50 degrees. Work continues with BAS’s net zero target to install more sustainable energy solutions, with solar now accounting for more of BAS’s power requirements, while wind power and ground source heat pumps remain under consideration, both in the UK and Antarctica. Additionally, BAS is producing metrics from a Maximo CMMS system, where performance is measured against set targets.

BEST (Business Excellence Smart Toolbox) was developed by the E.ON account team to provide a suite of tools which could be tailored to engage team members whilst creating opportunities to share BEST practice, support employee development and retain their talented team. The tools have empowered and inspired 160 team members across 34 sites to develop and grow within the account. The success of the BEST initiative has quickly attracted the attention of other accounts within Mitie.

Results from the Upload employee engagement survey have shown that responses for the E.ON account are now above the company average. For example: 77% of Mitie employees said that workplace health & safety are considered important compared to 93% for the E.ON account. 67% of Mitie employees said that Mitie values the diversity of its people compared to 77% for E.ON. 50% of Mitie employees said it would take a lot for them to leave Mitie compared to 61% for the team on E.ON. BEST has reached circa 1000 employees and has been delivered across the UK.

ESS provides catering and soft FM services for the Royal Navy at NHS Collingwood and set about boosting the Junior Chef Academy (JCA), which had existed within Compass for several years. This takes the form of a 10-week cookery course for local schoolchildren, aiming to develop cooking as a life skill and encourage careers in hospitality. The course itself was delivered as an after-school club, and featured 10 sessions of 90 minutes each, for up to 15 students.

The scheme has now grown to the extent where a business case has been put forward to bring in a dedicated role responsible for the JCA scheme, taking responsibility for increasing community engagement – over a wider geographic area – and recruiting new apprentices.

Global FM, which judged the nominated entries from member organisations, awarded Gold to The British Antarctic Survey for their team efforts, also Team of the Year: Public or Third Sector category at the 2023 IWFM Impact Awards. A collaboration by Mitie and E.ON won the Silver award for their ‘BEST (Business Excellence Smart Toolbox) Programme’, which won in IWFM’s People Development and Talent Retention category. Lastly, ESS Defence was Highly Commended for ‘Junior Chef Academy delivered by ESS Defence’, which scooped the top prize in IWFM’s Social Value category.

IWFM CEO Linda Hausmanis said,

“It’s a happy World FM Day when we can showcase WFM teams at their most innovative and inspirational: transforming organisations, driving change, realising positive outcomes, helping people and planet. Congratulations to this year’s winners and may they ignite many career aspirations for this brilliant profession. I wish them ongoing success.”

“As the 2024 Impact Awards achieves record entries, it’s fantastic tribute to the UK sector that for the seventh year Global FM has recognised our winners. All of them trailblazers, on a day where the sector comes together from across the world to celebrate the impact WFM continues to have.”

Find out more about the IWFM Impact Awards here.