News & Views

You can’t call yourself a true Brightonian, I reckon, unless you’re often seen coasting around on a rusty, secondhand bicycle with some sort of basket, ideally wicker, attached.

Cathy disagrees. Once she all but went into shock at the mere suggestion of owning a bike in Brighton – the same Cathy, that is, who admits to going for a jog one morning in the pitch black to shake off sore legs caused by “too much sleep” (too much sleep?! 6.30am?! A jog?!). “A bike?!” Cathy said. “Are you mad? But think of the hills in Brighton!”

Indeed there are hills, gigantuous ones, really more like mountains. And I have on occasions when I’ve felt my thighs and lungs begin to burn about two feet into the incline, cursed the day hills and bikes were born. But there are also loads of cycle paths throughout the flat parts, including a magnificent route all the way along the seafront from east of Brighton Harbour to west of Hove. What’s more satisfying than, at the weekend, being propelled gently by the sea breeze along the seafront to a café selling chippie chips, beer and even ice cream?

By cycling rather than walking into work I also slash my journey time by 10 minutes (including the five minutes I spend fumbling at each end with my bike lock). That’s 10 whole luxurious extra minutes snugged under my duvet dreaming about one day owning a brand shiny new bike.

The other day the owner of the building that Magenta happily lives in requested that I remove my bike from the railings outside, carry it down stairs to a makeshift area and attach it to a flimsy hoop in the wall. I obliged, somewhat grudgingly. My bike on the railings hadn’t been harming anyone, just as the other bikes on railings outside other properties in the street are out of the way, not harming anyone. Now not only was my bike insecurely attached to a hoop moonlighting as a towel-holder, but I could harm myself carrying a steel frame bike up and down concrete stairs. Adding insult to my injured sense of fairness, when I retrieved my bike at the end of the day it was covered in a thick layer of dust from the building works in the yard next door. Since then I’ve had to secure my bike to a lamppost a few feet down the road.

This unnecessary palaver got me thinking about the importance of providing good cycle parking to keep an increasing number of cyclists happy. Larger companies (courtesy of FMs), building owners and councils all have a responsibility. You might say that I’m somewhat out of season. But down south at least, there are still a good few cycling days left of the year, I think.

So how should cycle racks be managed properly? A range of issues must be considered: is cycle parking safe and secure, visible, accessible, easy to use, available; what type of parking should be provided; how much should be provided; what else should be provided to support cycle parking; and how should staff be encouraged to cycle to work (a workforce that regularly cycles to work is likely to be fit, healthy and on time), among other issues. Transport for London’s excellent Workplace Cycle Parking Guide, fortunately, has many of  the answers.

Back in Brighton, Brighton & Hove City Council provides a stellar amount of safe and secure cycle parking all over the city. Saying that, should they someday soon wish to provide some in the middle of Grand Parade next to Magenta’s office …

Does anyone else cycle into work? What are the issues you’ve encountered in doing so? Does your employer provide good cycle parking – or could they do better? We’d love to hear your comments.

Charlie Bunn joined the Magenta team for a week’s work experience. Here he writes about his adventures.

It may be of those semi-mythic activities which generally only happen in sit-coms, but this week I rode the tube from one end to the other. Well, from one end of the Metropolitan line to the other. Accompanying Cathy on a couple of client meetings in London, I found myself riding from Uxbridge to Aldgate and thinking how bizarre this whole travelling lark is. Seasoned pro that she is Cathy somehow contrives to make every second of the journey productive. At the first hint of time spent away from the office out comes the laptop or the iPhone, often simultaneously, accompanied by a notepad and her work commences. There are no wasted seconds, the last minute scramble to find tube tickets aside, and I admit that such incredible use of time is a skill I am far from mastering. My attempt at tube-board laptop use resulted in a very jittery few seconds of trying to maintain my precarious hold over my PC so that it didn’t simply crash to the floor. It was perhaps three minutes before I admitted defeat and passed my time reading the tube map time and time again.

Now in a week with Magenta I have undoubtedly learnt much and certainly been productive but I have also spent a lot of time on trains. A lot of time. Even Cathy is occasionally stumped when she enters an area without Wi-Fi. Me, while commuting I’ve finished the book I was reading, worn down my I-pod battery twice and developed fairly constant back ache but nothing which could be described as particularly constructive. And that’s the other thing, even though I’m 19 and on work experience I’m not completely unfamiliar with working all day, but I’ve not been confined to the same chair for so long before and my body’s rebelling. My back hurts, my neck hurts and now when I stand up my legs are not so much instruments of stability and propulsion as collapsible jelly sticks. Strangely I’m more tired from this than I have been from weeks of physical labour which I’ve previously endured.

Incidentally a Magenta client told me that an office-based worker will put on an average of 2kg a year in weight more than an ‘active’ worker, a depressing statistic which means that my mere presence is causing me to gain weight I can ill afford. This slide hasn’t been helped by the mountains of food I’ve made my way through, I’ve been treated to lunches and snacks and I find that my journey home passes in a satisfied haze if I have one of the delicious bagels from a shop I’ve found waiting in my pocket. At least if I’m lucky enough to find space to eat it. And this search for the empty seat, preferably two side by side has become my personal Everest. This week I’ve been squashed against the window by a caricature of every conceivable stereotype, the fat man with the greasy tie armed with a donut, a teenage Gangsta with gigantic headphones and baggy jeans, and an old lady who spent at least 20 minutes mindlessly bellowing ‘hello?’ into a phone that I’m 90 per cent sure was switched off. Initially it’s all quite amusing. Initially.

I’m worried now that I’ve made my time here sound exceedingly miserable which is far from the case. All the people I’ve met have been kind and helpful, I’ve learnt a lot of things and I’ve been enjoying myself, certainly it has been a worthwhile experience, even if every time I’ve told someone I’m doing work experience they’ve automatically assumed I’m 16 or 17 and killing time during half term. I might have to take up drinking on street corners just so everyone knows I’ve left school. Seriously though I’ve had good fun and even though I got home too late for the Arsenal match one night I’ve had my first Wagamama’s and I liked it, so that’s okay.

So it just goes to show that if you do a week’s work experience at Magenta, you’ll really go places … literally. And of course in the future. All the best, Charlie – from Cathy and Marianne

World Workplace is over for another year, and I’m leaving Phoenix exhausted (existing in two timezones is grueling, but the ‘networking’ is quite tough too) but inspired. I have managed to tear myself away from the networking to attend several of the more than 70 sessions on offer (some of which start at 8am) and the content and range was excellent. From sustainability and benchmarking to communications, finance and leadership and on to business continuity and FM strategy, there was almost too much on offer. The organisers should consider filming some of the more popular sessions for people who had a clash or didn’t make the conference at all.

One UK delegate complained that the advanced session she attended on benchmarking was more of a basic level, but that’s occasionally going to happen when different countries are at different stages of a journey. My only complaint is that the sessions, at one hour, are too long – it takes a top-notch presenter to keep the audience’s attention for that length of time. But having been involved with the application process this year – helping IKEA’s Helena Ohlsson with her presentation about IKEA’s journey creating an FM strategy across 28 countries – I can appreciate the effort that goes into the process. If you’re going to fly 5,000 miles around the globe, you want to speak for more than 30 minutes.

What was interesting this year was the range of sessions focusing on FM outside of the US. For all of the I in the International Facility Management Association, Ifma’s annual conference has tended in the past to be very US focused. Apart from the IKEA session, there was a fascinating talk from Timon Smith at FacilityOne and Ying Hua from the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University about the development of FM in China. A fairly immature market which focuses on property management, rather than pure FM, has seen two major firsts this year – the first FM book written in Mandarin has been published and the first FM research centre opened. Another session looked at managing FM across borders and that, together with the presence of many Europeans, a large delegation from the Middle East together with a smattering of Australians and other nationalities, gave the conference a truly international flavour (although the conference food remained resolutely North American. But who dislikes bacon, eggs and grits every morning and hotdogs and burgers most evenings? You can eat fruit once you get home).

What’s also impressive is the focus on softer skills such as communication, management, finance, HR, project management and technology in addition to the ‘core FM’ skills around operations and maintenance, sustainability and real estate. World Workplace sets out to create well-rounded FMs.

The razzmatazz of the opening keynote speaker never really dies down at World Workplace – and never more so than in the exhibition hall. I’m no fan of industry exhibitions and suffer them a few times a year in the UK, but at World Workplace, the exhibition is the focus of the event and not just because it’s where lunch is held. Exhibitors put a great deal of effort into their stands (full-size racing cars, Winnebagos and free popcorn (thanks Emcor) were just some of the highlights) but everyone there had really thought about how to attract visitors to their stand and not just through some nicely written and designed marketing literature. Walking around the exhibition, you do get a sense of what’s new in FM: energy efficiency, automation, asset management, sustainability and a range of products which promise to increase employees’ productivity. Having witnessed the decline of exhibitions in the UK, it’s hugely refreshing to see. What’s even more encouraging is that some of the biggest FM names are there: Amec, Aramark, Compass, Diversey, Emcor, Eurest, ISS, Johnson Controls plus all the furniture companies and CAFM providers.

Others chose to capitalise on the networking opportunities. Corts and ISS held big parties on the Thursday night (while also competing with the chairman’s reception) while there were two awards events on the Friday: the awards lunch for chapter and council awards and the awards of excellence banquet in the evening. But the networking highlight for me was the welcome reception held in Chase Field, the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. From a facilities perspective it was interesting to see the retractable roof in action which means that the baseball fans don’t have to worry about Phoenix’s summer heat or monsoon storms and the IFMA fireworks get a good backdrop. But it was also fun to play at pitching (and see some of the BIFM’s finest in action!). It was also a great conversation piece which meant that even us reticent Brits mixed and made new friends and contacts.

Many of the American FMs I met had been to World Workplace for the last 5, 10, 15 and even 20 plus years (and had the famous World Workplace pins to prove it). After my experience in Phoenix this year, I will certainly be back for more.

So the World Workplace carnival is officially underway. IFMA president Kathy Roper this morning opened the gathering of what she described as “alpha facility managers” for their week of “being facility nerds.” Emphasising the conference’s sustainability credentials (a far cry from previous years) Roper announced that host city Phoenix is the first US city to be on track to be a carbon neutral city with its 17-point Green Plan. She went on to introduce the city’s mayor Phil Gordon to welcome the thousands of delegates to his city.

Gordon went further, proudly announcing that although Phoenix had 5,000 new residents every month and created 45,000 jobs every year, sustainability had been its guiding force for decades. Mayor since 2004, Gordon boasted that the city uses less water now per capita than it had two decades ago. The Phoenix Convention Center is a green building, he said.

Warming to the sustainability theme was Bjorn Lomborg, author of Cool It: the skeptical environmentalist’s guide to global warming, who gave the opening address. He argued that there was a lot of fluff about global warming and facility managers needed to take rational not fashionable decisions. In an hour-long speech (a tad too long for my limited concentration and the audience became restless in places) Lomborg outlined four key points. Firstly that global warming is real and man-made and that its total cost (presumably in cleaning up after floods and hurricanes) is $15trillion. Secondly he argued that the consequences of global warming is vastly exaggerated and one sided which can lead to bad judgements. He cited the valid example of statistics which are used be the global warming lobby to argue for change: in the UK 2,000 people will die every year by 2050 because of increased heat. “They fail to say that the statistics show that 20,000 fewer people will die because of cold.” Generally more people in the world, apart from sub-Saharan Africa, die from cold than heat. Global warming will result in 400,000more heat deaths but 1.8m fewer cold deaths worldwide, he said.

Lomborg’s last key points were that governments needed to find a smarter way to tackle climate change and that more R&D was required; and that there were many other problems beside global warming where governments could do good work. “This is not the biggest problem on the planet,” he said arguing that for $75billion a year the UN could solve basic global problems such as lack of clean drinking water, sanitation, basic healthcare and education. “When kids in the third world are going to bed hungry, their parents aren’t worried about climate change, they want food and clean water.”

Lomborg’s talk provoked considerable debate, especially among American FMs where sustainability is a newer concept. Worryingly several took away the message that there was little point making the small changes as it would make little or no difference to the bigger picture. Lomborg was also rather black and white ­ – the UN is already helping to tackle some of the basic problems Lomborg outlined while also challenging global warming. It’s not an either or argument.

But this is World Workplace and Lomborg was quickly forgotten as a local band marched delegates from ballroom to exhibition room where several hundred stands offered everything from free popcorn (Emcor) to jellybeans as well as the latest FM innovations and developments. On the Planon stand, the IFMA Foundation launched its latest book Work on the Move – Driving Strategy and Change in Workspaces which brings together global workplace experts (including the UK’s Alexei Marmot and case studies from the Home Office and RBS from Advanced Workplace Associates) to discuss how work is changing, the impact it’s having on the workplace and how facility professionals can respond.

What sets World Workplace apart from the UK FM conferences is certainly the sheer size – thousands of delegates and more than 250 exhibitors make it the event to be, and be seen. It also means more revenue for some of the glitzier parts of a conference – the keynote speakers, the marching bands, the receptions are all occasions to remember.

But what makes it so different from the UK is its make-up.  World Workplace is all about networking. Once the opening address was over at 11.30 this morning, there was nothing but networking and visiting the exhibition for the rest of the day – until the evening Welcome Reception at Chase Field, the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team for more networking. Americans (and despite the International I in IFMA, the audience is largely American) are not afraid to sell or be sold to, which makes for a buzzing exhibition where people genuinely interact with the organisations there (if only sometimes to get the extravagant freebies). Even some British delegates admit that they can come to World Workplace and not go to one educational session – it’s all about who you meet in-between that makes the difference.

I haven’t been to World Workplace, the mass gathering of American facilities (sorry facility) managers for a few years and I’d forgotten the sheer scale of the affair. Shops and restaurants in the host city Phoenix, Arizona have “Phoenix welcomes World Workplace” posters and the hotels and coffee shops must be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of  several thousand visitors from out of state and around the world  descending on their city for a few days.

The opening ceremony is still an hour or so away, and I trust it will be as glitzy with as much razzmatazz as in previous years, but in true IFMA style the conference has really been going all week. Yesterday there were site visits to the Arizona Science Centre, the US Airways Center and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and on Monday Global FM held a day’s meeting. Many of the British contingent have been here since Sunday night.

One lesson has definitely been learned from previous years. When I last reported from World Workplace, in Dallas in 2008, I was very critical of the location of the convention centre miles from the conference hotels. This resulted in huge, yet mainly empty coaches, ferrying delegates to and fro all day (and sitting with engines idling when they weren’t). The 2008 conference  focused on sustainability. This year, the main hotels and convention centre are all within comfortable walking distance, although the BIFM’s Richard Byatt told me that delegates were warned on the site visits that there may be stairs to climb.

After today’s breakfast of bacon, eggs and grits, I’m hoping there will be.