FMJ Facilities Management magazine providing industry-specific intelligence to FM and property professionals
Iain Franklin, Managing Director, Transformation at JLL, explains why taking the lead from how the airline and hotel industries operate could have a transformative effect on the ways facilities management services are delivered
With the adoption of hybrid working patterns, office buildings have experienced fluctuating occupancy levels, with much lower levels on ‘shoulder days’ i.e. Mondays and Fridays. Yet despite this, so many businesses are worried about running out of space that they over provision their workspaces, which leads to a waste of real estate assets and inefficiencies in FM services, all of which put a strain on the environment.
This is the pattern that Iain Franklin, Managing Director, Transformation at JLL is challenging. He instead advocates the application of dynamic real estate management using strategies borrowed from hotels and airlines that use real-time and historic occupancy data to provide demand-driven services that reduce waste, optimise costs, and rethink office space utilisation.
While Franklin’s CV includes a period of working within the travel technology industry where he says his travel connections were forged, two decades of working in real estate, FM, change management and consultancy all play a part in formulating these ideas. He studied real estate at university, qualified as a chartered surveyor and moved into FM and real estate management in the Cayman Islands, managing the whole life cycle for government portfolio. He pivoted away from FM delivery and into advisory roles and after completing an MBA, joined a global corporate real estate team within the travel industry.
Following stints at EY and Mitie he joined JLL in 2018 to lead its EMEA consulting practice. He explains that working with the multifaceted consulting team brings real estate, project and change management and FM teams together:
“I started to realise that while we talk about an integrated cycle, that integrated cycle is naturally divided. Both JLL and much of the market all offer dynamic services, but it’s the management of those services that is where, I think, the skills, the transition, and the change in our industry must occur.”
DYNAMIC DELIVERY MODEL
Over the last couple of years, he has begun to put forward his views, including the publication of a paper “Transforming hybrid office management with an overarching dynamic delivery model” in the Corporate Real Estate Journal .
One of his key recommendations is to bring consultancy and operational teams together, because: “FM operations people know how buildings tick, and advisory people know how to build complex business cases and drive change. When you put that together, you can make change happen.”
This is not just a theory. Some notable clients, including the London Stock Exchange Group has bought into the model, transitioning to JLL on January 1st this year and now starting their move to a dynamic model, while Franklin has stepped into JLL’s global HSBC FM Account to transform the way its FM is being delivered. He is adamant that this model is a change that is not just about JLL, it’s a change for the industry.
Drilling down into how the process works, airlines and hotels will typically plan around demand, increasing availability during peak periods such as the school holidays. Workplaces also have a rhythm – from week to week and over an entire year. An office will regularly be busy in the middle of the week and particularly during certain weeks in the Spring and Autumn, quiet on Fridays and deserted in August. This results in workspaces being chronically underused during quiet periods and experiencing space shortages and service demands issues during busy periods.
“It’s a fear of failure that literally keeps corporate real estate directors up at night because they are terrified of running out of space. So, what do they do? They over provision.
“I believe this is why an industry change is needed in real estate and FM. Providing ‘just-in-case’ services or space is unacceptable waste in other service led sectors like travel and accommodation. The solution is to offer layers of flexibility in terms of space supported by a fundamental change in the FM delivery model.”
