Lara Paemen and George Westerman explore the need for upskilling in the digital age, discussing tools like gamification and immersive learning for career growth in facility management.
In this podcast, Lara Paemen, Managing Director of IFMA EMEA and George Westerman, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, discuss the challenges and opportunities in facility management, emphasizing the need for upskilling in the digital age. George introduces the Global Opportunity Forum, focusing on career navigation, agile learning, and certification at scale. They touch on tools like gamification and immersive learning experiences, highlighting the role of organizations and managers in supporting employee growth. The conversation underscores the importance of a mindset open to innovation and the responsibility of organizations to broaden their talent search.
George Westerman: [00:00:00] I've talked to top leadership teams around the world all the time about this stuff. And we also, in the economics world, we do a lot of brand stuff. What jobs are going, what jobs are staying. But I didn't see a lot of people doing a lot to help people that are affected by that. So what the Global Opportunity Forum is really intended to do is talking to organizations about how we can help people grow in their careers.
So when I got here, I was so delighted to hear about. These certification programs and the career paths, because the real opportunity here is not the college educated people. It's those mid skill careers.
Host: Welcome to Connected FM, a podcast connecting you to the latest insights, tools, and resources to help you succeed in facility management. This podcast is brought to you by IFMA, the leading professional association for facility managers. If you're ready to grow your network and advance in your career. Go to IFMA.
org to get started. In today's episode, we are joined with [00:01:00] Lara Paemen, Managing Director of IFMA EMEA, and George Westerman, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Together, they discuss the challenges and opportunities in facility management, emphasizing the need for upskilling in the digital age.
They also talk about the Global Opportunity Forum, focusing on career navigation, agile learning and certifications. They also touch on tools like gamification and immersive learning experiences, highlighting the roles of organizations and managers in supporting employee growth. And much more. Now, let's get into it.
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Start reading today at knowledgelibrary. ifma. org.[00:02:00]
Lara Paemen: So hello, George, and, and welcome to our podcast studio. Well, thank you. And it's good to see
you again, Lara.
George Westerman: Yeah, absolutely.
Lara Paemen: So I'm Lara Paemen, Managing Director of IFMA EMEA, and I've got George Westerman with me today, who gave a great speech on digital transformation as a keynote here at World Workplace in Denver.
So you've been here now having some impressions on the World Workplace Conference. What are your thoughts when you went through the expo floor, when you met people, when you did your keynote? First thoughts.
George Westerman: So the first thought is this is the biggest industry I didn't know anything about. I certainly have been in facilities, but I've never actually thought really about the facility management problem.
And so walking around here, you kind of have an entire universe in one sector, right? From the, the people who are building buildings to running buildings, from the hourly employee up to the CEOs, you've got the entire thing there, and it's just fascinating.
Yeah, it's huge. We've got 4, 500 people [00:03:00] here at the conference.
So it's pretty impressive for a lot of people. FM is so unknown. But when you come to events like this, it is a big thing.
The other thing fascinating for me is, you know, I teach innovation and leadership, and I'm always talking about the cutting edge. And one of the things we always have to learn in the technology world is that there's a lot in organizations that's more than just plugging in technology.
Right. And so the other thing, just walking the floor and talking to people, is there's some really advanced stuff happening here, but you still have some old facilities that aren't ready for that. And so the question that always comes up is, where can we do it? But also. Where do sometimes we think about we can't do it, but we might be able to just because we're stuck in the old mindset.
Lara Paemen: Yeah, maybe you can start by introducing actually what you do, because a lot of people know you, George, but I'm sure that some, there are a few out there that don't know you yet.
George Westerman: So, so I've been at the Sloan School, the management school at MIT for about 20 years. And I do my work on leadership and innovation.
Mm hmm. And so, we started this digital transformation work, [00:04:00] actually before the word was a word, about 12 years ago. And we're doing a lot of work on that, and on how do you build up an innovative digital culture, and on how do you transform your companies over time. And the last few years, I've been focusing on something that isn't getting enough attention, which is as we're transforming these jobs, as we're transforming these companies, how are we helping people get ready for that?
How are we helping them transform in their careers? And so that's called the Global Opportunity Forum, and we're doing a lot of good work there.
Lara Paemen: Exactly, that's what we're talking about today, the Global Opportunities Forum, and how FMs could and should prepare for the future, actually. Now, the skills gap is a global challenge nowadays, and When you walk here around the expo floor and you meet up with companies here, everybody is looking for skilled professionals.
It's really a global thing. The pandemic led to the loss of about 255 million full time equivalent jobs. So that's about four times the number [00:05:00] lost in the Global economic crisis in 2007 and 2009. So 1. 6 billion people are working in the informal economy without a social safety net and they were affected.
So the problem was worse for people who have less formal education, but that's just the latest stage of an ongoing process. Now while millions were affected by the pandemic, this challenge has been with us for years. Now the opportunity for decent work and career growth is the next wave in global sustainability.
It's a fundamental right for all individuals and a key driver of global prosperity. It's good for employees and for companies that employ them. Now, working together, you know, collaborating organizations can help make change happen for individuals and their employers and their communities. Now, can you tell us a little bit more about the initiative, the digital, sorry, the Global [00:06:00] Workforce Initiative and the Global Opportunities Forum?
What's that about? Can you elaborate a little bit on that? Well,
George Westerman: can I talk first a little bit about what you just said? Sure, sure. Because I believe it, and then why we did the Global Opportunity Forum. As these bad things happen, like the economic downturn of 15 years ago, the pandemic, they do tend to hurt the bottom.
Oh, yes. You know, the people at the top, they, they struggle a little bit, but the people at the bottom, the ones that are struggling anyway, And we saw it in the pandemic with the restaurant jobs going away. And, you know, a lot of office jobs where people won't come to the office. Tourist industry. Tourist industry, right?
And that happens over and over again. But it also happens even when the bad things aren't happening because often these automations that come in are taking out, either taking out the low skill jobs, the low pay jobs. Or they are taking out the slightly higher skilled jobs, but leaving the people at the bottom of the [00:07:00] place still working at minimum wage or less.
And just doing. Not the best work in the world, right? Because computers can't do it yet. And so one of the things that we need to think about is how can we systematically help the people lower in the economic realm to move up out of those jobs? We need people to do those jobs, but you don't want to have to do those jobs the rest of your life.
So how can we systematically do it? Because if we leave. innovation and the economy to their jobs, not going to do that. Companies, governments need to help people do that better and associations need to do that better. Right. So that's where I got into this question. You know, I've been doing all this work on digital transformation and innovation.
I've talked to top leadership teams around the world all the time about this stuff. And we also, in the economics world, we do a lot of grand stuff. What jobs are going, what jobs are staying. But I didn't see a lot of people doing a lot to help people that are affected by that. So what the Global Opportunity Forum is really intended to do is talking to organizations [00:08:00] about how we can help people grow in their careers.
Wow. So the idea is not that we'll solve the problems for everybody. But these problems have already been solved some places, how can we learn from each other on there? And it will also work with organizations, what can we do to maybe put some clarification in, put some courses together in that role? So one of the things that's really interesting about IFMA is you're already thinking about that kind of stuff.
Exactly. Right? So when I got here, I was so delighted to hear about these certification programs and the career paths, because the real opportunity here is not the college educated people. It's those mid skilled careers. Yeah. And so, you know, when I, my parents, all the people in their family going to college, but their brothers and sisters could support a family on a middle skilled career because that's how it worked at the time.
Exactly. They can't do it anymore. Yeah. How can we help those people who may never go to college have a good career? There are so many [00:09:00] great careers in facility management if we can help people figure out what those are. Oh, yes,
Lara Paemen: definitely. And I think the advantage of FM is that you can enter it at any stage of your career.
It's really something that you can do it as a career of choice, but you can enter it when you, for example, come out of the military or after your military career, or if you just feel the need to change what you're doing nowadays. So that's the advantage of FM. You could do that any age, any stage in your career.
And it is so diverse that it can bring something to anybody to, and to everybody. And I
George Westerman: want to thank you, Lara. Also, you came to our event in London. Yes, I did. You shared some of the things that were happening, right? And we talked about, you know, for the internships and the apprenticeships, upscaling opportunities to certifications.
So really put some clarity around what's possible and then the employers can use them. They don't need to invent this for themselves all the time.
Lara Paemen: Exactly. Exactly. Yes. We, with the foundation, we give scholarships to students and we [00:10:00] linked them as well to large companies that are actually looking for staff and offer internships to them.
So it's so important to be part of that cycle, I would say. And let's say supports newcomers in the industry to find the jobs that they really can continue to do in their next career or in a new career.
George Westerman: And just to repeat, because, you know, we both, I just want to say really clearly again, that Every company should not have to invent this for themselves.
You're right. There should be opportunity to do what IFMA is doing, what we could still do more of, which is to say, here's some good stuff. Now everybody can use it. Yes,
Lara Paemen: exactly. Now, given that you are an expert in digital transformation, as we, we heard this morning during the opening keynote, And you're outside the industry.
What new skills and competencies do you think are required for professionals in the facilities management industry?
George Westerman: Well, one thing that's very clear is that the opportunities are going to come from using information better. [00:11:00] And that means people need to be comfortable using these digital tools more.
So there's a huge opportunity of getting people a comfort with digital. And ability to think about using this information in a different way. Maybe a comfort with even rearranging the information. Yeah. But that basic digital comfort is an
Lara Paemen: important. Is an important one. Absolutely.
George Westerman: I would add one other thing though too.
Yeah. And I don't know if that's a skill, but I think it's important, right? It's a mindset, which is that it's very easy if you've been doing this job for a long time to say, this is what works. And so there's some kind of a skill, a mindset needs to be thinking about how can we improve this? If something were to.
If somebody had a better idea, how could I not reject it? And maybe think about it a little bit first and try it out.
Lara Paemen: Absolutely. I think that's a very fair point. One of the biggest challenges is how to upscale and rescale workers at scale. What, from your thoughts, what are some of the tools and [00:12:00] methodologies that you've seen maybe in other industries that might be applicable for the FM industry?
Thinking just from the top of my head, gamification, would that be something that we could use? Or do you see any other tools or any, have any other ideas on that?
George Westerman: So part of my role is in the office of digital learning, the office of open learning at MIT. You're the expert. And so we talk about, you know, how can you.
Do this more distance learning, make it happen. And what we've learned very clearly is that what we used to do 20 years ago, let's record a professor talking. It is just an incredibly horrible way to learn, right? That's not working today. You've got no access to it. It's useful, but there are better ways.
We've learned to chop these things into smaller segments, put activities, to put some thought in there, whether it's group discussions or whether it's an opportunity just to think. So we talk about an idea called instruction, introspection, and immersion. Okay. And the idea is, well, if I talk to you for a few minutes online, then how do I help you think about what this means for your job?
And then the immersive experience is kind of the state of the art where we're going. [00:13:00] Yes. And there, one way to think about it is, okay, could I learn a little bit and go to work and come back and think about, oh, it's good work. So. It puts you in a position to have to make these decisions in a low risk opportunity, and you can fail all you want.
You're not going to do anything. And so these games are another way to un worship. If I could give you an example of one of the favorite examples here, Fidelity Investments. Yes. They're not an FM. No, they're not. FM, Financial Management is the other thing. But their call center agents are regulated, and they can get sued if they say the wrong thing.
Uh huh. And so, as the call center agents are learning to support a new product. They need to get the training, but the book learning is not going to be enough. And what they do over the course of a day and a half, in the morning, you get training on the product you're going to be helping. In the afternoon, you go on the call center and questions about that product come to you and you get to try out that new learning.
Oh, excellent. the listening so you don't do anything stupid, right? And then the next morning [00:14:00] you come back and you and the other people who just got that training, think about it. What did I learn? What was hard for me? What was easy for me? They put this full cycle into a day and a half training and those people are ready to Amazing.
That sounds brilliant.
Lara Paemen: And they can go
George Westerman: the distance also.
Lara Paemen: Also. Exactly. You don't need to be physically be in the same room together. That's great. Can I add something there? Oh, sure.
George Westerman: There's another challenge in doing this at scale, and that's the demand side. So if we have a million people that want to get trained in something, we can figure out how to train them.
But how do you find a million people that want that training? And so another really important element for doing this at scale is doing the career navigation and the awareness at scale to help people understand what else is possible for them in their job or their boss's job. And there's a lot of opportunity to increase the scale there.
Think about career paths, think about videos to help people understand if I'm getting out of the military, what's possible. Yes, that's going to be another really important
Lara Paemen: part. It's creating that awareness of what the possibilities are. [00:15:00] Exactly.
George Westerman: One more third proceed. So yes, a global opportunity for them.
We think there are three major challenges to be solved. One is career navigation, helping people understand what's possible for that next step or even farther. Number two is making the learning agile and quick, so I don't have to go for weeks, I don't need long periods. But the third one is also really important, and that's certification.
Because me having sat in class for a day, It doesn't matter if I actually know anything or not. If we can create a certification that says, I actually know what I'm doing, that becomes currency in the labor market. Exactly. It's a standard. Exactly. And it helps people understand whether they're hiring people who are smart, but it also gives the people mobility that they never had before.
Exactly. So when we think about at scale, it's more than just providing the classes at scale. It's also the navigation of the certification at scale. Excellent.
Lara Paemen: Let's say, what recommendations do you have for the average FM employee to be aware of the skills that they will likely [00:16:00] need in the future?
George Westerman: So one is to look at jobs that you're interested in and figure out what are you missing, right?
And that's important. But another is really try to figure out people who have been in your role before. Yeah. Where have they gone? Because increasingly, we're finding that people don't move up, they move over. They move diagonally. When we were in London at this conference, the word kept saying, careers are not ladders or lattices, they're squiggles.
Squiggles, yes. That you take a step and then you figure out the next step. Yes. So if it's you as a worker, figure out. Where you want to be and whether you can, right. And be honest with yourself. What do you need, including those non technical skills? Number two, find out where people have gone, but number three, there are a lot of resources out there.
That can help you think about this. So if you think about the IFMA certifications, the IFMA pass, this is one thing. But there are also many external tools also can just help you get that idea. Maybe [00:17:00] you stay in facilities, maybe you don't, maybe you move to a different part of facilities, but you don't have to stay in what you are, you stay in what's going to make you happy.
Because if it's what would make you happy, you're going to be successful at it. I was
Lara Paemen: just going to say that happy workers stay longer and you know, that's I think what the workforce
George Westerman: needs. So if we can add something though, because I don't know whether you can ask the question on it. What can you do as a manager?
And the best thing you can do as a manager is look broadly for the kinds of people you want. There's people coming into the military, have an amazing set of skills that may not quite line up, but they also have a mentality, a
Lara Paemen: mindset. I was just going to say, yeah, they're very structured and disciplined as
George Westerman: well.
One of my favorite examples from healthcare is hospitals cannot find lab technicians. And what they're doing is they're going to the kitchen staff and the front desk staff and they're saying, you're a great worker. Let's train you. That's a great example. These people would never think about that. But what are the possibilities?
Yes. So as a leader, look broadly about how to develop people who are the right attitudes [00:18:00] into the skills you need, as opposed to looking for them to start. Exactly.
Lara Paemen: Because I also do think that it's a responsibility from the organizations and the managers in the organizations to help lift people. Within their organizations already and also indeed look for the right people that they want to get in their organization.
Absolutely. I really would like to thank you, George. This was a great conversation and I hope to see you soon again and I hope you enjoy the rest of World Workplace. Oh, thanks. Bye.
Host: Thank you so much for listening. I hope you really enjoyed this episode. And as always, please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast for more incredible content.