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Mid East Info
3 days ago
- Business
- Mid East Info
Global Recognition for MEFMA Members in the Global FM Awards of Excellence 2025 - Middle East Business News and Information
The Middle East Facility Management Association (MEFMA) is proud to announce that three of its member organizations have been recognized at the Global FM Awards of Excellence 2025. This marks a significant milestone for the region's facility management (FM) sector and reinforces MEFMA's commitment to advancing institutional leadership, promoting professional excellence, and enhancing global recognition. The Global FM Awards of Excellence is an initiative by the Global FM Association, celebrating outstanding practices and achievements in FM worldwide. The awards aim to highlight the accomplishments of member associations and recognize individuals and teams who have made significant contributions to enhancing work environments and advancing FM standards. MEFMA nominated the winners as part of its ongoing efforts to spotlight regional success stories globally. The announcement of the winners coincided with the celebration of World FM Day, an annual occasion that honors FM professionals around the world and raises awareness of the sector's essential role in enhancing quality of life and organizational environments. MEFMA member winners included the Expenditure and Projects Efficiency Authority (EXPRO) from Saudi Arabia and Darwish Interserve Facility Management from Qatar, who were both awarded the Gold Award, along with Berkeley Services UAE LLC, which received the Highly Commended Award. On this occasion, Eng. Ali Alsuwaidi, Chairman of Global FM, said: 'The remarkable success of MEFMA members at the Global FM Awards highlights the region's pioneering role in shaping the future of facility management. This achievement reflects not only their excellence and innovation but also an unwavering commitment to driving sustainability and operational excellence on a global scale.' Jamal Lootah, MEFMA President, added: 'At MEFMA, we believe that excellence is never a coincidence — it stems from true collaboration, strategic planning, and continuous support. Our members' success in these global awards reflects our commitment to empowering talents and organizations in the region, enabling them to lead on the global stage.' With this latest achievement, MEFMA reaffirms its dedication to advancing the FM sector across the Middle East by offering specialized training programs, organizing regional events, and enabling its members to compete and make a lasting impact worldwide.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
World FM Day puts renewed focus on talent
This story was originally published on Facilities Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Facilities Dive newsletter. May 14 is World FM Day, an annual appreciation of the role of facilities managers. In recognition of the day, Facilities Dive has brought together voices and resources on one of its most pressing challenges facing the profession: labor recruitment and retention. 'Skilled labor is one of the biggest complaints, in my world,' Max Serrao, chief operating officer at CFM Associates, said in a State of Facilities Management Technology webinar presented by IFMA and JLL. 'Finding service providers or finding our in-house technicians is difficult. But people are more willing when they see that they have things in place to make their jobs easier.' A decline in confidence is part of the problem, Serrao said. 'Things that, maybe in the past, were clean knowledge are not there,' he said. 'The fear of breaking something really keeps [employees] more paralyzed, so we need to make sure that we're giving them the education, the training and the partnership. Because they ultimately own their facilities.' As long as the labor shortage persists, the facilities management profession faces an operational resiliency problem, according to Paul Morgan, global chief operating officer of work dynamics and head of workplace management at JLL. 'There's risk in having institutional knowledge in one person in one building,' he said. 'How do you build resiliency into your portfolios, whether it's your people, your supply chain, your assets themselves, the effects of the climate and so on?' One way facilities managers can make the best use of the talent they have is to get routine, low-level work off their plates so they can concentrate on what's important, Morgan said. 'We're trying to strike the balance here that we value people for doing higher skilled work, where they can apply their experience and knowledge that they built up over the years by taking away some of the mundane, less-skilled work that we can actually get an agent to perform,' he said. 'Those individuals then get to work at a higher level and are actually getting more fulfillment out of their jobs because they get to focus on the more interesting elements of their skill set.' Getting technicians up to speed on newer systems is another way to boost talent. 'There's a big challenge in the scarcity of resources and being able to attract people to our industry, especially when we talk about facility management,' said Jean-Marc Zola, commercial senior vice president of digital energy at Schneider Electric. 'Talented facility managers are able to go deeper into the systems. As the systems are becoming more sophisticated, by the way, the level of expectation has [risen]. So that's a challenge. No discussion.' It's also important to train staff to 'ask the right questions,' Morgan told Facilities Dive. 'I remember being at university, the first thing they said is that it's not [about] the question you answer. It's the right question you need to answer.' 'You have to give your technicians the confidence to do what they're going to do, whatever that may be: touching and working on that equipment or managing those things,' Serrao said. Outside of technology, resources are available to help those in the field improve their skillsets and make an impact at their organizations. Here are a few: International Facilities Management Association provides tools, resources and guides to help managers work through common talent problems in the industry. ASHRAE 180 and 211, two standards aimed at helping facility managers and technicians improve the quality of commercial building systems through widely applicable maintenance and implementation procedures. Facilities Management Institute, a program launched by the U.S. General Services Administration to help provide core competencies required for federal building personnel. The MEASUR Treasure Hunt is a collection of calculators by the U.S. Department of Energy that helps industrial users quantify savings for low/no cost energy opportunities such as turning off unused equipment, reducing compressed air pressure, upgrading lighting fixtures, and many more. Recommended Reading Skilled trades labor shortages persist. Here's how some are responding.
