Levelling out the competence differential: it’s all about professional standards
In our 10 Point Plan to become a modern professional body we pledged a root and branch review of our Professional Standards and our training and qualifications offering. Writing in the first issue of new-look magazine Facilitate, Fraser Talbot, IWFM Head of Professional Development, discusses how our robust education and qualification programmes enable professionals to ‘meet the demands from today’s organisations and tomorrow’s way of working’.
Developed with sector experts, the Standards exist both to aid workplace and facilities management employers in analysing the skills and development of their staff and for industry professionals to boost their competency and personal development.
Our ability to offer first-in-class workplace and facilities management education is vital to our profession’s advancement and allows us to play significant role in the development needs of individuals at all levels of their career, from Level 2 entry-level apprenticeships through to Level 7 courses, with the academic rigour of a master’s degree. It also speaks to our ambition for chartered body status and further advancement.
Such opportunity for professional development has not always been the norm in our sector. Andrew Hulbert Founding Director of Pareto FM, writing in FMJ recently said
“the biggest change I’ve experienced is the definition of facilities management career pathways, more specifically the rise of a defined path for facilities management training.”
Hulbert, who completed his Level 7 facilities management qualification with the institute by the age of 23, evidences their value, becoming a facilities manager at age 25 and one of the youngest people ever to achieve Certified IWFM membership status “the key to this change and definition of the FM pathway is almost entirely down to BIFM” (now IWFM) he says.
We believe that professional development is crucial to the advancement of the industry and will continue to develop our offer in that area, including work to further expand the rigour and reach of our educational and CPD offering.
