Facilities management (FM) may not be one of the UK’s better-known industries, but it is one of the fastest growing – estimated to be worth between £40 billion and £90 billion per annum.
FM professionals are responsible for managing and maintaining the estates and assets of most of the UK’s leading private and public sector organisations, often on an outsourced basis. The nature of outsourced accounts – with employees regularly TUPE transferring over to the new provider when an account begins – means FM companies employ large and diverse workforces. Interserve itself has more than 80,000 people worldwide.
It is worth looking more closely at HR practices in the industry and outsourcing in general. FM feels the impact of changes to employment legislation more acutely than most. Since we operate in nearly every sector, public and private, we need to be able to interpret the nuances of legislative changes and understand the specific impacts they might have on UK businesses across the spectrum. We are at the coalface when it comes to introducing these major changes, and the reaction of our HR teams often serves as a useful bellwether to gauge how businesses more widely are likely to respond.
There are two incoming pieces of legislation that look set to have a significant impact on FM and business in general: the apprenticeship levy and the mandatory publication of gender pay gap data, expected to come into force in April 2017 and April 2018 respectively.
Regarding the fast-approaching apprenticeship levy; there is a lot to get right in a relatively short space of time. We see it as a fantastic opportunity to boost our skills and talent development, but the government is still consulting on some important aspects making it difficult to plan with absolute certainty. What we do know is that the system is likely to require additional resources, new internal systems and processes for ongoing liaison, and dialogue between government and the business community.
One specific challenge will be ensuring that training providers, who have historically focused on small and medium-sized enterprises, have the capacity to meet the needs of large and complex organisations. At Interserve we have addressed this by developing in-house training capabilities through a Learning and Employment programme, but not all companies will have the resources to commit to such a large-scale investment.
On gender pay gap reporting, businesses have voiced concerns around how this will be delivered and what support will be available from central government. Reporting will be a major undertaking for any organisation, especially those that have a one- or two-person HR team. Whatever their scale, companies need to put plans in place now, especially since in some cases the challenge of gathering and interrogating data is significant.
The legislation remains in draft format and we still have an opportunity to influence it. Interserve has been closely involved in the consultation process and there are aspects of the draft legislation that would not be in there if it weren’t for the role business has played so far. The current round of consultation provides a further opportunity for clarification, but we can only expect government to listen if we give our expert views.
We support the intentions behind all these reforms. But they need to be managed carefully to avoid becoming a burden on employers. It’s important that the government gets the right support frameworks in place to deliver these complex changes, while it is also beholden on outsourced service providers like ourselves – for whom these changes will have a significant impact – to work with the government to help shape their thinking on how these changes are delivered. It is a challenging period, but one with plenty of opportunity that we can safely traverse if we work together.
Scott Hill is HR director, commercial at Interserve
