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How investing in staff helped one FM firm's rise to the top
Interservefm is a facilities services' provider with staff that manage and deliver tailored facilities services to some of the UK's most important commercial and government buildings.These include major corporate head offices, government properties, schools, colleges, hospitals, shopping complexes, retail multiples, business parks, airports, industrial processing plants, power facilities and military bases.
The company also offers a range of specialist services including cleaning, security, engineering and technical services that can be delivered as a single package or as part of a total FM solution.
Targeted training to boost productivity
When it comes to its staff, Interservefm is committed to providing opportunities for their development. The firm offers both hard – or core - skills training and soft skills learning including team building, leadership, management, assertiveness and negotiation skills. Over a two-and-a-half-year period, 816 employees attended at least one of the 20 odd courses available.
Rather than providing uniform training across the board, the company targets its learning provision to those areas with the biggest impact on business performance, like operations. Interservefm paid special focus to its supervisors and managers and shifted the management style away from a "command and control" approach to a more "facilitative" one.
Changing mindsets and harnessing potential
Many of Interservefm's personnel come from the public sector. At first this raised the issue of workers adapting to a new ethos. Some of these staff held a "staying put" mentality that hindered new people and ideas. The trainers within Interservefm saw this as an opportunity and through the programme they ran were able to harness the work experience of the ex-government staff to improve efficiency.
Interservefm believes its success is due in large part to its commitment to training and development. Training is the base for an evolving organisation-wide culture of continued learning and improved performance.