FM Insight from the Front Line

office skyline, windows lit-up against purple sky

A little like your health, the work of FCM often goes unnoticed until something goes wrong. Gavin Bates, UK Real Estate and Facilities Manager at Bosch UK, shines a light on how he is enhancing his team’s visibility and increasing other associates’ understanding of their role in the UK. And doing it at a time when the business is going through a major change.

Bosch is one of those companies that everyone thinks they know. When I tell people its where I work they use words back at me like German, engineering, toasters, lawnmowers and the like, all of which are true.

What few people know is we are HUGE. Globally we’re an $80 billion company and in the UK we have 40 sites and more than 5,000 employees (or associates as we prefer to call them). We also make a huge range of products from, yes, household appliances to parts for pretty much every car on the road and on to huge industrial products. And we’re increasingly involved in the most sophisticated parts of technology imaginable, from artificial intelligence to the Internet of Things – connecting everything to everything.

Which all makes FCM at Bosch a no-two-days-are-the-same kind of job. Whether it is environmental technology, cafeterias, office planning, or managing the on-site-electricity systems, hardly any of our departments are as large and diverse as the approximately 6,000 associates worldwide operating in our Facility Management unit.

Since not everybody knows what Facility Management is responsible for and what it does, here in our UK team, we’re adapting work we’ve seen from other Bosch markets globally and implementing it here, there is no doubt in my mind that it will enhance the unit’s visibility and increase other associates’ understanding of our role across UK sites.

People come into the office, do their work and then go home. FCM take care of everything so that they can concentrate on what matters: their work.

The role of the FCM team here at Bosch UK is to ensure that our 40 sites, which are a mix of factory and admin/ offices are agile working environments for all associates.

From setting up meeting rooms, company car management and site security, to catering, organising post and deliveries of goods to waste management, our role is extremely diverse. Alongside this we also oversee the new builds happening throughout the UK, whilst also maintaining existing factories and buildings themselves.

So, we’re pretty busy. But at the moment, things are busier than ever as we’re getting things finalised for a big change for us: from next year, Bosch’s 400 locations worldwide will be carbon neutral, including our British sites.

In the lead up to 2020, this change has a huge impact on us in the FCM team in order to ensure we have all of the correct plans in place to deliver our goal. This has meant seeking out long-term purchasing agreements with investors in new renewable energy generation facilities such as solar parks, and we are getting results. For example, since October 2018 we’ve been purchasing green electricity at all our sites over 10,000 square meters. And this month, we’ve also agreed a two-year contract that will ensure all of our UK sites are powered by 100% renewable electricity.

In addition, we’re thinking about self-generation of energy across our sites, alongside installation of energy efficiency technology. These two things constitute the major levers for achieving this climate goal, and covers everything from using LED lights, to reviewing the way in which our machines are running.

And as I mentioned earlier, we make some things a lot of people might not know us for – including hi-tech energy measuring and monitoring systems. So, for our own green evolution we’re using our own solutions to manage this, with a focus on the Bosch Phantom algorithm that helps to assess and greatly increase the energy efficiency of our appliances and machinery. It can be used to non-intrusively tap into a site’s electrical networks and uses advanced analytics. By automatically collecting, calculating and reporting back the amount of electricity consumed across every aspect of our sites – from our manufacturing plants, machine intelligence or energy analytics - the intelligent ecosystem ensures that energy is used in the right places, at the right times. Thus, lowering our overall energy consumption across our sites, a key factor in ensuring all of our sites are Carbon Neutral by next year.

Shining a spotlight on invisible helpers

Bosch may be German-owned, but we have offices, factories and buildings across the world, and every country has an FCM team. We’ve seen some of them run what has become known as the Invisible Helper campaign.

This falls out of the insight that so much of our work often falls under the radar but is crucial to the success of a company. The campaign focuses on Facilities Management associates, photographed during their daily work. Each of the images were then edited to create an artistic impression that ‘blend in’ with their particular background like chameleons in keeping with the campaign’s core message: “You can’t always see them – but they’re always around.”

In the UK we’re very much going to use the heart of the campaign, as the insight is as true here as it is anywhere around the world. Starting in November, imagery from the Invisible Helpers campaign will feature on posters across our UK sites, but also on banners and fliers, alongside information stands that will bring further visibility to the FCM teams…

Hopefully the work we do will be invisible no more and if all goes according to plan, more associates will know what Facility Management is responsible for once the campaign is over.

I can honestly say that after working in the FCM sector for over a decade, communication, engagement and buy-in from your stakeholders are all absolutely crucial for being successful in an FCM role. By educating your associates and wider stakeholders on the ‘why’ behind initiatives like energy efficiency, or changes on site, everyone can contribute and help play their part in achieving your goals.