Hybrid working opportunities dominate market forecast

The IWFM has launched its Market Outlook 2021 report, providing a snapshot of the market’s experiences of the past year, how its state has altered since pre-coronavirus and the facilities management profession’s expectations for the future.

Challenges arising from coronavirus and Brexit are unsurprisngly reflected in this year’s report, which for the first time encompasses two years’ data, as we weave in 2020’s unpublished findings to compare and contrast against.

Last week, in a feature published in Government Business magazine, Peter Brogan of the IWFM offered a preview of the findings and their links to other IWFM research and insight work.

Now, having surveyed the largest sample in the report’s history, the Market Outlook 2021 report highlights: how the pandemic spot lit the importance of the facilities role in services such as cleaning and security, whilst emphasising these professionals’ status not only for safety and infection control, but as agents of change in a changing work-scape; as well as concerns for the future as post-pandemic scenarios signal a reduction in property portfolios, raising questions about what this will mean for the profession long-term.

The IWFM also highlights: the opportunities for the profession and the supply chain in facilitating further workplace change; the growing influence of technology in the market; the market’s readiness and appetite for tackling climate change; and, for the first time, the current levels of diversity and inclusion across the market and its employers.