INTEGRATING ALTERNATIVE WORKPLACE STRATEGIES INTO FACILITIES MANAGEMENT AS A VALUE-ADDED SERVICE

Abstract

In the recent decade, current workplaces in Singapore have started to display its inability to cope with emerging challenges arising from changing nature of work as well as retention and acquisition of new talents, especially for the future generations. Additionally, physical workplaces have always classified as long-term burdens in terms of rental costs among organisations and yet they do not meet the needs of existing employees in a working environment. Hence, there is a need to redefine the workplace and adopt a new approach, such as Alternative Workplace Strategies (AWS), to improve the environment to cater to both existing and future employees simultaneously so as to fulfil the organisations’ business goals. Multiple case studies were presented to understand the success of AWS when introduced into workplaces and its implications. At present, Facilities Management’s (FM) main function is to support the built environment, but, as the workplaces change, the duties within FM have expanded and value-added services have become the new norm in FM profession. However, due to competition, the value-added services being introduced into the FM profession are now too common among FM service providers leading to over-reliance on the price factor leading to a stagnant industry. Hence, surveys and interview were carried out to investigate the current roles among FM service providers to validate these problems. It was found that majority of them are still practising within the traditional FM while some have moved towards non-traditional FM and offer value-added services. Despite that, this result has driven the need to introduce new value-added services into FM to create a future workplace for the next generation. With these, the author linked these three areas together (i.e. workplaces, AWS, FM) and drew the relationship among them thereafter integrating AWS as a value-added service into FM for transforming the workplace. Lastly, the limitation of this study and opportunities for future work were provided.