THE AGEING WORKFORCE IN SINGAPORE AND ITS IMPACT ON SMART FACILITY MANAGEMENT (FM) IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

During the recent 6th International Facility Management Conference (IFMC) 2019, a few key focus points in the facility management (FM) industry across most industry leaders include Green Solutions, Smart FM, Network Security and Ageing Workforce. This paper explores two of the above issues, Smart FM and Ageing Workforce and the relationship between them.

The issue of ageing workforce has been an indisputable phenomenon occurring in emerging economies like Singapore. Therefore, it is of great importance to understand any potential problems that may arise from the ageing workforce. On the other hand, while there are many research papers on the types and functions of Smart FM technologies, little was done to research on the human aspect of implementing these tech-gadgets. In order for Singapore’s FM industry to stay competitive and be part of the “Smart Nation”, the industry has to ensure that Smart FM is effectively implemented and adopted by the facility managers for their daily operations. Ultimately, the purpose of this study is to identify if there is a phenomenon of ageing population within the FM workforce and if Smart FM initiatives will be faced with resistance among the FM Teams.

A survey was done among facility managers who manages different facilities around Singapore to find out their willingness towards new Smart FM initiatives. Interviews were also carried with industry experts at management level to determine the current situation of employees towards new Smart initiatives.

The findings indicated that there is indeed an ageing phenomenon in the current FM workforce. However, the FM workforce is generally fairly interested in learning new Smart FM initiations. Furthermore, there seems to have no strong relation between age and the interest to learn Smart FM. However, the research paper identified the learning capability of this ageing FM workforce as the main challenge for them to adopt Smart FM technologies.

Keywords: Facility Management; Ageing Workforce; Smart FM; Resistance; Learning Capability