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BIFM Awards 2010: Toasting the best of FM

The BIFM Awards 2010 are launching now. By getting involved you and your team will come away inspired, refreshed, educated and better connected.

The BIFM Awards take place annually at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, and celebrate the increasingly strategic profile of FM, highlighting the key role it plays in the success of public and private sector organisations. The BIFM Awards is the biggest single networking event in the FM calendar, and gives national recognition to the leaders in our profession, rewarding excellence among companies and individuals, capturing the imagination of everyone involved in our industry. As the built environment becomes more important and integral to the success of businesses than ever before, leading organisations are turning to FM, and the FM industry has become one of the most exciting and challenging environments in which to work. The FM profession has come of age.

Why you should enter
More is expected of the modern office than ever before, with the workplace playing a central role in business efficiency, productivity and attracting talent. Anyone who takes a serious interest in where they and their profession are heading should view the BIFM Awards as an essential part of their education and continuing professional development, and as such, worthy of prestigious acclaim.

The category headings alone give a clear indication of the attention paid to our profession, operating at the peak of its remit. The BIFM Awards programme recognises more than just the work that FMs do. It identifies the evolution of facilities departments and external providers into key players in the strategic decision-making process of a business; now integral to an organisation’s performance.

How to Enter
Opening date for entries is right now. To enter, all you have to do is: Decide which category or categories you wish to enter or nominate for, complete the entry acknowledgment form, which you will find at www.bifm.org.uk and email or fax it to FMevents. Then submit your completed entry to FMevents on email no later than Friday 30 April 2010.

Please note that to facilitate and streamline the judging process, hard copy submissions are no longer accepted.

For more information and assistance contact Sandra Light at FMevents on 0141 639 6192 or email Sandra@fmevents.biz


Chairman of the judges, Oliver Jones
Our Judges for 2010

Oliver Jones, chief executive of The Asset Factor and a partner with EC Harris has been appointed as Chairman of the Judges

The BIFM Awards present a great opportunity for teams and leading individuals in our industry to be recognised against the very best of the competition. We have seen the quality of entries step up year on year and are expecting to once again see the bar raised higher again. To win an award is a powerful message to the employers of in-house teams, to the clients of outsourced teams and to all staff and team members at all levels. With our leading industry representatives as judges, the only question is, who can stand out and show the excellence our industry is capable of.

The awards dinner
The awards dinner is a sell-out event each year with 1,200 people attending. That is, 1,200 senior FM figures, around 80 per cent of whom are director and senior management level. Taking place at London’s prestigious Grosvenor House Hotel, on Monday 11 October 2010, the evening begins with a champagne reception, followed by a fabulous gala dinner, hosted by surprise celebrity presenters, culminating in the glittering awards ceremony. To complete the evening, there is a full programme of world-class live entertainment. This event provides your organisation with the perfect opportunity to entertain valued clients or say thank you to your team for their terrific support. Bookings are now being taken for tables so contact FMevents to make your reservation.

You can also download the booking form from www.bifm.org.uk


BIFM Awards categories

FM of the Year
This award recognises outstanding personal performance and career development. We seek individuals who develop innovative FM methodology to some major issues with integration into their organisation’s overall direction and senior corporate structure. Pursuance of FM recognition through academic progress is vital.

Innovation in Customer Service
This award recognises outstanding and innovative services, their effectiveness and sustainability. The providers must show how they have inspired their customers by delivering creative solutions which may well be over and above the original context of the contractual arrangements.

Communications and Marketing
This award will recognise an organisation which has undergone a rebranding programme which is directly related to facilities management or to a facilities team who have chosen to raise their profile within an already established environment to help facilitate change.

Public Sector Excellence in FM Team
The public sector excellence award recognises the best FM team delivering services to a public sector body either as a supplier, partner or in-house team. It will recognise the highest performing team and the crucial link between development of human capital, leadership development, training and innovation in order to deliver FM service excellence. This award is all about the team and how it performs and operates to deliver high quality and innovative FM service to the organisation.

Corporate Occupiers Excellence in FM Team
The dynamic nature of corporate occupiers has always placed challenging demands on FM teams to increase service levels, reduce risk, while constantly seeking best value for money. But these demands have been dramatically heightened for many FM teams over the past 18 months with almost all private sector corporations being affected by the unprecendented ecomonic times that we have encountered. Many FM Teams have had to quickly adapt, and in some cases undergo complete transformations as the requirements to provide cost-driven, innovative solutions has intensified. The BIFM Award for Corporate Occupiers Excellence has always received high quality submissions from FM teams providing outstanding service to their stakeholders. Will this year be the one that recognises how your team has delivered Best in Class FM results to Private Sector Corporate Occupiers through the worst economic period in over 80 years?

FM Excellence in a Major Project
A project can be designated ‘major’ where it makes a positive impact on almost every aspect of an organisation’s operating style and, thereby, affects the lives and well-being of both employees and members of the public. Successful entries will need to show that FMs have participated significantly in such a wide ranging process of ‘change management’.

Innovation in Technology and Systems
Technology and systems play an integral role in the workplace and are revolutionising the ways in which we operate, use information and take decisions. This award is seeking to recognise technology innovation in FM across any and every scope of service. The winning entry will need to demonstrate how the innovation has improved service(s) and advanced the FM industry as a result.

Sustainability and Environmental Impact
The judges are looking for the practical implementation of sustainable practices, identifying what sustainability means to the organisation and explaining the nature of the sustainability initiative and the rationale behind its conception. Sustainability in FM is about the ongoing ability to deliver the initiative, therefore schemes are expected to be already implemented and in operation with a demonstration of the performance and value to the entrant.

Impact on Organisation and Workplace
How do you make individuals and business’ more efficient, effective and even fun places to work? This award is looking to recognise those environments, which, through a well developed and delivered workplace strategy can make a real impact on the business operation and those of its employees. The focus of this award is strongly on people and how the combination of the business’ aims, use of space, recognition of peoples working and social needs and the overall comfort and design of the delivered strategy match to providing efficient workspaces and in particular those that are fully responsive to individuals needs. This award is the opportunity to showcase your strategic thinking as well as you operational effectiveness and to show the benefit it has delivered to your business.

Innovation in Products
The definition of Innovation is very simple and uncomplicated: “bring in new methods, ideas ... make changes”. Innovation is not limited to space age technology and bank busting research budgets. It is not the property of multi-national corporate enterprises.
Innovation in its purest form is simple, effective and adds value with the minimum of fuss. Yet it is essential in continually improving business efficiency and reciprocal benefits to both customers and end users. Developing new products, or utilising existing products in a new innovative way, is a continual drive in most organisations. This category is aimed at recognising that, with a strong message that it covers all products equally from the simplest and cheapest to the most technically advanced. All are essential, all have equal merit.

Overall Industry Impact
This award is to recognise a leading individual or organisation who has had the most significant and positive impact on the FM industry. Many people or organisations have a substantial impact on the development of the industry either as clients, consultants, service partners, professional representatives, writers, thought leaders or in other influential roles. Many potential contenders for this award will have contributed towards the shaping of the FM industry from a number of these positions.

Property Investors Excellence in FM Team
This award is to recognise the best FM team in the UK providing services to property investors. The largest group of properties in the UK are the multi-tenanted portfolios owned by the leading financial institutions as investors. Service standards are driven to achieve a difficult balance between tenant retention rates, service charge optimisation and longterm asset value maintenance. As average lease lengths fall, new challenges are emerging in which service satisfaction and customer care are key deliverables for the FM teams. In-house teams, outsourced service provider teams and hybrids of both are involved in delivering wide ranging services under facilities management service level agreements and a wide and diverse range of commercial contracts.

Guidelines for entries

Who are the top performing FM teams and individuals in 2010?
There are 13 categories, and the awards are given for excellence in the field of FM where it can be shown, within the context of the category criteria, that teams have made a real impact.

- Facilities Manager of the Year
- Student of the Year
- Communications and Marketing
- Public Sector Excellence in FM Team
- Corporate Occupiers Excellence in FM Team
- Innovation in Customer Service
- Overall FM Industry Impact
- Sustainability and Environmental Impact
- Innovation in Products
- Innovation in Technology and Systems
- Property Investors Excellence in FM Team
- Impact on Organisation and Workplace
- FM Excellence in a Major Project

To view the criteria for each category, visit www.bifm.org.uk/awards2010.

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