The facilities management professionals sought by employers due to candidate movement in the field are revealed by Hays Facilities Management.
According to Hays’ latest Hays Quarterly Hotspots list of skills in demand, staff movement in the facilities management industry is creating vacancy activity as people decide to change employers.
“The movement of candidates onto the jobs market to explore their options and change employers is fuelling an active jobs market,” Austin Blackburne, business director of Hays Facilities Management, states. “The majority of vacancy activity is the result of replacing departing staff, rather than the creation of new roles. Employers will act fast if an employee leaves a business critical role.”
According to Blackburne, this movement of candidates between jobs is a trend not reflected in the unemployment rate, but it is a good sign of candidates’ confidence that they can improve their prospects by looking for a new job.
“As a result overall vacancy activity is expected to increase this quarter. Many employers also tell us they are keen to secure candidates who can start early in the new calendar year,” he notes.
He warns, however, that employers prefer candidates with a solid history of tenure with previous employers and candidates who have changed employers often aren’t viewed as favourably as those who have been loyal for several years.
“We’ve also seen the recruitment process lengthen as employers become more thorough when assessing candidates. They often want to make sure their candidate of choice has a broad skill set so that they gain the most value from new hires,” he adds.
According to Hays Facilities Management, another trend impacting today’s recruitment market is the preference for companies to recruit on a temporary-to-permanent basis in order to trial a candidate in the role.
“Many employers prefer temporary assignments to not just cover workload peaks, but to trial a candidate to ensure they are a good fit, both in terms of skills and with the business’ culture, before offering them a permanent job,” Blackburne states.
He adds that fixed-term contracts are also popular as they help control costs and that candidates prepared to commit to contracts running through until Easter are highly desirable.
Demand exists for the following skilled professionals in Australia’s facilities management market, According to the Hays Quarterly Hotspots list:
- Senior facilities managers – there is a constant shortage of good senior facilities management professionals with tertiary electrical or mechanical engineering qualifications.
- Facilities managers (hospitals) – there is an ongoing need in both the private and public sectors for trade or technically qualified candidates with at least five years healthcare sector experience.
- Facilities managers (commercial buildings) – there is steady demand for these professionals yet there is a shortage of skilled and experienced facilities management candidates with property management agency experience.
- Facilities managers (education) – there is high demand for facilities managers with experience in education facilities.
- Facilities managers (retail) – retailers and property owners are increasing their property portfolio and this has led to an increasing demand for facilities managers with retail experience.
- Facilities projects managers – facilities management service providers are increasingly looking to deliver projects as part of the wider facilities management contract and as a result, facilities projects managers are needed.
- Facilities officers – demand is steady for facilities officers with public sector experience and these skills are sought for both temporary and permanent positions.
- Soft services (security/cleaning managers) – there is a frequent need for soft services candidates, yet again there is a lack of available and experienced candidates.
- Operations managers – there have been a number of cleaning tenders won recently, which has created a need for contractors to recruit operations managers to run them; and there is also demand for retail operations managers as more retail centres are redeveloped, ownership changes hands and candidates move.
- Data centre managers – new centres are being built and require data centre managers.
- Estimator bid managers – with a number of contracts coming up for renewal, including government contracts, many facilities service providers have been recruiting teams to run their bids; this is also creating a need for tender managers.
- Relocation project managers – a number of corporate relocations have driven the demand for relocation project managers.
- Technical facilities managers – the ability of facilities management service providers to deliver technical services to their clients has created sustained need for these candidates.
