February/March 2020 Newsletter

Followers, welcome to the February/March Newsletter!  Make way for your fill of CGC juice where we aim to give a round-up of the ‘’goings on” within the business and the market.

With the festive period well and truly a distant memory, we are in full swing and off to a solid start for the year.  We have some very exciting times ahead!

Without further ado, we will leave you in the safe hands of Oliver who will give you some symmetry around the Facilities Management industry with a snapshot of how things are looking out there…….

Facilities Management Update, Oliver Boote

It’s been a busy start to the year in the facilities management space, particularly for soft services contractors. A number of contracts have been awarded and seen businesses have to shuffle the pack as they gear up to deliver new contracts or deal with losing parts of their portfolios.

For the large managing agents and IFM providers, there are several major contracts in the pipeline upon which we are still waiting for answers. Beyond natural attrition we aren’t seeing any huge moves just yet but expect this to change next quarter. However, saying that, one the largest facilities management and property management contracts has been awarded and will be transitioned later on in the year.

We’re also seeing a strong demand for residential building managers – more across smaller complexes or multi-site roles than your large 400 plus unit developments. Additionally, businesses are increasingly asking for people on part time or flexible contracts, as smaller boutique blocks who wouldn’t previously have engaged dedicated building management services, are seeing the value that even 10 hours a week can add.

Another area of key growth is within the consulting spaces. Building consultancy firms, as well as more traditionally surveying practises, are increasingly offering more tailored and bespoke FM advisory services to private asset owners, universities and aged care providers as well as state, federal and local government.

With the push towards ISO 55001 being driven out of federal and state treasuries this will be a key area of work for these organisations over the next 18 months.

On a much larger macro trends scale, the continued roll out of WFH policies and the largest ever remote working experiment currently being undertaken across south east Asia and increasingly in Europe and North America in response to COVID – 19 Coronavirus is driving FM’s and organisations across the world to look at how they foster collaboration and keep people connected away from a centralised workplace.

Depending on how effective these policies become – and given that real estate commitments now have to be reported as part of public company accounts – we could see a real acceleration of the rationalisation of office space that has taken place in the last decade. The role of the FM as part of a corporate real estate team is likely to increasingly become experience focused.

CGC Social

Everyone seems to be sticking to their new year’s resolutions and fitness still appears to be the topic for CGC Social, as well as some worthy volunteering work by a few of our staff.

Well done to Billy who competed in his first Triathlon! And also swam with Dan at the Bondi Dash Swim, a 2km ocean swim attended by hundreds.

Last Friday, Carmel, Christina & Glynis, volunteered their time by participating in a charity event organised by Women in Design & Construction (WIDAC). 25-30 women got ‘on the tools’ at Furniture By Design’s factory in Padstow and made 50 ottomans & scatter cushions. The items were donated to Women’s Community Shelters to help furnish new homes for rehoused women that have been the victims of domestic violence. All the participants were proud to be involved in this worthwhile initiative, especially in the wake of International Women’s Day.

The CGC Incentive has been announced and so everyone is working hard to jump on board the trip to Byron Bay in July!

There has been more cake in the office than a bakery with so many birthdays recently. So Happy Birthday to Stewart (2nd Feb), Grace (2nd March), Nic (3rd) Amy (11th), Hopey (18th), George (24th) and Inga (26th).

We would also like to say a big congrats to those hitting their CGC Anniversaries this year – Fiona (2yrs), Mat Issa (2yrs), Mikaila (2yrs), Allyssar (2yrs) and Carmel (4yrs).