British Institute charges professionals on standard practice for industry growth
As the real estate industry in Nigeria continues to attract local and foreign investment, experts in the facilities management sector say raising professional standards and engaging policy stakeholders are some of the ways to give the sector prominence in the country’s economy.
British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), Nigerian region, has therefore charged its members on standard practice, which, it believes, is necessary for the growth the FM industry in the country.
Tunde Obileye, BIFM’s vice chairman (Lagos), who spoke on behalf of Wale Odufalu, chairperson of BIFM Nigeria, charged the members to continually promote FM best practice standards in their various spheres of influence, saying that “with the expanding scope of the real estate sector, FM professionals in Nigeria must begin to show capacity that is commensurate with the growing size of the market.”
Cyprian Okonkwo, managing partner of Ora Egbunike & Associates, noted that one of the challenges facing the FM practice in Nigeria was low level of awareness and non-adherence to standard practices in critical areas such as health safety and environment (HSE), quality management systems, etc.
Okonkwo, whose company sponsored the gathering of members, also charged BIFM Nigeria to support its members with knowledge sharing programmes that could equip the industry with the right policies and standard operating procedures.
Speaking on ‘Exploring the Culture of Maintenance in Facilities Management,’ Femi Adejumo, a member of the BIFM Nigeria committee, posited that the current size of the FM market was still being largely under-explored, pointing out that global improvement in FM knowledge was a huge challenge to developing climes such as Nigeria.
“As FM professionals in Nigeria, we need to begin to probe ourselves to see if we are really living the FM dream and at what distance do we stand from global best practice standards. What is our dream of FM in the country, and are our current professional activities leading in the direction of our aspiration for the market?
“We must also ask ourselves how much thirst we have for excellence and the confidence we have in organisational leadership to help us reach our goal,” he said.
Continuing, he said, “one of the fastest ways to reach our dream for the sector is to seek how to model our operations after international best practices such that, as foreign direct investors are growing confidence in our real estate market, they can also have confidence in our FM operations.”
BIFM Nigeria region was inaugurated in the country recently with the goal of helping professional facilities managers access international best practice and resources that will help them do more and help the built environment to advance in skills and technologies.