EuroFM International Autumn School FM 2022

From the 17^th until the 21^st of October 2022, the 11^th international week organised by the Facility Management department of Zuyd University of Applied Sciences took place in Heerlen.
Also, this year, the organization was strengthened by a close cooperation with the EuroFM association with great success. More than 130 students from Germany, Austria, Belgium, and The Netherlands participated during this EuroFM international Autumn School Facility Management which was conducted exclusively on location in Heerlen (NL).

Students were challenged to get out of their comfort zones by communicating in English within their project groups. Before the international week’s launch, these groups contacted each other in order to get acquainted as well as to start exchanging ideas about their own ideal workplace.
During the international week, the students were charged with creating the work environment of the future. The Dutch Tax Authorities (de Belastingdienst) challenged the students to come up with their ideas for a persona of their choice. Aided by a workshop around creative methods, the students came up with three brilliant ideas and presented them in front of the coaches through an elevator pitch. Using a persona and the Business Model Canvas, the ideas were further developed into a concept and turned into a poster and video.

The students completed their assignments with great success! The members of the jury, comprised of teachers representing various participating schools and board members from both EuroFM as well as the Belastingdienst, felt inspired by the students’ results and elected the three best presentations. The members of the winning team were invited to visit the World Workplace Europe in Rotterdam on the 22^nd and 23^rd of March in 2023 and took home a certificate for € 1000,- in order to facilitate their travelling and lodging costs during this visit.

Quotes from students and contractor

“It was great to get together with so many students of different countries and backgrounds. Working together as one group for one goal, each of us bringing their talents and then the effort getting awarded with the win was special.”

Eva Marksteiner, student Fachhochschule Kufstein Tirol Bildungs

“Our strength lies in working smarter, not working harder.”

Lieke Krotje, student Zuyd Hogeschool in Heerlen

“The EuroFM International Autumn School Zuyd University allowed us to work with the future generation and see and feel how they look at and think about their future work environment, to discover what is important for them and which aspects require special attention. It has proven inspiring and useful for our organisation.”

Thijs Vrijsen en Renée Braken, Hybride Werken Belastingdienst (contractor)

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As part of the CIFMERS Madrid FM Event 2022 on 21-23 September, there is an education targetted event for universities to explain their international internship programmes to end users.

Universities will have 5-7 minutes slot for this and the activity will be held on 21 September at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid UPM.  

Please contact info@cifmers.com with details to include speaker, university, programme details and any other relevant information.

The EuroFM Network congratulates Susanne Colenberg and her co-authors Natalia Romero Herrera and David Keyson for winning the Best Paper Award in the 21st EuroFM Research Symposium. Their paper identifies interior design features that jointly influence satisfaction with privacy and noise in the office workspace.

We would also like to thank the members of the selection committee: Hester van Sprang, Carmel Lindkvist and Keith Alexander, for their time and effort in the evaluation process.

Also a big thanks to all the researchers for their contribution in the 21st EuroFM research Symposium. It was wonderful to see and hear everyone on 15 & 16 June 2022, either live at Breda University of Applied Sciences or online. The presentations and discussions generated lots of new ideas and brought us together.

The EuroFM Network is proud to announce that the proceedings of the 21st EuroFM Research Symposium are published.

The proceedings include a variety of advanced FM research topics such as:
– Circular FM
– Post Pandemic Work Environment Applications
– Urban FM.

A special thanks goes to the TU Delft Library for the repository services and Danica Antonia Widarta for designing the cover and layout of the proceedings!

Please download your own copy here.

For schools planning for Autumn semester 2022, please include the fantastic opportunity to connect with different universities that make up the EuroFM family as part of the EuroFM International Autumn School week which will take place from the 17th until the 21st of October 2022 at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences.

More information can be found in the flyer.

We hope you can get students from your university to join. This year EuroFM is providing the winning team of the Autumn School with tickets for the EuroFM conference held in Turkey and a € 1.000 to be used on travel to the conference.

We saw from the World Workplace Europe Conference the importance of the presence of students to illustrate to industry and research their ways of thinking about FM, and build new connections outside of the university arena.

For registrations and questions you can contact Marisa Habets from Zuyd University of Applied Sciences.

To see highlights from this year’s conference, click here.

On behalf of IFMA EMEA, FMN and EuroFM, we’d like to thank you for participating in World Workplace Europe 2022! We greatly appreciate your contributions to the advancement of the FM industry and your commitment to your own professional development.

Want to review or catch any sessions you missed during the conference? View on-demand sessions through 2 July via the Attendee Hub.

Did you attend in person or virtually? Please share your feedback to help us plan for next year. Fill out the post-conference survey.

Save the date for World Workplace Europe in March 2023! More details to be announced soon.

Go to the World Workplace Europe Website.

EuroFM Education worked with FMN, EMEA IFMA and IFMA Foundation on a Student Challenge for World Workplace Europe 2022. FM students were asked about their ‘Reaction to COP26 – Is FM doing enough and is doing enough, good enough?’ The organisation wanted to hear from Students to determine what mandate associations should be taking to ensure the FM discipline is making a real contribution to reducing carbon emissions and ensuring next generations have a future that meets and goes beyond SDG goals.      

During the World Workplace Europe event on 2 June in Amsterdam the Green Cops were announced as the winners of this Student Challenge. Students Ilja Huitema and Ophelia Kaufmann won the opportunity to visit Facilicom https://www.facilicom.com/home and Nuvolo https://www.nuvolo.com/. 

From the 19^th until the 22^nd of October 2021, the 10^th international week organised by the Facility Management department of Zuyd University of Applied Sciences took place in Heerlen.

This year, the organization was strengthened by a close cooperation with the EuroFM association with great success. More than 160 students from Germany, Austria, Belgium, and The Netherlands participated during this EuroFM international Autumn School Facility Management which was conducted exclusively through an online environment.

Students were challenged to get out of their comfort zones by communicating in English within their project groups. Before the international week’s launch, these groups contacted each other in order to get acquainted as well as to start brainstorming their ideas surrounding working from home.

During the international week, the students were charged with designing a floor housing 100 workspaces in a new office building belonging to the Dutch Tax Authorities (de Belastingdienst) located in Amsterdam. The Belastingdienst challenged the students to design this floor with three types of employees in mind; the home worker, the office worker, and the hybrid worker. Aided by various guest speakers who shared their knowledge and expertise about workplace design, community building, and data collection regarding workspace experiences, the students formulated personas and set their sights on creating an environment in which all personas were represented. Their work would then be translated into a video presentation in order to benefit their storytelling.

The students completed their assignments with great success! The members of the jury, comprised of teachers representing various participating schools and board members from both EuroFM as well as the Belastingdienst, felt inspired by the students’ results and elected the three best presentations. The members of the winning team were invited to visit the World Workplace Europe in Amsterdam on the 22^nd and 23^rd of March in 2022 and took home a certificate for €1000,- in order to facilitate their travelling and lodging costs during this visit. On top of that, the three best project groups were also invited to visit one of the ultra-modern hybrid office buildings of the Belastingdienst.

Quotes from students and contractor

“At the beginning I was nervous and sceptical about the project. My concern was that the team couldn’t get along in such a short time and because of that the output would not be satisfying. But the exact opposite was the case. I felt like the whole team had a strong will to create good work. Also, the fact that we had to talk in English, which isn’t the first language of either of us, didn’t affect the teamwork at all. The project also encouraged me to look for more international work, for example an internship abroad, in the future.”

Anna Eisenbichler, student Fachhochschule Kufstein Tirol Bildungs

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“Even though this international week took place entirely online, I found these days to be very inspiring. No one from the group knew each other and that took some time to get used to at the beginning, but the collaboration went very smoothly and I think that makes this result as first place a very nice achievement!”

Naud Stoffels, student Zuyd Hogeschool te Heerlen

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“The project gave me the opportunity to apply the knowledge I learned during my studies to a real client.”

Felicitas Reiner, student Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg Stuttgart

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“An interesting and specific case during which we were especially triggered by the views of the next generation on the hybrid work environment. Where do they see the possibilities and opportunities?

The results proved to be surprising, positive, inspiring, and useful to consider during our project.”

Thijs Vrijsen en Renée Braken, Hybride Werken Belastingdienst (contractor)

Dear EuroFM members,

I trust you are all doing well and staying healthy. We, the EuroFM Board, have some exciting news which we would like to share with you. But first, let us have a brief look back on 2021.

As you will remember, during the first GMM of the new Board on March 10^th 2021, we presented to you our Strategic Objectives for the period 2021 to 2024. One of the topics which we then emphasized was the need for EuroFM to create, innovate, connect and deliver tangible value to all EuroFM members. In doing so, the new Board also expressed the need for making our Network Platform as effective as possible, to Connect Disciplines, to Develop & Disseminate Knowledge, and last but not least, to Engage the Next Generation. Looking back on EuroFM activities during 2021 so far, we are happy to say that we have had a very successful Student Festival, Research Symposium and a Business Summit. The discussions that were held during and after these events have emphasized the fact the business environment has changed considerably during the last two years: FM as a professional discipline has faced many challenges and has been able to overcome difficulties imposed upon it. But it is safe to say that FM has not won this battle all by itself.  

Industry and thought leaders on the future of FM, as well as various other professional bodies and FM associations, agree on the fact that the future of FM lies in its ability to strategically connect in in multidisciplinary world. For EuroFM this also means that we as an association cannot move forward and deliver value to our members if we do not reach out and connect across professional boundaries within the playing field of this changing business environment.

Our thoughts on these topics have brought the Board to the following question:

“What will 2022 look like, and how can EuroFM move forward to achieve our strategic ambition to create and deliver member value?”

The answer lies in making strategic connections. With this as our guiding ambition, we have looked towards 2022, and what we can do to bring EuroFM members together, to facilitate multidisciplinary connections, to advance the development and dissemination of knowledge AND provide exciting new opportunities for both EuroFM members and the next generation.

As was mentioned during the GMM of June 23^rd, 2021, the EuroFM Board has had some very fruitful discussions with both FMN (the Dutch Facility Management Association) and IFMA / IFMA EMEA on the matter of strategic collaboration to ensure greater member value and knowledge dissemination across different associations and network platforms. The aim here is not to advance and strengthen just one specific association, but to do so for the greater good of the FM profession.

We as the Board are therefore happy to announce that we will partner with both FMN and IFMA EMEA in joining the organisation and hosting of the 4^th edition of World Workplace Europe in 2022 (WWE22)! Our collaboration with FMN and IFMA EMEA in hosting this event – already known to many of you – will be a pilot for future collaboration between EuroFM, FMN and IFMA EMEA.

We as the Board would like to ensure all EuroFM members that his this collaboration will not replace the annual EuroFM Conference, but provides EuroFM with a very concrete opportunity to physically meeting and connecting with EuroFM members during WWE22 which will be held from 23 -24 March 2022, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. In addition to our involvement in hosting WWE22, EuroFM itself will in 2022 again arrange the EuroFM Student Festival, the EuroFM Research Symposium and the EuroFM and Business & Association Summit.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which has been signed with FMN and IFMA EMEA, gives EuroFM the opportunity to contribute to World Workplace Europe by means of what EuroFM is good in: organising the research event as well as the student activity during WWE22! For EuroFM members attending this event, there is even more to gain as the week following WWE22 there will be the Dutch Workplace Week, which will culminate in the Smart Workplace Exhibition. All in all, an abundance of opportunities for EuroFM and its members to strategically connect, share, network, collaborate and celebrate 35 years of EuroFM!

EuroFM issued a press release together with FMN and IFMA EMEA to announce and celebrate this pilot collaboration. We feel confident that this agreement with FMN and IFMA EMEA is the right way forward for EuroFM, and for us, the EuroFM Board, to deliver on our strategic ambitions: to create member value, to connect disciplines, to develop and disseminate knowledge, and to engage the next generation: Not just for EuroFM, but for FM!

Kind regards, and on behalf of the EuroFM Board

Pieter C. le Roux
Chair EuroFM

Read the full press release here.

The 20th EuroFM Research Symposium was organised 16-17 June online. We would like to thank all the presenters, chairs, committee members and the audience for inspiring discussion, new FM knowledge and new connections. In total 15 presentations were given including 12 research paper presentations. The topic in the first afternoon was ‘making work work’ including presentations on work and work environments before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The second day focused on FM and REM theories and FM education. Please find the proceedings here.

Best Paper Award

Congratulations to Minou Weijs-Perrée, Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, Jeroen Looijen, Bartele S. Hoekstra, and Pity Jongens-van der Schaaf for the Best Paper Award at the 20th EuroFM Research Symposium! The paper studied how office workers have perceived work-related communication while working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how this related to their perceived individual productivity.

The committee concluded that the paper has well-focused and relevant research aim motivated by current theoretical gaps and practical problems, is based on impressive data set and well-elaborated data analysis, and it provides novel and original contribution to the FM knowledge.

Thank you also for Theo van der Voordt, Antje Junghans and Susanne Balslev Nielsen for being members of the committee!

Please find the best paper from the proceedings (pages 13-22).

Tuuli Jylhä
EuroFM Research Chair

The papers for the 20^th EuroFM Research Symposium are published! Please have a look and download your own copy.

Presentations will follow 16-17 June in the online conference. See you there!

Check the programme for 16 & 17 June and how to register here.