By Kelly Cusick / Special to Healthcare Facilities Today

Citing a critical need for facility professionals to obtain the skills to optimize the performance of buildings and the people within them throughout the world, a newly established commission of facility management thought leaders, employers, practitioners, and educators have joined the Professional Facility Management Institute (ProFMI) to create a new, global standard of facility management knowledge and competency.

"This is a critical time in FM. Roles and responsibilities are expanding while we are seeing our most experienced professionals retire,” says John Hajduk, director, Penn State Facilities Institute, and founding member of the ProFMI Commission. “We need a universally accepted checklist of the broad range of [FM] skills and abilities — and a way of gaining those skills. This is about coming together as an industry to ensure our future leaders have the knowledge, competency, and confidence to make the right decisions.”

Based upon these urgent industry needs, ProFMI has created a brand new credential: The ProFM, which comprises the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors required for facility managers to be impactful now and in the future.

The ProFM designation was developed through extensive market research of more than 3,000 facility professionals in 93 countries, who provided input on the essential skills required of today’s facility management professionals and executives. The resulting ProFM Body of Knowledge became the centerpiece of the ProFM designation, identifying broad coverage of 19 functional areas and five core competencies that have never before been included in one complete program.

The ProFM Body of Knowledge and credential will help individuals and employers better understand the broad range of FM responsibilities while providing a framework to identify and close skill and knowledge gaps.

“Most facility organizations aren’t prepared to determine their future needs. They have an existing workforce and a future need, and there’s a gap in between that,” says Stormy Friday, president of The Friday Group and founding member of the ProFMI Commission. “ProFM can fill that gap. It can make sure that both new entrants to organizations and current employees have the right knowledge, skills, and abilities to meet the needs for the future.”

The new ProFM credential will be available to the public in the first quarter of 2018. Facility professionals will have access to a complete self-study program and instructor-led courses offered by ProFMI’s Education Partners around the globe. More information is available at www.profmi.org.

ProFMI is a partnership between NFMT and Holmes Corporation, an instructional design, marketing, and distribution firm delivering learning systems to professionals around the world. (NFMT and Building Operating Management are owned by Trade Press Media Group.)

ProFMI is committed to elevating facility management and serving its professionals around the world. It assembles top industry thought leaders to define the required knowledge and competencies of all facility managers, validate these findings with ongoing market research, create and deliver superior education, and evaluate professionals against these standards.

Kelly Cusick is vice president, marketing, Holmes Corporation.

Email questions to wendy.dietzler@tradepress.com.