Sector Insights: Ongoing Challenge of Skill Shortages and Workforce Capability Across Our Sector
One of the most valuable conversations we have at every FMANZ Board meeting is our environmental scan, where Board members share what they are seeing on the ground across the facilities management sector. It provides a real-time view of the challenges and opportunities facing our profession, and one issue continues to stand out: workforce capability. It is also an issue I feel strongly about. Across the sector, organisations are grappling with attracting and retaining skilled people, transferring knowledge, managing contractors, and maintaining service levels as experienced professionals become increasingly stretched or leave the workforce.
This is not a new issue for facilities management, but I do think the conversation is shifting. It is no longer just about whether we can find enough people. It is about whether we are attracting, developing, and retaining people with the right mix of technical capability, communication skills, resilience, curiosity and good old-fashioned initiative.
Facilities management is a profession that asks a lot of our people. We need technical knowledge, commercial awareness, contractor management, risk thinking, customer service, calm decision-making, and the ability to build relationships across every level of an organisation. We are often operating in the background, but the impact of our work is very visible when something goes wrong. That takes a particular type of person.
What I continue to notice is that attitude matters just as much as experience. Skills can be taught, systems can be learned, and confidence builds over time. But the people who really thrive in facilities management are often those who are curious, determined, practical, calm under pressure and able to work well with others. They ask good questions. They look for solutions. They understand that great facilities management is not just about buildings, assets, or compliance. It is about people, service, trust and stewardship. At the same time, we need to recognise that workforce expectations are changing. Younger professionals are looking for purpose, development, flexibility, and a clear sense of where their career can go. If we want talented people to choose facilities management, we need to tell a better story about what this profession offers.
And there is a great story to tell.
Facilities management gives people the opportunity to work across complex environments, solve real problems, influence sustainability and resilience outcomes, support communities, and help create places where people can safely and effectively live, work, learn, heal, and connect. That is meaningful work.
The quality of the FMANZ Emerging Professional Award candidates is a strong reminder that the future of our profession is in good hands, provided we continue to invest in it. These individuals bring energy, fresh thinking, and a willingness to challenge how things have always been done. We should celebrate that, but we should also ask ourselves what more we can do to support them.
For me, this means being more intentional about mentoring, professional development, and career pathways. It means helping new and emerging professionals understand the breadth of facilities management and giving them opportunities to build confidence, networks, and capability. It also means making sure we do not define success too narrowly. Some of the best FM professionals I have worked with did not arrive through a perfectly linear career path. They brought transferable skills, common sense, emotional intelligence, and a willingness to learn.
As a sector, we also need to be honest about the pace of change. Compliance expectations are increasing. Economic pressure is affecting service delivery. Technology and AI are moving quickly. Asset data, building information and smarter systems will continue to change the way we work. But technology will not replace the need for capable people. In fact, it makes the human capability even more important.
We will need people who can interpret information, ask the right questions, make sound decisions and bring others along with them. We will need people who can balance technical detail with practical delivery. We will need people who can manage risk, relationships and change.
That is why the workforce conversation matters so much.
If we want every space and place in Aotearoa New Zealand to thrive, we need to keep building the capability of the people responsible for those spaces and places. That means attracting new talent, supporting emerging professionals, valuing experience, and continuing to lift the profile of facilities management as a profession of choice.
The skill shortage is a challenge, absolutely. But it is also an opportunity. An opportunity to be clearer about what makes a great FM professional. An opportunity to grow our future leaders. And an opportunity for FMANZ to continue playing a strong role in connecting, developing, and championing the people who will shape the future of our industry.
Amanda Collinson, FMANZ Central Region Board Member
