Mergers and Acquisitions

With some recent high-profile M&A activity in the FM sector, three key pitfalls to avoid during the process:

In July this year it was announced that OCS had been sold to investment firm, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and were set to join forces with Atalian Servest, as a new, enlarged, global facilities management provider. This followed a scoop from Sky News two months earlier about the likelihood of this happening, so came as no surprise to many. It has been closely followed last month by the UK Competition Authority giving the green light to the merger of Bouygues and Equans and only last week Imtech announcing their intention to acquire Spie.

For those of us who have worked in the facilities management industry, such activity in the sector is common place and should never come as a shock. From a personal perspective, I have twice worked for private sector organisations that have been acquired and have also spoken extensively with others who have experienced something similar in their careers.

What interests me are some of the issues that surface following the merger and acquisition (M&A) activity and cause it not to run as smoothly as many would have hoped. I will briefly summarise these here.

Firstly, as part of the M&A activity, the due diligence process rightly concentrates on the financial and legal aspects. However, I personally think not enough time is spent in truly understanding what makes the company being acquired or merged unique and successful and who the people at all levels within the organisation are who significantly contribute to that. It seems that this takes a backseat throughout.

Aligned to that, is some short sightedness in not truly understanding the business in enough depth and to then develop a coherent and credible plan to grow and diversify the business. Instead the focus is in bolting on the turnover to group performance, as well as hopefully robust earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), to help appease shareholders/the market. Too many times I have seen post acquision key people leave a business, combined with the absence of an absolutely critical and credible integration and growth strategy. What has then followed has been turnover and profit falling off a cliff and what I heard recently, one poorly performing acquired company called “the ugly sister in the family”.

Another key area is taking the time to really understand the culture of an organisation and what makes it special for those working within it. The risk is that such culture, which has been a major factor in the success has been lost, with the introduction of new people into a business and their self-justifying remit of doing things “their way” and riding roughshod over those who did not fit their agenda. I have heard it said many times from people that, post-acquisition, the culture of an organisation has turned “toxic” and “not what it was”, as people jockey for new roles, needing to justify their current position or have been brought in and want to make an “impact”. How many times have we seen the latter, with such people gone in a couple of years and having wreaked havoc in their wake?

I don’t pretend to be a mergers and acquisitions expert; I am simply talking from experience and having discussed it at length with many others. Change can be a hugely powerful and positive thing, as is having the right focus and being open to the views and opinions of others. My view is that in not taking due consideration of some of the simple and obvious issues described above can have disastrous consequences.

(This article first appeared in the October 2022 edition of Network 6 magazine)

Has the return to the workplace hit a plateau?

“There has definitely been a shift of power for many, from employer to employee, with many employees asking for flexibility in not only where they work, but also now when.”

It has been a really busy but also fascinating past few months. First was the Facilities Show in London, chairing a debate on how the sector can upskill and attract a more diverse workforce, a wonderful IWFM Conference at Euston Square, centred around being “Agents of Change” and more recently chairing a panel discussion at the University of Bolton, on how the public and private sectors, professional organisations, education establishments and crucially the community, can collaborate to regenerate and improve our communities (pictured below)

This sense that our communities need to be united and harnessed for the common good / positive change, is something I know mental health campaigner and keynote speaker at the IWFM conference, Ruby Wax, has championed for years to improve our wellbeing, given the huge negative impact loneliness has within society, “we still need to feel we’re part of a community” and is a key theme in her book, “And Now for the Good News“. It was also a theme mentioned in a recent week Desert Island Discs by Paul Hewson, aka “Bono”.

Another one of the interesting themes discussed at the IWFM Conference, brilliantly hosted by Yewande Akinola, and a topic in a lot of my conversations with FM professionals currently, is have we now reached the post Covid lockdown plateau for the return to the workplace?

On the one hand we have central Government telling civil servants they must start coming back to the office full time, whilst at the same time announcing plans to cut 91,000 civil service jobs in the next three years! The example of Jacob Rees-Mogg leaving passive aggressive desk notes to his department is a common example cited and I am also hearing some organisations telling their staff to start returning to the office and to start bringing the chairs, screens, keyboards. etc., back with them at the same time.

However one of the most obvious messages from the conference and my conversations with FM professionals managing office workplaces is that a full scale return is not going to happen at the moment, if ever. Employees are demanding flexibility in both the location and hours they work and a common trend I have heard is a continuing hybrid, of the office Tuesday to Thursday and home working Monday and Friday. Given the huge drive currently by organisations to retain their talent, significant numbers of organisations have needed to acquiesce to such requests.

Only last month I was speaking to someone working within local Government who mentioned that pre-Covid, there would be around one hundred and forty people in the office. They have been actively encouraging people to start working more in the office and this person has started doing that 2-3 days a week. However he told me “we are lucky if we get into double figures most days.” His organisation are now exploring cost savings by substantially reducing their property portfolio.

This new pattern of work has implications for not only the local, but clearly the macro-economy and crucially the facilities management profession. This is our opportunity, as a profession, to drive the conversation on and direction of the future workplace and the dynamic delivery of FM services; it’s the perhaps how we can become “agents of change”. 

(This article first appeared, as an “FM Voice” article in the July 2022 edition of Network6 magazine)

So what is the solution to the current skills shortages?

“The first thing that businesses want to talk to me about is the problems they’re having hiring people.” This was the statement made by Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, in explaining the largest interest rate rise in 27 years last month.

In July this year, Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the Recruitment & Employment Federation published a report warning of possible shrinkage in UK GDP by 2027 due to labour shortages and called for a coherent labour market strategy from government. Thus there appears to be a tacit consensus on the current labour market issues; perhaps less so the solution.

Clearly the skills shortage currently being experienced in the facilities management/workplace sector is not ours alone; even yesterday my brother mentioned to me the issues he was experiencing in recruiting in the insurance brokering sector and I have heard anecdotally from many others in different sectors decrying the ability to recruit “quality people” at the moment. However, for facilities management, we need to develop our own skills strategy that addresses the current issues, which also has a medium/long term  vision in mind.

Firstly, we need to start the conversation early with young people in explaining what a career in facilities management has to offer. That is why I have been championing the collaborative work between the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM) and Class of Your Own with secondary school pupils studying the “Design Engineer Construct” (DEC) course. We need to be sowing the seeds of a career in FM and organisations also need to take the lead in this; for example Thomson FM have just entered a long term arrangement with a local high school here in Lancashire to practically support their DEC students throughout their studies.

Providing apprenticeships is another important means to recruit and develop talent and is something which not enough organisations have embraced. Although companies have been paying towards the Apprenticeship Levy, earlier this year, Liz Crowley, senior skills adviser at the CIPD, commented that the scheme had “clearly failed” and that reform was needed. Many others have called for a more coherent apprenticeship strategy from central government.

With so many organisations facing the challenge of both attracting and retaining talent, investment in training and development of their people is crucial. Although offering attractive packages appear to be the key drivers in being able to recruit new people, as well as retaining their talent pool, offering clear career pathways and structured training programmes and qualifications, with organisations such as IWFM, is a key area where organisations need to be able to compete and have a clear development policy for their people.

Unfortunately a bi-product of skills/ labour shortages is increased workload and stress for existing team members. There is no easy answer to resolving this, other than employers showing empathy and flexibility with their people and making wellbeing at the core of their workplace culture. In addition, suitably trained managers need to support and encourage their people, ensure they feel valued and that it is shared issue. It is essential employees feel connected to the team and the wider organisation.  

Is there a worsening recruitment crisis in some parts of the profession?

Is there currently a retention and recruitment crisis within facilities management and specifically in the cleaning and hygiene sector? Having read several recent press stories on the subject, as well as being asked to write my own press article and be a webinar panellist in the last month, it does suggest there are many who think there is.

I know it is easy to criticise politicians and it is perhaps all too easy to do so from the side-lines. However, in putting this current situation into context, we must go back to 2019. In that year it was estimated by the Labour Force Survey that 37% of the cleaning and hygiene service workforce were from overseas and in London that figure increased to 72%.

In 2020 the Government introduced the Immigration Act and in that classified those working in cleaning and hygiene services as “low skilled” or “unskilled” and therefore organisations would be prevented from recruiting from overseas to fill any staff vacancies.

In the months following Brexit and the introduction of the Immigration Act, we have seen foreign national workers in the UK economy returning home in significant numbers. The NHS has been significantly impacted and I recently read that Pioneer FM had lost 25% of their cleaning  workforce due to them returning home. Other factors which have resulted in people leaving the cleaning and hygiene services sector have been the ability to earn a higher income in other sectors, such as HGV driving, where there has been significant wage inflation to address staff shortages  and the hospitality sector, as it rebounded from months in lockdown.

In recent weeks, Jim Melvin, Chair of the British Cleaning Council has stated that he has “rarely known it as hard to recruit cleaning and hygiene staff as now.” Added to this been the CBI predicting that the situation will not improve for at least the next two years.

My criticism of the Government is that they could and should have known this would happen. This is particularly frustrating given both the size of the sector (the British Cleaning Council estimate the sector employs 1.47 million staff and is worth £44.7bn to the UK economy) and its importance, especially given that many organisations have increased their cleaning requirements, as workplaces have re-opened and the demand has increased within the NHS, in response to COVID-19. The Government appear to have let this situation to arise by burying their heads in the sand and allowing market forces to remain unchecked. I have also read several commentators who believe the Government allowing short term visas is at best tokenism and will have little impact in addressing the underlying issues.

Therefore, looking to 2022 and with the easing of restrictions on overseas workers seeming unlikely, many believe that there will be significant rises in wage inflation, as the forces of demand and supply have their way. That seems to be the only way the sector can compete with others, who currently have similar issues and seen wage levels increase significantly in recent weeks. It would also explain why some facilities management companies are currently very nervous about tendering for contracts asking them to fix their prices for the next two years.     

(This article first appeared in the December 2021 edition of Network 6 magazine)

Late Payments: the scourge for SMEs

In a recent YouGov survey of SMEs, 68% confirmed they regularly experience late payments and 62% spend time each week chasing overdue invoices! The situation has reportedly worsened over the last twelve months (estimated by some at 20%).

November marked my third year anniversary of joining Thomson FM and moving from contractor to consultant, from large corporate to SME. I thought it therefore apt that the subject of this month’s blog article starts with a moment of reflection.

In October 2019, I wrote a blog about how I thought some sections of the FM industry were failing SMEs. I spoke specifically about the delays and prevarication from some companies in our profession in paying for services received. The article got a great deal of traction, with some pointing out that the problem is not unique to facilities management and some were calling for a new industry code of conduct, with a commitment by all for payments to be made on time and as per the agreed terms. Indeed one contributor lifted the lid on her ex-employers, who would purposefully delay the payment of suppliers as they approached year end, to help artificially massage their balance sheets and achieve their end of year targets and bonuses.

Has the situation improved? One thing that the last two years has highlighted for many businesses is the criticality of cash flow and the need for payments to be received within agreed timescales. Indeed, at the start of the first lockdown in March 2020, some six months after the blog, Thomson FM made the decision to pay any monies owed to their suppliers immediately, regardless of the payment terms, to contribute to helping them through the anticipated tough times ahead. I know of one large FM service provider who adopted a similar stance to help their supply chain.

Four months ago I became General Manager of our rapidly growing consultancy business and have been increasingly involved in monitoring the speed of invoice payments from our customers. Some are consistently brilliant in paying within the agreed 28 days, others unfortunately less so. For those who have not paid within those agreed timeframes a great deal of time and money is then expended in chasing the monies owed and sometimes it has needed to be escalated to me to become personally involved.

It is too simplistic to simply say, “well just don’t work for the poor payers.” The issue is too widespread, in my view. Many will know of the issues we all face: delays because operations and accounts work in silos, no-one being prepared to own the issue and resolve, “lost” invoices and making excuses for inflexibility due” internal procedures.”  Instead I have recently tried to flag the issues to senior people within these companies and to try and improve things. Perhaps there is a naivety about this approach, but would rather try doing this to encourage change, rather than pessimistically throw my hands in the air and say, ”things will never change.” Time will tell if we improve as an industry and economy. 

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not any of the organisations I represent. A version of this article first appeared in the November 2021 edition of Network6 magazine).

The evolving importance of ‘soft’ skills in facilities management

In the last month I had an interesting discussion with a contact within the facilities management industry about what skill-sets will those working in FM require to fulfil their roles in the future? I thought I would share some of my thoughts in this blog post.

The management role of those working in FM is not just about the management of the buildings/workplaces as we know, but critically also the management of the people who are helping to clean, guard and maintain it for them, for example, as well as the workplace users who are “experiencing” the workplace and FM service. Continuing flexible working practices will mean the facilities managers of the future will need adaptability, as well as, crucially, “people” skills.

Of course, the importance of “soft skills” is nothing new, but perhaps far too often overlooked. In a report by the Carnegie Foundation, they found that 85% of job success comes from having well‐developed soft and people skills, and only 15% of job success comes from technical skills and knowledge (hard skills). This data was published 103 years ago!

We still don’t really fully understand what future workplace trends will emerge following the coronavirus pandemic. However, in the last month we have had some organisations predicting the future will be one of hybrid working. For example Steelcase recently published a report which mentioned their research, which identified “a more nuanced, hybrid future [for the workplace]. Most people expect to work in the office most of the time, but they also expect greater flexibility from their organizations going forward.”

In one of my blog post’s in July last year, I called for those in management positions within the industry to “empathise” with those around them, due to mounting mental health pressures of the coronavirus lockdown. As more and more people are returning to the workplace, different kinds of mental health pressures are emerging, such as the continued threat of infection, despite double vaccinations, aligned to concerns about indoor air quality and social distancing, for example. In turn, we need to train our people in helping to manage mental health pressures.

As some of you may know, I am a keen advocate of attracting a new, more diverse and inclusive pool of talent into the FM industry and is one of the reasons I have championed IWFM’s “Career of Choice” campaign over the last two years. As we look to the future, post pandemic, it is so important that we learn the lessons from the last 18 months and also re-evaluate the skill requirements which will be essential for of those either entering or developing their career in the profession. I strongly suspect that the “soft skills” of being able to actively engage, listen, react, motivate and empathise with those around them, will be very near the top of the list.

(This is an edited version of the ‘FM Voice’ article published in Network 6 magazine in September 2021. The views expressed are those of the author and not the organisations I represent)

Volunteering, mental health and the need for kindness

To be honest, I don’t really know where to start this latest blog article. The reason is not due to a shortage of topics to write about, as I reflect over the last month; quite the reverse, thankfully. In short, this month has seen my appointment to the Chair position within the Institute of Workplace and Facilities Management (IWFM), my training and accreditation as a Mental Health First Aider and finally, the completion of the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge. I would like to link all three events in this piece.

Firstly, I was lucky enough to be able to undertake the Mental Health First Aider course. The tutor, Beth Goodyear, is someone I have known in FM circles for several years. I soon as I dived into the course content I knew it would benefit my knowledge of mental health in not just the workplace, but also in my personal life and in my volunteering.

The course addressed crucial areas of mental health, including anxiety, stress, trauma, bipolar, associated risk factors and crucially how to support those colleagues, family members and friends who may be faced with such challenges. I would recommend for any organisation to enrol members of their team(s) on the course, which is insightful, challenging and crucially, relevant.

A couple of days after course completion, I accompanied three close friends as we resumed our annual walking weekend, having missed last year due to lockdown. On the Saturday we completed the 24.5 mile Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge. Later, despite the 55,000 steps and associated exhaustion, we spent the evening in an Indian restaurant in Hawes and the relevance of the mental health course was laid bare as each of us talked about the mental health challenges we faced within our families and the impact it has had.

Just over a week later, it as announced that as of 1^st October 2021, I would begin a two year tenure as Chair of IWFM. Those of us who undertake volunteering, do it for our own personal reasons. I recently had a conversation with someone who asked the simple question, “Why?” In my School Governor and Institute volunteering roles it is an added responsibility, substantial time commitment and to be frank, added pressures. Due to all of these, it all invariably also requires a sympathetic and supportive partner.

My volunteering has never been born out of self-promotion or ego; simply it is a genuine attempt to give something back and perhaps have a positive influence in those areas I am involved in. In being considered for the Chair role, I was required to write a manifesto to the IWFM Board outlining my priorities. These were summarised as my 5 C’s: Continuity, Community, Chartership, Communication and Character.

The Character aspect is particularly important: to be honest, committed, empathetic and show kindness. One thing I have found in my volunteering is that there are some who like to stand on the side lines, not necessarily prepared to step up to the mark themselves, but instead be negative, critical and at times, nasty and personal. One of my friends on our walking weekend, recounted a heated meeting he recently attended, where he called it to a halt and stated to the attendees, “there are some people around this table, who think they are too clever to be kind.” I loved the phrase and hope some of those involved in the wider FM community should perhaps reflect on it too.

Finally as I have taken on the Chair I think of those of who have had an impact on my career and who are no longer around to see this milestone. I think particularly of Ismena Clout (previous Chair of BIFM and taken far too young by cancer) and Nazali Noor, who invited me to guest lecture all those years ago at Liverpool John Moores University and became an important friend in the profession over the last ten years. We lost ‘Naz’ last year and like Ismena, wanted to pay my respects and gratitude here to their influence and impact.   

(This blog is an expanded version of the “FM Voice” article in the October 2021 edition of Network 6 magazine. The views expressed are those of the author, not the organisations I represent).

Want to stand out from the crowd in applying for a new role?

Here are 5 key tips:

Having spent coming up to thirty years in the recruitment of staff, I hope that gives me some authority on the subject. The recent experience of needing to source new members of our rapidly expanding team at Thomson FM has highlighted some frustrations I have harboured for some time now, which I will try to summarise here:

Take your time & attention to detail : I do sometimes wonder ”why the rush?” when I have posted an advert for a job opportunity on Linked In and indeed.com, to then receive applications within a couple of hours. As you would guess, the CV and short covering note is generic and indicates their priority was to get the application in ASAP, instead of taking the time to investigate and understand what they were applying for. Also and yes it has happened with an alarming frequency, get the name of the company you are applying to correct as a starter, such as “Thomson FM” and not “Thompson FM”. In addition there really is no excuse for not doing a simple spellcheck and further checks before sending it.   

Understand what you are applying for: It is so rare for a potential candidate to show the initiative to contact me to ask for the job description to be sent to them, to assist in firstly understanding more about the role needing to be filled. A job advert/post never allows the time to fully describe the roles and responsibilities of the position, which any job description should provide.

Align the covering letter and CV to the organisation you are applying to and the opportunity: I struggle to understand why people don’t try to make their covering letter and CV bespoke to the position they are applying for. Why not review the job description and then make sure the CV reflects this and also stresses the relevance of your knowledge, skills and experience within the covering letter?

Research and evidence you have: The number of times I have asked the question at the start of an interview, “So tell me what do you know about us and what we do?”, only to be followed by, “Well I went on your website and did a little bit of research but not much and was hoping you could tell me.” The next few sentences invariably indicate they hadn’t spent too long on the website or anywhere else for that matter. That first question is the perfect opportunity to show how much they wanted the role and the time spent in researching it. Failing to invest the time to do that adequately alas, can set a poor tone for the rest of the interview, in my view.

Try to differentiate: to state the obvious, the job market is current so competitive; for example, this time last year we had 130 applications for our Office Manager role. Therefore, more than ever, within the covering letter, CV and interview there is a need to stand out from the crowd. How about for the next job you are applying for and are desperate to impress, you privately contact current employees of that organisation on Linked In and ask them what makes working for that organisation so special and rewarding in their eyes? Thus when you are asked why you want the role, you can evidence the time and effort you have gone to in preparing.

All this perhaps sounds so simple, but getting the absolutely basics right is so, so crucial.

Is the pace of change in FM a cause for optimism?

Reasons to be cheerful?

Does the facilities management profession have cause to be optimistic about the current pace of change within the industry? My view is definitely yes, but collectively, we still have much more to do.

If we rewind to around 8 years ago, I remember attending a ‘Think FM’ conference in London and one of the discussion themes was ‘Innovation in FM’. From memory, one of the speakers was presenting the fact that they had used Key Performance Indicators on their service contract, as a particularly innovative means of achieving service improvement. I remember having a discussion at the breakout with Simon Iatrou, then of i-FM and now of Magenta Associates. We were both bemused at what had been presented as innovative and I remember Simon shortly after tweeting a picture of a tortoise to question the speed of genuine innovation and change in FM at that time.

Currently, I think there three reasons to be cautiously optimistic about the pace of positive change. Firstly, the adoption of data led service delivery solutions and asset intelligence is gaining substantial traction at the moment. The exponential growth in technological innovation in recent years really is something to behold. Only last week, I was speaking to Josh Greibach, co-founder of Expansive Solutions. I have got to know Josh increasing well over the last couple of years and he talked enthusiastically about how business for their CAFM solution was currently booming; they are constantly seeking innovative ways to improve their product for their rapidly expanding client base, with new versions of their CAFM platform being released every couple of months.

Secondly, I think the gradual return to the workplace and the increasingly common trend of ‘hybrid’ working is asking more questions of how the workplace adapts to the changing environment.  Having lived in a household that has caught the coronavirus this last month, I am firmly of the opinion that we will be living with the virus and its variants for the foreseeable and the workplace and facilities management profession will be at the forefront within many organisations in discussing and implementing change in the workplace ‘experience’.

The final reason for optimism is the speed of professionalisation of the FM industry. It is so heartening to see so many people on Linked In talking in their posts of the FM training they are currently undertaking and those who are proudly displaying their certificates showing that they had attained the ‘IWFM Certified’ status. The journey to chartership for IWFM, although a long one, is another cause for optimism in professionalising our industry and gaining a higher profile.

The note of caution is that we do however have some way to go yet. Historic issues still frustrating exist, such as commoditisation. Last month I spoke to an organisation who had approached me two years ago for a fee proposal for undertaking compliance audits. As they were part council owned, they had to obtain three quotes and we lost out to the cheapest fee. Two years later they were back to request our help. The cheaper audit had been a disaster, not delivered what they wanted and had been a complete waste of money; they were back at square one. We must educate those assisting in procurement that the lowest price is not always the best; it should be about ‘value’ not necessarily simply ‘cost’. As my ex-colleague Lee Murfitt use to often say, “You buy cheap, you buy twice”. 

(This article first appeared as my “FM Voice” piece in July 2021 Network 6 magazine)

Are we too quick to pigeonhole people and fail to see their potential?

This month’s blog is slightly different to the usual facilities management related fare I try to serve up. To start, I wanted to pose this question: “in assessing the capabilities of our own people or in recruiting new members to our team(s), how quick are we to pigeonhole people?”

The theme of this month’s blog was initially sparked by an article I read on Linked In a couple of weeks ago. Journalist Laura Hilgers told the story of Ryan Lowry, an autistic 19 year old seeking a new job. What was remarkable about Ryan was his frankness about his autism and that employers would need to “take a chance” on him. However he urged employers to view the autism as a gift and not a hindrance. In the words of Laura, “There is a huge pool of highly qualified talent waiting to be tapped among candidates with neuro divergencies such as dyslexia, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, and Tourette syndrome.”

This article followed a brilliant television programme I watched a couple of years ago by naturalist Chris Packham, called “Asperger’s and Me” in which he told his own story and visited Silicon Valley and interviewed representatives of Google, Microsoft and You Tube, for example, who had accommodated those members of their workforce with different neuro divergence needs and watched them and their companies flourish.

To me the central question is are we within the facilities management profession encouraging enough to receive applications from neurodiverse candidates? Are our workplaces flexible enough to accommodate their requirements? As an organisation do you know enough about autism, dyslexia and Tourette’s, for example, and if not, should third party expert help be sought?

My wife is a teacher with a particular specialism for teaching neurodiverse children. Mainstream education sometimes can have neither the funding or understanding of how to accommodate, encourage and nurture such children and as a result, my wife and others specialise in teaching them 1-2-1, outside of the school environment. Within the workplace and day to day job activities, do we also show similar rigidity and that if someone does not “conform to the norm”, are they essentially written off? This was precisely the point Chris Packham made in his programme when he recalled his own education and early attempts to join the workforce.

This then brings me on to the second point of if we are too quick to “pigeon hole” people within our own organisations and essentially failing to recognise their talents and potential? I can speak from personal experience about this having been repeatedly passed over for promotion in a previous job, through a sham of an internal selection process and despite “business development” being in my job title for many years, I was referred to, in less than subtle, disparaging terms as “the salesman.” Geography also played a part and was also referred as the “one from up North”.

This month saw my promotion to the role of General Manager of Thomson FM, after a wonderful 30 months working as a facilities management consultant. I know I am lucky, as well as grateful to those who saw the wider talent that I had to offer. The lesson I take from this is that perhaps we also need to be vigilant with each individual around us and also with how we want to encourage those applying for jobs. Perhaps we need to broaden our views and the talent pools within our workplaces.   

(This article first appeared as the “FM Voice” article in the June 2021 edition of Network 6 magazine