FM Careers Spotlight Interview: Gavin Johnston, Principal Consultant, Mott MacDonald

• How did you get into FM?
• Which projects have you enjoyed working on the most?
• How did you prepare for working in a PFI?
• What skills do you think are essential for success in the FM field?
• How big is developing relationships in FM?
• What advice would you give to any aspiring FM professionals?
• What would you say we can do as an industry to attract people into the sector a little bit more?
• What in particular do you love about facilities management?

Michelle: I’m happy to welcome Gavin Johnston to our F.M. Spotlight series, focusing on careers in FM. Gavin is a principal consultant at Consultancy Business Mott MacDonald. Gavin spent many years in the FM market as a contracts manager on hard and soft services contracts for EMCOR facility services, and MITIE working on lots of PFI schools contracts both for a local authority and a FM service providers before moving into your current role with consultancy business, Mott MacDonald. Gavin and welcome really delighted that you’ve been able to join me today. So I'd love you to share your career journey really into a FM, Gavin. And a little bit about, you know, how you got into FM. How did that come about in the first place? And then how you've moved from where you started to where you've got to now.

Gavin: Yeah, and thanks for the invite, Michelle. Yeah, I think my route into FM was probably not the traditional way that people would get into FM.

But nowadays. Rolling into it. It was literally falling into it. So, what’s happened back in the day is that we my father and I had a small business. and we were doing some work for Nissan back in the day, just when they’d just started up in Washington and in the Northeast.

Back in the 80s and we used to do some odd jobs for them, we’d take some rubbish away and bit of litter picking and stuff.

It all started from there really. It wasn't called a farm in those days, I think am building maintenance was probably its title back in the day. So facilities management wasn't a buzz word back in those days and we grew the business, we increased the staff and we ended up doing maintenance on the building.

So we had joiners, we had plumbers, we had litter pickers, we had gardeners. We did everything except work on the on the line which Nissan probably did themselves.

So it sort of grew from there. We worked well for about six years and then and as facilities management started becoming a buzz word, the contract was won by EMCOR And I was to be transferred across to EMCOR and that was probably my first insight into a true facilities management organisation.

And, I did learn a lot from them and, it's probably set us on the road to where I am now. Subsequently they lost the contract two or three years later and MITIE took over and I worked for MITIE for about a year before I decided to go and work in local authority.

So local authority were a little bit behind the private sector in those days. Probably nowadays as well. No disrespect to public sector colleagues.

So I started working for Northumberland County Council as a facilities manager. Doing predominantly soft services on schools and it's a it's a vast district in Northumberland County, sorry. And it was hard work because just the sheer size of the county makes it difficult to get round all of the premises that we've got.

So, following that, I was headhunted I suppose you could say from Mott MacDonald who needed somebody with local authority knowledge and soft FM experience, which I did have. So that started my journey with Mott MacDonald. Back in 2007.

So seen quite a lot from different angles, I suppose. Different types of contracts with the Nissan contract through to schools and working for the local authority as well as service provide. Yeah, I think I had to grow quite actually, because obviously and no disrespect to the business that my father and I had at Nissan. We were, as professional in ourselves, but we were professional organisation and then the EMCOR and MITIE were a little bit more professional. And then you come into the corporate world of Mott MacDonald and it's a bit of a culture shock.

But at the same time, a lot of our clients back in those days were local authorities. So I had lots of empathy with the people working in within FM in the local authority.

So it was what I had done at Northumberland County Council was good experience for us because I needed that empathy towards them.

Michelle: So I mean FMs known well isn’t it for its dynamic and diverse nature and obviously you've had some of that in the contracts and projects you've that worked on. Which would you say you most enjoyed if you could pinpoint and any of those and how would you say they've impacted the organisation that you've worked for and maybe the FM as a whole?

Gavin: I think the biggest impact that the industry had on me was probably the PFI market in the late 90s, early 2000 and whether you love or hate PFI, they had a massive impact on the industry.

And I think that the variety that brought whether you were working on a BSF schools or whether you're working on NHS PFI or wherever, the diversity was huge and the contracts were different.

And I think that helping a local authority are helping schools because it became very personal, because you used to meet up with headteachers and governors of schools and explain to them what was going to happen.

And then three or four years down the line, you would hand over a new school. And I think that was had a huge impact.

Michelle: How did you prepare for that? Was that a lot of learning on the job, you know, was there any specific training because if you've come out of that family business into a different world and then this huge world of PFI having to deal with, you know, lots for different stakeholders.

Gavin: I think the biggest thing that I had to do and I never had any formal qualifications in facilities management prior to working Mot MacDonald, but what I did do was at done a degree am at Sheffield Hallam University.

Who are pretty good at FM qualifications, and I got a degree in facilities management. And most of the things I learned on the degree I have used, but a lot of it was on the job, particularly in PFI.

You have to, you have to learn and adapt quickly and you have to show to clients that you know what you're talking about.

So it was a lot of reading back in the early PFIs until you got the knowledge and the experience but doing the degree and it was quite late in my life to do a degree was probably the most beneficial.

Michelle: Good and that probably leads us nicely on to talking about skills and competencies actually. What skills you think are essential for success in the FM field and how have you developed those as you've gone through your career as well as the degree that you've mentioned and other ways that you might have developed those?

Gavin: Yeah, I think in facilities management it's all about relationships and relationships with your client, which is key because you have to win the client over and you'll not always win the client over.

But if you have their trust, then that goes a long, long way. So I think you have to be a people person. And you have to show empathy, but you also have to show knowledge.

And you have to be strong sometimes because clients will try and walk all over you. But if you can explain yourself in a truthful manner they’ll normally come around.

I think common sense because a lot of problems that you get in facilities management if they're not a technical problem, then it's a practical problem.

So a lot of common sense needs to be used in facilities management to solve problems.

Michelle: Yeah, and I mean the relationship things just huge isn’t it? Because that will come up on every interview that I've done and that for a conversation and that I have in the market. It's thought about that and particularly now with PFI and their hand back process happening, that's a huge thing isn’t it?

And for people that don't really know the world of FM and newer people looking to come into that, that's a good message isn’t it? It's a big market. However I think it's easy to build relationships and to find people that will help and are willing to have a conversation.

Have you found that as you've moved through the different organisations?

Gavin: Yeah, I think you have to you have to you have to earn trust both with clients and with your staff. And once you've earned that trust, then people are more receptive to you. And I think it goes a big way in solving a lot of problems with your clients and with your staff internally.

Michelle: And I'd be interested in what advice you might give to any aspiring FM professionals and people that are looking to come in to the sector, you know, have an interest but don't fully know about it. Is there any advice you would give?

Gavin: There's two or three things that I would say is that you need to achieve the best qualification that you possibly can. I'm not saying everybody has to go and do a degree or a masters or anything like that, but achieve the highest qualification that you can in facilities management.

So when you talk to people, the think, “well, this guy knows” or “this lady knows what they're talking about”.

And that gives them confidence. And that's how you’ll respect I think nowadays as well, digital knowledge and digital know how because I think the digital act digitalisation is going to be huge. In the FM industry then over the next few years, I mean, I know we're already there, but not where we should be.

And there's a lot more things that we can use to get us ahead of the market. The other thing I would probably say is learn from your peers and people above you because life in general is all about learning from your mistakes.

And facilities management is no different and people around you and above you have made the same mistakes that you have. So it's learning from their mistakes and moving on.

And I think finally, the last thing I would say about people aspiring to come into FM is probably be truthful and always be truthful because you you’ll always get found out if you're not truthful.

And I think people, clients and colleagues will respect you a lot more if you just tell the truth.

Michelle: Yeah. And following on from that, Gavin, I guess, what would you say we can do as an industry to attract people into the sector a little bit more?

Because we all talk about it really being the best kept secret, don't we? And it really touches everything on a daily basis in all aspects of life.

You know, depending on whether you're thinking about health care or education or defence or whatever it is.

But I think perhaps pushing more case studies out there of the breadth of opportunities. Any thoughts on that?

Gavin: Yeah, I think when you ask most people do they know what facilities management is, they’ll probably say “no I don’t” or they'll try and make it up.

And if you explain that, it's the maintenance of the building and the cleaning and the cratering and they go “Ah right, that's facilities management”. So I think it's an awareness and I know people like yourself are trying, particularly on LinkedIn, are trying to make people aware of the FM industry and it's a sector that most organisations cannot do without.

In fact every organisation cannot do without it. And in the NHS, and I'm speaking for states and facilities colleagues that the clinical staff and consultants and doctors will get all of the praise truly.

So they should. But without the estates and facilities guys, the FM guys in the NHS, The clinical staff the doctors and the nurses and the consultants wouldn't be able to operate.

Michelle: Yes absolutely. And it's making such an impact isn't it.

Gavin: Yeah. Yeah. Facilities management has a huge impact on any industry.

Michelle: And I think you know sharing some, some of the other things for young people that are looking to come through around, you know, sustainability and ESG and social value and things of purpose that are interesting to young people as well.

There’s so much on that side as well as in there that perhaps we're not sharing those stories as much as we could be.

Gavin: Yeah. Social value in particular, because the facilities management sector do a huge amount of work and behind the scenes, and particularly on social value, but it doesn't get recognised.

A lot of people are very sceptical about it, about particularly in the private industry, FM giving something back, giving something to the community, even if the FM company don't do it for recognition, they just do it.

I think we have to shout about it from the from the rooftops.

Michelle: Yeah, I agree. And any final takeaways, Gavin then in terms of the career that you've had, that may be three things that you could tell us that you love about facilities management and why you would encourage other people to get involved.

Gavin: I think the diversity is really good. It's interesting and every day is different. In most cases, you get different problems every day that need solving.

And that's something that I enjoy. And what I also enjoys seeing people smile when they get a new building or a refurbished ward or whatever.

It's making people happy.

Michelle: Great. Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time, Gavin. I've really enjoyed listening to your career journey.