FM Careers Spotlight Interview: Tom Page, Regional Director, VIVO Defence Services 

• What initially attracted you to FM and how did you get to where you are now?
• What projects have you been involved in where you have experienced real diversity in your role?
• What challenges did you experience through COVID?
• How do you think the projects you've worked on and the relationships you've built have impacted your organisation as a whole?
• What skills are the necessary skills for a career in FM, and how have you developed them?
• What advice would you give to someone looking for a career in FM?

Michelle: Welcome to our new FM Careers Spotlight series where we’re going to dive into the dynamic world of Facilities Management. This series aims to shed light on the diverse career paths within FM, engage fresh talent with the industry and provide insightful case studies. We’ll be exploring various different types of contracts, roles that professionals encounter in their FM careers and showcasing the sector’s broad spectrum of opportunities.

I’m delighted to welcome Tom Page, Regional Director at VIVO Defence Services. Let’s start on your career journey and find out how you got into FM. What initially attracted you to FM and how did you get to where you are now?

Tom: Of course. So it’s certainly been a rollercoaster, and a thoroughly enjoyable part of my career. I remember being told by some of my previous leadership, that you don’t choose FM, FM chooses you. That’s kind of stuck in my head. It’s an incredibly diverse work environment.

There are so many different avenues within the space of FM that can be explored. It’s not a finite area – you can go in and do something different within any given day. You can also explore and move within different parts of the delivery aspect. There’s space to grow your skillset in one organisation, which is quite unique to our industry.

I started my career as a Mechanical & Electrical Engineer working in my local area. I then found myself working at Babcock DynCorp on the British Air Force bases. During that time I was given the opportunity by the management to progress into the office environment and take on roles within work supervision as well as mechanical / electrical project management.

I must confess, initially I was a bit reserved around it as I quite enjoyed my role. But I did relent and take their guidance and move into the office. And it was the best decision that I made for the exposure to that environment. I spent approximately four years at Babcock DynCorp on the MoD bases within that space during that term of the contract.

I moved through four main roles, five different output of roles within that time. That for me really exposed how you can move within the FM space to grow your skillset. In one aspect, I was responsible for engineering resource management supervision. Next was mechanical projects and electrical fit outs for major construction. Then into energy and sustainability projects on a regional basis. Then back down to overarching operational management, looking after teams of project managers.

That diversity in my roles enabled me to move through my career path. That, and a really fantastic employer and line manager that gave me those opportunities. I don't honestly think that in different sectors you would be able to have that type of exposure to different areas within the same sector, so that was really enjoyable for me. It grew my appetite for the industry, showed me that I could really spread my skillset, growing myself as an individual and adding value to businesses within FM.

I then moved into Sodexo to help them mobilise hard services contracts – moving from quite a siloed environment on contracts that were very specific in nature to a very broad, very large business with much larger governance processes and exposure to the corporate environment, which was a real learning curve for me at the time.

Once I finished setting those contracts up, I moved to a smaller, small to medium size SME – ADI Group. I focused on the food and manufacturing and pharmaceutical environments which gave me a really different perspective on the business because that was a much more specific area of FM with the project delivery and engineering maintenance. And it was on a smaller scale, so direct into the customer, rather than through frameworks and larger agreements.

It gave me a real insight into the differences you can experience from a smaller organisation, especially with the approach around governance and process to a much larger organisation. It gave me that appreciation of how the market is so diverse, with the people who contribute to the market and deliver the services into our shared customers, and how the unique service offerings within those businesses can really support people in their career paths.

That time with ADI gave me insight into really specific high-risk environments within food and manufacturing and within the pharmaceutical sector which has added another aspect to my career and helped me through it.

While I was at ADI, I got the opportunity to move back into the MoD space where I am at the moment and have been for the past, just over, four years. I first moved to ENGIE, then through to EQUANS, and now  VIVO Defence Services. It’s an interesting environment. Very demanding, very challenging, but I do love it.

The client pressures in all aspects have different needs and wants, but that’s what makes this work really valuable. You’re delivering a product for your customer and you can go along with them on that journey. The military aspect certainly adds a quirk for myself, it’s thoroughly enjoyable. Over the past twelve years I’ve been able to expose myself to the whole system from the frontline engineering to the supervision, through to major projects, client negotiations, bid management, and sales.

It’s been a really enjoyable career path and I wouldn’t be without it at this stage, so I’m glad I made the decision, many, many years ago.

Michelle: Thanks for that, Tom. That leads us quite nicely into my next question, about the dynamic nature of FM. Can you describe a little bit more about the projects you've been involved in where you've experienced some of that diversity in your roles? And how do you prioritise when some of the unexpected challenges arise? Which I’m sure is a daily thing – particularly in the military environment.

Tom: It is a daily thing, but I would say it adds to the fun if I’m honest. While it does sometimes play havoc with the structure of the environment, it's what makes it enjoyable because it allows for that dynamic and agile approach to work. To be innovative and focus on the value add for our customers and clients.

What I've always tried to hold at the heart of what I do, and what the people that work with me and for me do, is that we are here because we have customers that need to achieve something they want, and they need our services within that. We are a people led business, so we don't manufacture stuff. We don't sell cars or parts. We provide services through our great people.

So client management and client expectation is a huge part of that, how we enable that. A large proportion of the other aspects of the role can be learned, can be taught, can be taken on that journey. But a significant part of that is how we engage with our people, and how we engage with our clients and how we understand their requirements. Once we understand what their pressures are, we can then adapt our process to suit and we can enable them on that journey.

In terms of some of the projects I’ve had involvement with over the years, one that's quite specific for me which was challenging but very enjoyable was when I moved into my current role.

Sadly, we had an instance where we had a poor position on the contract. We had a contract that departed in a poor state of play. We had quite a fractured team and resource with high attrition and turnover. We had a difficult maintenance set up and a poorly maintained estate. And we had very distrustful and unhappy clients at that moment in time. All of which certainly made for a very uphill challenge.

We spent a good 18 months of that initial engagement building back, brick by brick, that relationship of trust, and proving our delivery through working with them. We’re now sitting here four and a half years later, very much the same team, the same business, still under the joint venture, under the reprocure because we have that really close relationship with our client and our customer. They trust what we do. They trust what we say.

We’ve tried to embed that culture within the teams: What we do is know your customer, know their requirements, build the trust. Then take them on that journey. Everything else will come with that along the process.

It did take a lot of time. It took a lot of effort and pressure on the team and it was a lot of hard work. But as a team we are now able to sit back on that and look at the results of what we’ve reaped from that and the team can be proud of it.

We've now taken that approach forward to more sites across the UK so we can now bring that value add and that benefit to them as well. And that's what I enjoy. That's what the teams enjoy. We don't just see it as a job. We enjoy what we do. We love what we do.

This market allows the team to really grow their skills for the variety of outputs, from maintenance, to assets, to procurement, to commercial, to project delivery or engineering management. It's not a specific area, like a project in a consultancy area where it starts and it finishes, and then it's onto the next one. It's the same customer, it's the same relationship that might span decades. I've got some employees within my remit that have been on these sites for twenty-five years. They're there because they love being there and they're part of the operation that happens on these sites, and it's fantastic to see.

Michelle: It's that people centric piece, isn't it? And relationship building and trust. Like you say, that’s such a huge part of FM and clearly what you've been doing. I imagine COVID brought quite a challenge as you were partway through rebuilding those relationships then?

Tom: Yes. It was challenging timing to say the least. So obviously the maintenance operations we couldn't stop in that regard, we still had to operate. We just had to evolve to the new ways of working, our approach and working with our client.

Because of the nature of the environment, of our customer being the military, obviously they didn't go home. They were still there. They were still operating. We were essential workers - key workers - in that regard because we were maintaining the military establishments.

So it was a journey. We had to be flexible. We had to evolve with the process and do things better. Work around the challenges that we had. FM picks you, and it certainly tests you for what you can do. But the rewards are huge, and the opportunities are extensive for people to grow in the market.

Michelle: I think you’ve covered some of the points on my next question around impactful projects that you’ve been involved in and what you’re most proud of, and what you’ve most enjoyed. It’s clear you’ve enjoyed building the relationships, enjoyed the relationship aspect hugely, that’s really come across.

But how do you think some of those things have impacted the organisation and the industry as a whole?

Tom: I think what I’ve enjoyed most, certainly in recent history was moving through this most recent award, which went live in December 2022. We took an existing set up across three separate businesses which needed to be brought into one way of working – the same culture, the same ethos of how we approach our work.

There was obviously the TUPE process. There was a very large recruitment exercise that was undertaken. We’re still kind of within that process because it's only just over a year ago that we concluded, but that has been really fundamental to the future of this contract.

We’ve taken those businesses in together and brought them into one team. We spent a huge amount of time and effort retraining those individuals into our ways of working and helping them understand what our key focuses and key cultures are and how we can bring that value out to our customer. It’s been a fantastic journey to bring these people in. Within my operational sphere, there’s over 300 within that operational ownership. We've got some fantastic team members in that. I'm proud to say we've got some people I've worked with for ten, twelve years.

That’s partly because, ironically, FM is a big industry, but it's quite a small circle. And that’s fantastic because you get to know the people within the market and you get to work with these fantastic people. And bringing that to this contract, to our customer, bringing these new ways of working to a new generation of contracts with our new maintenance standards and our approach, has been a really great success for us as a business.

And we're not done yet. It is never a finished article. We've got another four years on this specific contract and more on our other contracts. There’s a long journey ahead for us, but we're always evolving.

Michelle: I’m really glad you brought up those points about the relationships again that you’ve got and that you’ve held for a long time. I think FM’s the best kept secret, isn’t it, from the people who don’t know about it and the younger generation, so it’s really nice to hear that.

I feel exactly the same. It’s a huge industry, but at the same time everybody does know each other in some way and you can really develop those relationships, and it’s nice to hear that from others in FM.

Coming onto skills, and what’s needed in the market there, what sort of skills and competencies do you think are essential to success in an FM career and how have you developed those? Obviously you yourself have come from quite a technical background.

Tom: Yeah, so I did come from a technical background and built my skillset on that foundation. That said, for me, honestly, is not necessary within the market. I do honestly believe that that client relationship, that people management is the absolute cornerstone of what we do. It is so important within this industry because it is so large and we have so many great people and some great talent, so we must surround ourselves with the best possible people for the best possible product for our customers.

How I’ve approached it with my team, and with myself, is to consider there to be a kind of three-legged stool within it. So there must be the technical cornerstone, the output cornerstone of your job. For me, what’s important, what I love to do is the engineering aspects, the building services. That’s what I enjoy. But it could be procurement or supply chain management. It might be commercial acumen, or financial management. Whatever specific area that is important to you, that should be one leg of the stool.

The other one is safety. Safety has to be at the heart of what we do. FM is a people business. We are responsible for people and the welfare of those people. So having that at the heart of what we do is a very key part of our business. Because we are responsible for people’s livelihoods, as well as our supply chain of employed people, so we must ensure that's part of what we do. So that's the second leg.

The final part for me is the soft skills element. The industry has moved, I’ve seen it over the past ten to twelve years, it has got better certainly from where it was when I moved into it. But for quite some time there was no real management around that soft skills side: how you would manage people, manage clients, how you manage conflict or negotiation.

And that, for me, is the big-ticket item. If you can’t manage people appropriately, you can’t manage client expectations, you’re not going to achieve what you need. So do your best to target that area and improve your skillset within that space.

There’s training available within each of those: for soft skills like management, you've got your CMI, you've got ILM training, you can really polish yourself as a manager and improve how you approach operational leadership, how you manage people, how you engage with people.

Within the safety aspects, depending on what level, you can move into your IOSH, NEBOSH areas to ensure that you're managing people and services safely within our space as a real key requirement.

And then have something that you love, have something that you enjoy, that is specific to you and to your job. So whether that be a specific output for engineering, whether it be supply chain or commercial, have that, which keeps you driven and interested in what you do.

And if you keep those three areas running, you create a really good foundation to drive yourself forward in your career. That's been my experience.

Michelle: That’s really good advice, Tom. Thank you for that. It’s definitely important to hook onto something that you really love as well as isn't it, and move forward with that.

So finally, can you give some advice to people on focusing their skills and training to anyone aspiring to a career in facilities management, and give your thought on any sort of trends or future developments you think we need to highlight more as an industry to people who might not know fully what FM is and what's on offer?

Tom: I think from a sort of personal aspect, the thing that I would recommend most is, don't be afraid to ask, please. Make sure you put your head above the rest. I would never coach someone to expect it to come to them – always be the one that targets the opportunity. Always be the one that runs as fast as you can forward.

Because you should do it. Do it for yourself. Chase the opportunity. Don't sit back and let it come to you. If you're passionate about what you do, go and grab it with both hands and do all you can. That's my biggest piece of advice.

I see it far too often that people, while they would like to progress, they don't actively target progression. So, if you simply put your head above the rest, then you've got a much better chance of progressing in your career.

In terms of the market, we do have a gap within the market because I don't necessarily see – and it might just be my impression – I don't necessarily see the recruitment actively within the FM market, it seems to be that people fall into the market.

So we have people that come from, maybe, a supply chain specialist or people that come from engineering specialists, and they kind of learn and evolve into the FM market from there. So it would be great to see a more proactive approach from the industry to really target how we get people into FM at the grassroots level.

So in with the schools, in with the colleges so that you don't necessarily have to go and work with a local company doing mechanical works, or in a consultancy. From the educational level, you’re saying: Why don't you explore FM? I don't think we do enough of that.

And it would be great to see, because we do have other markets that push that and go into those grassroots areas. We should do more of that, show young people the benefits and the career paths and the huge opportunity that sits within FM rather than what seems to happen, which is that people come into the wider jobs market, they create their specialty where they're skilled and then they are recruited into the FM industry. They don’t come in as apprentices.

That would be my hope, that as an industry we can really target at a ground level, in schools, in colleges, people to come straight into the market, to grow within the FM sector from the ground level upwards. And that would really secure our talent for the future, and our succession planning. That would be great to see.

Michelle: Yeah. I 100% agree with that, because I'm very passionate about that as well. And you'd expect me to say that, wouldn't you? As a recruitment business, we need to continue that talent flow into the sector.

Tom: Absolutely.

Michelle: So that's really important. And I agree, we're not always doing as much as we could as an industry on that basis.

Thank you so much, Tom. We’ve come to the end of the questions there, but I've really enjoyed listening to your story and understanding your career in FM so thank you for sharing it. That's Tom Page, Regional Director of VIVO Defence Services. Thanks again, Tom.

Tom: Thank you very much.