The immediate debate that has followed the BIFM’s announcement of a name change last week appears to have crystallised around the issue of taxonomy. We are already being asked to consider whether facilities management is part of the workplace ecosystem or vice versa and which professions – typically designated as IT, HR and FM – are best placed to become the apex beast in this particular jungle. The facilities management profession (or discipline, whatever) has spent the entirety of its thirty-or-so year existence immersed in a permanent existential crisis. It’s been tiresome for a long time but at least most people with any history in the sector are well prepared for the current to and fro that passes for debate on the subject.
The issue of whether the BIFM should even include the W-word in its title is already generating strong emotions. The idea that it shouldn’t is evidently a core belief for some people, so has been met with the reaction you’d expect to a thing they consider heresy. It is the Snopes trial without the worldwide interest.