Actually, your schools have been teaching little and big parts of it for years.

All classes involving communications, technology, math, science, ecology, social studies, psychology, career pathways, capped off with any technical education classes that teach students how things are designed, made and maintained. The Facilithon represents the liberal studies of the built environment. So, while you may not be teaching a specific class in facility management, succeeding in it is derivative or their entire coursework experience. A facility manager can remediate an emergency, negotiate a service and know that studs are 16” on center, like a Swiss army knife.

A student’s schooling will help their future and there is something else. We’ve discovered that Four sets of attributes, coupled with some school-learned skills makes a great candidate for long-running success. We’ve found that students who answer “yes” to these really soar.

If a student is a people-person and finds the built environment interesting, this student has passed the first test.

In order to be a good facility manager, one needs to like problem-solving, another key litmus test.

The Facility Management career is intriguing, because facility managers do something different every day. Shifting needs and tasks mean a facility manager is always changing, always learning. Incidentally, they learn a lot of their role on the job, specific to the buildings and organization they’re serving.

The ability to take charge on the fly is an ultimate signature of an excellent Facility Manager. Because one is doing a lot of different things and is responsible for the building in cases of emergency, students who can think, run and chew gum at the same time are perfect candidates.

We can qualify them for you. Facility managers work in these competency groups:

• Communication
• Emergency Preparedness and Business Continuity
• Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability
• Finance and Business
• Human Factors
• Leadership and Strategy
• Operations and Maintenance
• Project Management
• Quality
• Real Estate and Property Management
• Technology

Go to our student page with your student and go to “get good at Facilithon”.

Watch the videos that describe the career, check out the links to associations that support the field

Have your student(s) take the Practice Facilithon Test

1. A 50 question common-sense quiz that uses real-life examples a high school student may see in their daily life, deductive reasoning and problem-solving
2. A case-study role-play that your student can read and come up with ideas on. It’s a facility-management related story that lets the student come up with solutions to share with you, their instructor. Students normally get 15 minutes to read this prior to their role-play.
3. The FM Challenge is a one or two-sentence emergency scenario that the student has just 3 minutes to read and respond to, sharing solutions with their role-play judges.

Students may also role-play with Facilithon’s student liaison coach where an instructor isn’t available.

As an instructor, you’ll personally find that the quiz, scenario and FM challenge are fairly easy to understand. They’re designed to engage a student in the built environment and help them begin to think like a facility manager.

As the Facilithon competition grows across the country, it will become a demo-competition first, followed by regular status upon meeting required SkillsUSA benchmarks.

Talk with our Facilithon Student Liaison to learn where programs are that your student can attend.

You do directly teach parts and elements facility management particularly if you’re in technical education or related to any of the courses above.

Let them try it, it can’t hurt. Some states will allow students to take the Facilithon in addition to a skill competition.

Facility managers love their jobs and until recently, it was a Destination Career. Students who had the attributes listed above eventually “fell into” the job after years in a trade or other role. Today, students can participate in the Facilithon, go to college or tech school and work in the career early with chops most current FM’s never got. Placement out of colleges is nearly 100%, as the opportunity well outstrips the number of students available. Some students go directly into facility management through facility maintenance and repair tracks.