Celebrating your Work!

Later when I grow up, I want to be a facility manager, something like that?

It wasn’t quite like that,” laughs Imke, who graduated in Facility Management from BUas (then NHTV) in 2010, “but I seriously knew at 15 that this was what I wanted. That’s pretty special, I always hear. I was in 3 havo and I visited one of those info markets. There I talked to a student - completely in tenue de ville - who was a student of Facility Management in Breda. I immediately liked it! I’ve always been a fixer. I also knew I didn’t want to do something in the field of economics or business-economics. I like to take charge. I had a job on the side at a clothing shop, was the oldest of the team working the evening shopping shifts, and pretty much arranged everything. It’s my character, I guess. In secondary school, I was involved in the Trix Theatre, playing along, but was always organising all sorts of things too.”

Taking to hbo like a duck to water, as you put it yourself?

“Sure, I didn’t want to go to university at all, which is why I didn’t opt for vwo. In havo I found the subject Organisational Science super interesting, but apart from that, I did just enough to pass everything. At hbo, I was a keen student all of a sudden. Not really, of course, but that’s how it felt to me. I liked everything and I was doing well. I did my taster work placement at a care institution, quite by chance. It immediately gave me a good idea of the versatility of the profession, because I was able to take part in all the disciplines. My first real work placement was at Efteling. I remember very well that on the first day I was given the phone and walkie-talkie by the facility manager and he said, just sort it out!”

And now at Park Zuiderhout in Teteringen. So back to care; was that a conscious choice?

“No. Not really. I have an enterprising mindset and after doing my graduation project at Chassé Theater, I went to uni anyway, but statistics was my stumbling block. Fortunately, I was able to return to Chassé, where I learned an awful lot in the facilities department, but in the end I had no career opportunities there. Nobody leaves there because everybody likes it so much. I did want to take that next step and started working at cleaning company Hofkens. I wanted to gain that experience, because cleaning is pretty much the biggest branch of the facility management sector. I was team leader in Operations; all the quotations and calls for tender went through me. As an account manager I went to clients throughout the country, and I was involved in certification in the fields of quality, environment and  safety.”

That sounds like you were performing a variety of jobs, and yet, you left there?

“After five years, I was done working on projects. I wanted to lead a bigger picture. I envisaged my ideal job in one area, like here at Park Zuiderhout, a small and independent care foundation that manages everything in-house and where I can build on all disciplines of the facilities profession. I indirectly have seven teams under me, but I am no longer involved in projects. My colleague Angela de Jong can do that much better. She was a fellow student of mine and is now Facility Project Manager here. We always jokingly say that we would never want each other’s jobs.”

What is your personal challenge in your current job?

“That’s twofold. Of course, every day has to run like clockwork here. Because we do everything in-house, we also have a lot under our own control, so we can deliver the quality we find important. People always see regular faces here who bring the laundry, who prepare fresh food, we really do everything ourselves. On the other hand, the challenge is to continue to manage costs in these daily operations, because there should also be room to innovate. Running cost-neutrally, that’s the challenge.”

So you are in the business-economics area that you had in the beginning of this story, aren’t you?

“That’s true what you say, actually I run a business within the foundation. And apart from Angela, there is no one else with a facilities background here, so I can’t really spar with colleagues in that area. So I have to look for that outside the gate. I have built up quite a network now and have some connections with whom I regularly have peer supervision sessions.”

Connections from your study programme?

“Not really, although I am still in contact with, for example, Marianne Korbijn and Wil Gooskens. I always have a BUas student on placement here. In that bizarre coronavirus period too, when BUas students were not allowed to go abroad for a work placement. Together with Wil Gooskens, I organised the alternative study trip to Park Zuiderhout this past year. There are always students who – for whatever reason – cannot go on a trip abroad. I invited them here and they were of significance to our residents in many ways for a week. It means a lot to me personally that I get to supervise students, that I get to show the new generation of facility managers what the profession can entail.”

And what do you show exactly?

“That Facility Management is more than supporting the primary process. That you can add something. Especially here in our mini-society, where we don’t just focus on care, but mainly on what people can still do. Celebrating life, we say. We try to add value with activities, good food, the philosophical café, life art evenings. The last one has everything to do with the history of this former mission house. Meaningfulness and spirituality have always been connected with Zuiderhout. Fathers and friars still live there, although there are fewer and fewer of them. That’s why there are plans now to renovate the mission house. There will be 40 new care apartments.”

A great new challenge for you?

“Challenges are always there. That coronavirus period comes to mind again, constantly switching  regulations, arranging sufficient protection products. A big advantage was that we had everything in-house; our facilities department managed to scale up and help out in teams where a lot of employees reported sick. But even now I still see plenty of opportunities, and I am thinking, for instance of the food policy, but also the sustainability policy. I am far from finished here. It’s so nice to be able to be meaningful in your work; that way, it really feels like celebrating your work!”

If you are curious about how it is like to work as a facility manager in the care sector, do not hesitate to contact Imke. She would love to talk about it some more. 

Her email address is: [email protected]

Interview: Maaike Dukker-‘t Hart