In episode 168 of the Asset Champion podcast, host Mike Petrusky welcomes Carl Fennell, General Manager at Serco serving a client in the capital city of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). With over two decades of operational leadership experience, Carl is passionate about creating environments where people feel safe to think, speak, and grow. Mike asks Carl about his facility management career journey which led him to move from his home country of the United Kingdom to pursue an opportunity in the UAE. They explore the importance of combining technical accuracy with people-centered leadership in facilities and asset management today while emphasizing the need for professionals to take a deep dive into new worktech tools. Carl explains the UAE’s initiatives to deliver ongoing training and support for its nationals, and he explains some of the challenges that confront organizations as they care for the built environment.
Agenda
- Combining technical accuracy with people-centered leadership in asset management
- Managing high-rise buildings and total facilities management in the UAE’s demanding market
- Navigating skilled labor shortages through technology and strategic workforce development
- Leveraging IoT sensors, predictive maintenance, and condition-based strategies to improve efficiency
- Embracing technology advancement to deliver world-class facility management services
What you need to know: Facility and maintenance takeaways
Takeaway 1: Strong asset leadership combines technical accuracy with people-centered leadership
“I think for me being an FM and asset manager leader today, it means combining technical accuracy with people-centered leadership. I think it’s about understanding asset life cycles, risk, data, compliance, all that good stuff, but also recognizing that assets only perform well when the people maintaining them are supported, trained and trusted,” Carl explains.
He then emphasizes the value of a long-term perspective: “I think strong asset leadership today is about long-term thinking. It’s about aligning strategy, systems, and culture so that assets are safe and sustainable throughout their life, not just for the operation of today, if that makes sense.”
Takeaway 2: Skilled labor shortages make human capital management a critical challenge
Organizations face increasing pressure to deliver more with less while caring for aging assets and meeting higher expectations around safety and sustainability. In rapidly developing markets, finding and retaining skilled workers becomes even more crucial.
Carl paints a vivid picture: “Some of the challenges we face here, skill shortages, as you can imagine, when with the amount of construction, the amount of buildings, the number of buildings here, most of them high-rise, we need a lot of people to do the work that we do.”
But he also explores some of the nuances: “So it’s clear that it’s not just a technical challenge. It’s a human challenge for us. Buildings perform well when people maintaining them are supported and trained and empowered. Without that balance, long-term resilience is at risk, essentially, in my opinion.”
Takeaway 3: High market expectations require excellence in building performance and appearance
“The market here in the UAE is actually much more mature than it is in the UK. The expectation is massively high. There’s a lot of construction; there’s a lot of new build. There is an awful lot of expectation that the buildings need to stay looking brand new for longer,” Carl explains.
“And when you’ve got a city that is literally built up out of the ashes in over a 20-year period, compared to the UK, which is hundreds of years, it is very different.”
Takeaway 4: Technology enables efficiency and addresses workforce constraints
IoT sensors, predictive maintenance, and condition-based maintenance strategies make operations more efficient and help address skilled labor shortages by optimizing when and how maintenance is performed.
“You know,” Carl says, “I said a few moments ago that recruiting people can be a challenge. What technology does for us is it makes us a lot more efficient, or it has the potential to make us a lot more efficient. IoT sensors on buildings, using technology to do predictive maintenance, condition-based maintenance, that kind of stuff means that we potentially have less interventions on equipment, meaning that we potentially can run a building to a very high standard with less people.”
Takeaway 5: FM professionals must embrace and deep dive into emerging technologies
The future of facility management will be strongly influenced by technology, and professionals who invest in understanding and mastering new tools will position themselves and their organizations for success.
Carl’s advice: “I think our industry is going to be very strongly influenced by technology. So probably the one piece of advice I would give for the future or for up-and-coming facilities managers is embrace that technology, keep up to speed with it as difficult as that might be with the way that it’s moving forward, but definitely deep dive into areas of this technology that can really make a difference and really make you stand out.”
He connects technology mastery to service delivery: “And the organizations that you work for stand out and to enable us to deliver the worldclass fantastic services that all of us FMs want to deliver and that we do and that we strive really hard to deliver.”
Maintenance management insights
- Effective asset leadership today requires combining technical expertise in asset life cycles, risk management, data, and compliance with people-centered leadership that supports, trains, and empowers maintenance teams.
- Skilled labor shortages represent a human challenge, not just a technical one. Buildings only perform well when the people maintaining them are properly supported, trained, and empowered, making workforce development critical to long-term resilience.
- In rapidly developing markets with high construction volumes, client expectations for building performance and aesthetics are significantly elevated, requiring buildings to maintain a “brand new” appearance far longer than in more established markets.
- Technology solutions like IoT sensors, predictive maintenance, and condition-based maintenance strategies enable organizations to operate more efficiently with fewer resources while extending asset life through more intelligent intervention timing.
- The future of facility management will be strongly influenced by technology, requiring FM professionals to embrace continuous learning and deep dive into emerging tools to deliver world-class services and remain competitive in their field.
Do a deep dive into more asset management insights by exploring all Asset Champion Podcast episodes.
