Beyond Buildings: Exploring Facilities Management

Brian Gregory [00:00:00]:
You. Hi, everybody. This is your host Brian for the Beyond Buildings podcast, where we meet innovative and inspiring facilities leaders from across the country. In this episode, I chat with La Shawn Harrison who is a board member for the Women in Facilities Management organization. She is an award-winning facilities management professional with over 24 years of experience helping global companies manage, design and develop workspaces. During this episode, we cover the importance of diversity in the works space to create a strong and resilient culture. We also dive into the importance of gaining facilities management certifications to grow your career. La Shawn is truly an inspiration, and you won't want to miss this one.

Brian Gregory [00:00:34]:
Let's dive in. Hi, La Shawn. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for making the time to speak with us today. I just figured for our audience to get things started, why don't you just give us a little bit of your background, how'd you get started and what are you doing today?

La Shawn Harrison [00:00:47]:
Sure. Just to tell you a little bit about my back ground, I have kind of an interesting journey, as most people in my industry do. I started off academically in architecture. I was majoring in architecture, and then I pivoted and changed to interior design. So my degree is actually in interior design. I began working in home building and moved to the Dallas area where I worked in tenant design and development, which is designing and fitting up spaces within class A office buildings is what I was doing and always seemed so interested in the property manager and what the property manager and the construction managers were doing. So interested in that. And then after the economy was really hit and many people were laying off and I was included in that layoff wave, I decided to go to Brazil and teach English for a little bit.

La Shawn Harrison [00:01:41]:
So after I went and taught English, I returned to the States and I landed a position with a property management company. So it just worked out really well. I worked with them for a couple of years, but my goal was always to get back to Dallas because I love Dallas. At the time, I was in Oklahoma City, where I'm originally from, but my goal was to get back to Dallas, and so I did, and the position was with a Dallas company, but they wanted me to go to Austin to train, and it was for a space planning position as part of a facilities team. And so that's why I entered the world of facilities management. That was 16 years ago here in Austin, and I'm still here. And so facilities management for me became the perfect marriage between interior design and property management because we're doing both of those things every single day. At least I am, as a space planner.

La Shawn Harrison [00:02:30]:
So that's how I ended up in the world of facilities management.

Brian Gregory [00:02:35]:
That's great. Yeah. And what the journey right from here to Brazil to teach English and then back. Yeah, well, that's awesome. It's kind of know as you got deeper into know facilities management mean, let's face it right now, that industry is historically dominated more by men. And so how has that been as a woman entering that industry?

La Shawn Harrison [00:02:54]:
It was interesting. It's not something you notice immediately, and sometimes you're interested in position. You pursue that position, and when you land with the company, you take a look around, and then you realize the demographics, and you realize, hey, wait a minute, I'm the only woman sitting in the space. Sometimes it's not immediately noticeable, but it is. And it's changing, though I've noticed it's been changing quite a bit here lately where it's not just women being part of the team, but I'm seeing a lot more women leading the team.

Brian Gregory [00:03:26]:
Yeah, that's great. Well, and certainly it takes commitment and courage to kind of be the first woman leader in some of those areas and then others follow. Yeah. So just kind of curious, other than obviously noticing the gender piece there, have you faced any certain challenges like transitioning from the background in interior design and architecture to more of the space planning and facilities management?

La Shawn Harrison [00:03:47]:
I think the biggest challenge would be coming into a new organization where they don't understand your background. So when I start meeting with construction managers and I'm questioning the construction schedule, I'm questioning their methodologies and some of the techniques that are happening, I'm looking at their punch, and I'm walking, taking these walks with them, and I've seen them kind of have a confused look. Who is this woman, and why is she questioning all of this when they don't understand? I've had a background in construction, in working in tenant development and design, as I did in Dallas. I worked from concept to design development to the actual build out. I was the one who created the construction documents, so I had to make sure it was being built according to my specifications. So I worked very closely with construction all the way up to post Occupancy to make sure that everything went smoothly. So I've had a background in construction, and of course, like I said, academically, I have a background in architecture, so that's been there for years. It's just when they hear a title like Space Planning, they don't understand the depth of my expertise or the background and the history of my skill set.

Brian Gregory [00:04:58]:
It's really well stated, La Shawn. It's interesting hearing everybody's journey to get to the career that they're in now. There's so many different paths that folks can take, and often going like a non standard path can sometimes bring other strengths. Like, I recently had a podcast with a gentleman that was a high school educator and then a principal and now is a facilities director for 4 million. That's not quite the journey that you would expect, but it's actually brought some unique insights and can't help but think that the same has been true for you.

La Shawn Harrison [00:05:28]:
It has. And I was just going to say and actually when that happens, it happens quite often. It helps with cross training across the board with the whole team. For example, I had a manager who came into facilities management with a finance background. So she worked with some firms like Ernest and Young and people like that, and she ended up just acquiring the facilities team and she learned from there. So she didn't have my background in real estate or architecture, but then she taught me so much about budgeting and cost management and so that's how those skills start to kind of broaden where you came in as this one thing and then next thing you know you're wearing 15 different hats.

Brian Gregory [00:06:10]:
Yes, I can relate with that. My background was in engineering, and now I don't do much engineering. It's working with people and it's all great, but it's different for sure. Well, yeah, I guess moving on from there, if you think back to the work that you're doing in facilities management, can you think of a particularly challenging situation that you've encountered or what are some of the common challenges and how you address it?

La Shawn Harrison [00:06:30]:
Some of the common challenges, I think, as I mentioned before, and not just for me, but for some of my colleagues as well, a lot of times people in other parts of the organization or vendors question your expertise. A lot of people view facilities management as a low skilled department, not highly degreed or highly certified. So that's one of the challenges we encounter all the time, is people questioning our expertise or not valuing it. So that's one of the challenges. And one kind of funny thing that I ran into is the story that I tell, and I think I've told this to you before, is just assumptions that are made. And assumptions are made every single day inside the workplace. Outside the workplace. But as being a woman in facilities management, I got hired by a company and they were really excited to have me there.

La Shawn Harrison [00:07:22]:
And one of the first things they did is call a meeting and bring me in to give me a project. They were looking to standardize their quiet rooms, which many of them were existing as mother's rooms. So they still wanted to keep them functioning as mother's room, but they needed to improve them. And so one of the first things they wanted to ask me is what did women need when they were lactating? And so my response was, well, I can look into that and let you know I have no idea. And so the assumption was, because I'm a woman, I understand pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. And that wasn't the case with me. I could see on them visibly, they were really embarrassed by making that assumption. But those are things we have to be careful of.

La Shawn Harrison [00:08:07]:
But the more diversity we have in workplaces and just trial and error. Sometimes we just have to bump our head through experiences like that. But the more diversity you have in a workplace, it helps minimize situations like that.

Brian Gregory [00:08:19]:
I remember another female facilities leader was sharing a story at a conference I recently attended and she had just been promoted to chief operations officer for a very large school district. And she was walking around with her direct report, who happened to be a male and had been with the district for many years, I think three decades. And as they walked the buildings, it became obvious that everybody thought that she was his secretary. But in fact, she's the chief operations officer for the entire organization. So it's just one of those things where those assumptions often are incorrect and digging deeper is important. Just going a little further. So you mentioned kind of the strength of having diversity in organization and obviously gender is only one part of that equation, I guess. Throughout your career, have you seen any changes around diversity and maybe some success stories where diversity has increased and the organization has flourished because of that?

La Shawn Harrison [00:09:09]:
I have, and I think it's not so much presence, but recognizing the presence and providing space and room for it. For example, in one position I was know of course, Janitorial was part of facilities and in the Boston area there's a very large Brazilian population and they were noticing that there were some inconsistencies in service, there were some mistakes that were being recorded. Someone took the initiative to say, well, maybe we should give instructions and directions in Portuguese and English and so like yeah, that would help. I mean, of course we see a lot of bilingual communication here in Texas, but it's English, Spanish. But in this case, where the population was a little bit different, they took the initiative to say, well, we need to meet them where they are in their language and to make sure that everything is being communicated clearly, we're meeting safety requirements. And that did improve quite a bit after that.

Brian Gregory [00:10:04]:
That's great.

La Shawn Harrison [00:10:04]:
So that's just like an example of recognizing an area of diversity that's not receiving the attention that it needs.

Brian Gregory [00:10:11]:
Yeah, as you think through, that's a fantastic example. Have you seen anything else just to create a more inclusive environment along those lines?

La Shawn Harrison [00:10:21]:
The only other thing, and I mentioned this earlier, this is not really a new trend. This is something that's been happening quite a bit, is just the addition of prayer rooms to a lot of facilities where that is a huge part of many cultures around the world. And now the workplace becoming so diverse, extremely diverse. Being able to meet people's needs in that manner is huge as well. So providing a space where they can continue on with their daily culture, which is embedded in their daily life and be able to do that throughout the workday, I think is another way of addressing diversity. In the workplace.

Brian Gregory [00:11:00]:
Yeah, that's know, in addition to roles that you're currently serving, you also are the leader of Wyfam. Would you like to do a little plug for supporting Wym?

La Shawn Harrison [00:11:10]:
Sure, yes. I'm a member of the board of directors for Wifam, which is Women in Facility Management. It is the only organization that serves this population in our industry, and it provides training, support, and mentorship to Women in facility Management roles or women looking to enter the industry.

Brian Gregory [00:11:29]:
That's great. And for all of our listeners, if they want to get involved, how would you suggest they do so?

La Shawn Harrison [00:11:34]:
The best way is to visit our website, which is Go, like Geo. Go with them. W-I-F-M like in Mary.org. So visit gowitham.org, take a look at the site, click on the different pages, read through our information, and I do encourage you to join. Currently, membership is free. That may change in the near future. So I would really encourage you to take advantage of an opportunity now to join our organization for free and to get connected.

Brian Gregory [00:12:04]:
That's great. Definitely make sure we get that word out for that, I guess along the same lines as you've encountered other material, whether it's books or articles or other websites. In addition to Wifam, is there anything else you would recommend to our listeners that are interested in deepening their understanding of facilities management and diversity in the industry?

La Shawn Harrison [00:12:23]:
Sure, there's a few things I can think of. Most of them are on a digital platform, I would say also plug into IFMA, the International Facility Management Association. It's great. It is truly around the globe. There is every year a huge worldwide conference, which is happening this year in September in Denver, Colorado. This organization offers training and certification as respected by all industries, a lot of support and networking. Personally, they have supported me professionally in huge, huge ways. So I do definitely recommend that you connect with IFMA.

La Shawn Harrison [00:13:01]:
I would say also if you're on social media, take a look at some of the facilities management influencers, people who speak quite a bit about facilities management. If there's someone who piques your interest or you really resonate with them, reach out to them and have a conversation with them. Also, I would suggest follow the hashtags. And if you know someone personally that you've encountered in your day to day, whether it's a college professor, someone who works within your organization, or someone you've met at a networker, schedule some time to sit down with that. Person and ask them pinpointed questions about what they do, what their daily life looks like, what are the benefits to the career, and what talents and skills do you have that would translate into a career in facilities management?

Brian Gregory [00:13:48]:
That's great. Well, one of the things too, I just wanted to hop on to La Shawn. Earlier we were talking about some of the challenges you faced as a facilities management professional. You mentioned sometimes there's misconceptions about the level of sophistication and education that folks in the facility management profession have, which we all know is incorrect. But how have you seen folks overcome that? Or how have you overcome that in organizations that you've been a part of?

La Shawn Harrison [00:14:12]:
One of the ways to overcome it is to get certified. Say, for instance, many people in our industry do not have college degrees, but they have a ton of experience. So that experience translates into certification. And if there is a certification available in facilities management as a whole or in a certain subject area, I would ask you to really look into pursuing that certification, because it's just one of those ways to tell your organization and tell the world you are an expert in that subject matter. The other thing I would say is just market yourself. Tell people, don't be shy if you have a LinkedIn profile list, what you're an expert in. So people know that a lot of people don't know. And some people work next to you every day and don't know.

La Shawn Harrison [00:15:04]:
So voice that digitally, voice that in meetings, maybe even hold a little brown bag lunch or a quick little educational session or a Ted Talk at work is speaking to things that you're an expert on. So people know that you're the go to person.

Brian Gregory [00:15:21]:
Or speak on a podcast with me.

La Shawn Harrison [00:15:23]:
There you go.

Brian Gregory [00:15:25]:
That's great. I think sometimes too, the whole concept of communication, right? You can have interdepartmental communication, but then as you go across departments, you can kind of lose sight of it. And we've heard from others sometimes that getting the facilities team more visibility, especially if you're the leader of a team, getting your team recognized. If you're in a private organization, getting them recognized by the leadership of that organization. Or if you're in public education, getting them in front of the school board, for example, can just go a long way to mending that fence, right, and just building confidence in the team.

La Shawn Harrison [00:15:54]:
Yes, recognition is huge. I'm so glad you brought that up. Just to give you an example, one thing I've been passionate for, for years is accessibility and accessible design. And here in the state of Texas, we've taken the Ada a little step further, and there's the Texas Accessibility Standards, and they have actual registered accessibility specialists that they will license through the Texas Department license and regulation to help different organizations, firms, companies, to help them make sure that their construction plans are compliant to the standard. This is something that I've been so passionate about that I decided this year to go ahead and go for my license. So I only have one step left before I receive my license, and I will be a registered accessibility specialist. So that's a way of taking your passion and turning it into a certification. And in this case, I'm an actual licensed professional just to help impact the industry a little bit more.

Brian Gregory [00:16:53]:
Yeah, that's absolutely fantastic. Cool. Well, I know we're coming up a little bit here on time, but before we wrap up, you've given us great advice so far, but if you think about other listeners out there, and specifically women, but it could go broader than that. But what advice would you give somebody looking to enter the facilities management industry?

La Shawn Harrison [00:17:11]:
The advice I would give them is to look at what they have that they could bring to the table and understand that there may be a huge gap that they could fill. Learn as much as you can and understand it's extremely broad industry, and if you're interested in the industry, pursue it. Don't look at where we are today, but imagine where we could be in the future and every day that we don't have you in a role, performing with your highest potential, using the skills that you have, your natural gift, that's a day that we're suffering because we don't have you.

Brian Gregory [00:17:47]:
Wow. That's perfect. Well, I think that might bring us to time here. LaShawn, I do just want to thank you again from the bottom of my heart. Great content here. I know the listeners are going to love that. And just thank you.

La Shawn Harrison [00:17:59]:
You're welcome. Thank you for having me.