Country: Ireland

Razvan is an FM Contracts Manager within Ireland’s Leinster region, ensuring customers are delivered with a full suite of hard and soft services, overseeing planned and reactive maintenance and delivering operational requirements in line with contractual KPIs and SLAs.

As part of our World FM Day celebrations, we wanted to do a deep dive into Razvan’s FM career and journey, to provide insight into the industry and inspire the next generation of FM professionals.

Razvan’s journey, like many others within the industry, started as a frontline operative within cleaning. It wasn’t long before his consistently high standards were noticed, and his career progression started. After a few months, Razvan became a supervisor, then an industrial cleaning manager, an area manager and then a regional manager. It was at this point he joined OCS, as a cleaning contracts manager.

“My contracts were both standalone cleaning services and part of wider TFM contracts”. It was at OCS that opportunities opened up for career progression. As a global FM provider, the size of the OCS business provided the opportunity to work alongside different disciplines within the same organisation, allowing Razvan greater collaboration and learning.

“I worked closely with my colleagues from the FM team, and began to learn more about the FM operations”. FM operations might have been a new area for Razvan, but he quickly knew that it interested him and was something he wanted to explore. As his interests and experience grew, Razvan jumped at the opportunity to become an FM contracts manager last year, “It was the use of innovative systems and the technology supporting a customer’s entire building that appealed to me”

Razvan’s continued inspiration comes from the collaboration between other business units, contractors, and the customer, and being the individual responsible for overseeing the whole contract and ensuring the best outcome for the customer.

The transition in any role can be challenging, having the necessary support structures in place is vital for development and progression. Razvan is grateful for the support he received and attributes his success not just to the training and development provided by OCS, but also to the close mentorship individuals provided in the early stages of his new role.

“OCS provided me with a comprehensive training plan including online, onsite manager training courses and external training identified by management. My biggest support though, was the mentoring and coaching I received from my manager. They put the time in to ensure I understood every aspect of the role, from the operations, financial and business development side. This gave me the confidence I needed to make decisions and use my initiative, knowing my manager was there to support and advise me.”

This year’s World FM Day is themed heavily around inspiration, and driving people towards a career in FM, and Razvan was keen to highlight the benefits of an FM career. Although he admits it’s a little cliché, Razvan points out that no two days are the same and that satisfaction continues to inspire him every day.

“FM is a very attractive industry, you will learn something new and unexpected every day. You’re always connecting with new people, and the sense of achievement you get from the job is what I love the most. You will never regret choosing a career in FM, it was the best professional decision I made.”

The future is bright for Razvan, and in his opinion the FM Industry too, with an increased focus on carbon reduction and sustainability, he believes this will continue to drive innovations within FM. ”Everything needs to be considered, the most minor aspects, reducing paper usage, greener lighting, energy usage, travel reduction, waste collections, the list goes on. But this is what makes FM such an exciting space to be involved in right now and into the future.”