Michael Yorker is a Facilities Management Consultant with over 22 years of experience in facilities management. He specializes in risk mitigation, team development, safety, and relationship building. As a leading facilities management consultant, Michael has overseen the management, scaling, and renovation of facilities up to 150,000 square feet, including both domestic and international company relocations. Currently, he’s a Facilities Management Domain Advisor for Sensfix, where he provides insights for the development of a new facilities CMMS software.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Michael Yorker discusses the pandemic’s effects on the facilities management industry
- How has Michael been navigating safety precautions for different areas?
- The transition to remote work and other unique changes arising from the pandemic
- Michael shares his vision for the future of the workplace
- Facilities management software and how technological advancements have jump-started the industry
- Michael’s work at Sensfix and his favorite facilities management software
- Career opportunities in facilities management—and how to get started
In this episode…
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed workplace routines all over the world; however, there are some benefits that come along with those adjustments. Within the facilities management industry, what changes are taking place? What does the future of the industry look like, and how can you get involved?
Facilities management consultant Michael Yorker has learned how to navigate the many adjustments within the industry. From safety precautions to remote work, to new technologies, Michael has worked through the changes happening within facilities management careers—and he’s here to share his expert advice with you.
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens is joined by Michael Yorker, Facilities Management Consultant. Together, they discuss how life has transformed during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically within the facilities management industry. Michael talks about what it’s like to be a facilities management consultant in the age of the coronavirus, his favorite technological advancements, and how you can begin a career in the industry. Stay tuned.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Michael Yorker on LinkedIn
- Sensfix
- National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
- Grainger Industrial
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of 1000s of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties.
Greg Owens 0:21
Now, let’s get started with the show. All right, this is Greg Owens with the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we’re continuing our series and talking to facilities managers, property owners, business owners, and all the support services for that entire industry. This podcast is sponsored by my company McCarthy Painting. We do painting throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, both residential and commercial. We’ve painted for a tremendous amount of different companies. Some of them like we did, recently did some more work for Chase Bank. We’ve done First Bank, Abercrombie and Fitch, Zooks, Spin and many, many other companies. If you’d like to find out more about our painting services and what we offer go to McCarthypainting.com or info@McCarthypainting.com, and I’m really excited here to have Michael Yorker, Facilities Management Consultant. He’s been doing this a very long time and specializes in risk management, relationship building, safety, and team development. And welcome to the podcast. Michael, thank you. So I’d like to start off this is St. Patty’s Day, which is I’m Irish. And the company McCarthy Painting is Irish, right? My uncle started this company in 1969. And we come from a lot of long lineage of Irish, my grandmother was Irish, and she moved over here when she was 17 years old. How are you today on St. Patty’s Day?
Michael Yorker 2:11
Well, I’m trying to be responsible with the pandemic, staying indoors and just hanging out at home these days.
Greg Owens 2:19
Yeah, yeah, there’s been a lot of that. And working from home has been an incredible challenge for a lot of people. I know, there’s people in my office that they had one had to go back to the office. So we allowed her to go back because it was just too, it was just way too challenging to work from home. And, and I mean, we were talking offline here a little bit. And you’re you’ve been doing a lot of consulting in this last year and bouncing around the country in a lot of ways and looking at different helping. We’re talking like helping different businesses and facilities sort of meet the different compliance. What kind of challenges did you face over the course of the year?
Michael Yorker 2:59
Well, in the beginning of the pandemic, I mean, prepping offices for post COVID return has been a lot of my focus, originally back in, you know, a year ago, right after the lockdown it was, you know, supply finding sanitizer was, you know, like, next to impossible. Now, it’s now that we see the light at the tunnel with the vaccines and whatnot. When the numbers improving, I’ve been travelling around helping organizations get their remote offices, or their headquarters ready for the return. So getting the scanner set up, the temperature scanners getting their, the sanitizer stations set up, setting up social distancing, and everything that goes along with COVID as well as the changing the janitorial cleaning scope to increase the level of sanitize sanitizing, throughout the office, and so on.
Greg Owens 3:51
Yeah. And I thought it was really interesting because like you opened my eyes to it was that a lot of people aren’t realizing that they’re storing tremendous amounts of this hand sanitizer, that’s tends to be alcohol based. And it’s it’s flammable and alcohol when it catches on fire is extremely flammable, and you can’t really see it very well. So speak more about that, because I know that like this has been out there for a while now. And I don’t think everybody’s looking at that. as
Michael Yorker 4:17
well. As you store you know, flammable liquids or any chemicals, for that matter. You’re getting certain quantities, you need to have it an NFPA 704 diamond, and I think that’s under the NFPA. But, you know, I think right now, local agencies are turning a blind eye to it, but eventually because we have, you know, 20 or 40 gallons in some offices sitting in a pantry, you need to have containment, you need to have your NFPA 704 you need to have a proper fire extinguisher in that in that room because you’re continually storing flammable liquids. Yeah,
Greg Owens 4:53
I walked through early on in this as people were, you know, maybe it’s it was in month two or three as they were finding supplies. They were having them delivered to offices and they were dedicating an office to all the supplies, right? So there’d be there’d be a mountain of boxes in there of this stuff. But I don’t think they were thinking about the fire danger of it. So maybe this
Michael Yorker 5:13
early days, they were thinking about where can I get it? Right, right. Just
Greg Owens 5:16
securing it was so even for us, like, it was interesting, because I think I started seeing it early on in January, we started not being able to buy N-95 masks, right, we use them in our industry for dust, right, and we’re on a regular basis. It’s just something we’ve always had, and all of a sudden that the price skyrocketed everywhere. And there was none on the shelves. And you know, and that was that was like, uh oh, people are getting scared. And they’re starting to buy these things. And they’re disappearing.
Michael Yorker 5:47
Yeah, I was reaching out to my longtime vendors, you know, Grainger Global Industrial and my largest suppliers asking for, you know, Purell and masks and gloves, and they were just responding with a nice try. Were backordered, we’ll put you on the list. And eventually, I was able to, thankfully get it and even for my personal use, I did go out to Amazon and Wish.com and yes, I was paying the exorbitant prices.
Greg Owens 6:15
Yeah, we were even making we started making our own because we just looked up, you know, what, what the ingredients are and sort of bought the, we were buying the raw chemicals.
Michael Yorker 6:25
Yeah, earlier on hand sanitizer. early on. In my in my, in my personal pantry, I found a bottle of aloe and a bottle of 90% rubbing alcohol. And I made my own for a little while. And thankfully, I was able to get my hands on some proper sanitizer as I have a bottle sitting next to me.
Greg Owens 6:43
Nice. How have you, how have you navigated? Because I know even here in the San Francisco Bay Area, when I go with one company to another, they’re interpreting those same rules differently. Right. And it’s not all exactly the same. And it depends on their budget and their level of sophistication they have in their facilities management. But I can only imagine and I’ve also travelled a little bit in this last year, that other states I was just in Arizona over the weekend. And that’s like a free for all and so many ways compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, not as many people wearing masks. How have you been navigating those waters of like looking at the standards and trying to come in with, you know, ways that people can be COVID safe as they return to work?
Michael Yorker 7:27
Right? Well, what I’m finding most larger corporations that I tend to deal with are being very proactive and very responsible and erring on the safe side. I’m out here in California, you can’t walk in the front door without a without a proper mask. And you know, in December, I was in Austin, Texas. And like you gave the example it was a free for all I’m walking down the street and one out of every five people were wearing a mask, you go into restaurants and people were able to sit inside the restaurant and in you know, bars people were you know, some were wearing masks, some not. And then you go into other businesses like a barber shop and everybody’s wearing a mask. So it was really it was really interesting to see the change between California being very strict to Texas being not so much.
Greg Owens 8:15
Right.
Michael Yorker 8:15
So I I’m kind of waiting to see what the next few weeks entail. Now
Greg Owens 8:19
the Texas is removed their mask mandates and seeing what the numbers look like. They removed their mask mandates and they said all but no restrictions on almost any business to I think right like right,
Michael Yorker 8:30
it’s already gone. See? Yeah, there are 100% occupancy, indoor dining, but California announced I think today or yesterday, we’re doing we’re opening up indoor dining. I don’t know what the limitations are. I just saw it on the local local news.
Greg Owens 8:43
It’s great. Yeah.
Michael Yorker 8:45
And, you know, I’m hesitant, and I’m gonna err on the safe side, you know, I have yet to get the vaccine. So I’m being, so to speak a germaphobe
Greg Owens 8:59
rightfully so this is, you know, I’ve had friends that have gotten this COVID and no symptoms whatsoever, right. Like, yeah, and they were totally fine. But they were they tend to be much, much younger than I’ve had other friends that are sort of, you know, in their 50s. And they were knocked off their feet for a little bit, you know, a couple of recoveries and then definitely have lost a few people but they were much, much older. Yeah,
Michael Yorker 9:25
yeah. In my circle. Few former co-workers got it and thankfully recovered. My boyfriend got it and recovered. Unfortunately, he’s abroad at the moment. He went to visit family and then COVID hit and he couldn’t come back, but he’s coming back in August now.
Greg Owens 9:42
You have a timeframe now. That’s good.
Michael Yorker 9:45
Yeah, yeah. Now we have an actual timeframe. But yeah, he got it and my niece you know, got it and recovered. But you know, it’s, it’s a scary one.
Greg Owens 9:53
Yeah, yeah. We’ve even had employees that their family members got it, but they never got it which is really mind boggling. Because it was you think about how this this is so it can spread so easily, but then they are in the same household. And for whatever reasons, you know, it’s a mystery of why they didn’t get it, but their family got it right.
Michael Yorker 10:13
Yeah, I’ve heard that in a few cases where, you know, the mother got it. The husband didn’t the son and daughter didn’t. And they all live under the same roof. Yeah. So it’s, it’s very interesting how this is spreading out there.
Greg Owens 10:28
Yeah. And it’s gonna be I’m with you sort of watching what happens in Texas, right? Because it’s like it they’re leading. In some ways, it’s great, because they’re sort of leading the charge and opening up, and then we get to see, okay, does that actually does the number of stay flat? Do they go down? Are they going up there? You know, and I have a feeling they’re probably going to go up because, you know, there’s, there’s, it’s every time and it takes about two weeks to see that data? Right? About two weeks for COVID to sort of have that inset. So it’ll be interesting, right? The
Michael Yorker 10:59
incubation period?
Greg Owens 11:00
Yeah, yeah.
Michael Yorker 11:02
Yeah. I mean, it’s unfortunate. But you know, you know, I, you know, of course, I wish much the best for them. And for all of us out there, anything or
Greg Owens 11:12
anything that you’ve seen unusual in the different businesses and facilities that you’ve gone into? Because it sounds like you’ve gone into multiple different types of companies? Yeah, any, any, anything unusual or very specific to that industry?
Michael Yorker 11:27
Well, the last year, I mean, has been very unusual, and unforeseen. And we put a lot of different words in there. But the unique global experiment, as I’ve heard it called, everyone going remote made a lot of companies realize departments like accounting, finance, your technology departments, your know, your technology, engineering departments, your software programmers, your illustrators, who have been remote over the last year, a lot of companies I’m hearing are going to keep them remote sales, marketing, also can just stay remote. And depending on the client, and the critical nature of the client, so for example, a lab or a medical office, you know, they need to be in, you know, the critical function, critical functioning departments, I suppose they’ll stay on site, and they’ll return to work. However, the, the less, I don’t want to say less than necessary, but the the departments that are now comfortable working remote, I should say, are just going to stay remote. And from from a cost standpoint, for an organization, if I’m paying, you know, 20 40 50 $100 a square foot for real estate, well, you know, I can shave off all the real estate, all these all these folks, and they can work from home and, you know, come out ahead.
Greg Owens 12:47
Yeah, it’s something we’ve we’ve done a lot of painting for facilities that are giving up a floor or giving up a building, and we have to paint it to put it give it back to the landlord. Right and, and put things back together the way they before they came in. And yeah, same same thing. I’m seeing a lot of that kind of talk, especially with amongst my friends that have small businesses, they realized like, wow, we can really still be productive and work from home. And we don’t need to pay these expensive real estate prices in San Francisco.
Michael Yorker 13:20
Yeah, exactly. A few of my a few clients that I’ve spoken to that have had remote offices that those leases turned out over the pandemic, they decided just shut down. And the sales team is just going permanent remote. So yeah, there’s a huge reduction in square foot or the square footage costs, which on one hand, you know, if you’re a property owner, that’s, that’s scary. But yeah, it’s gonna be interesting to see what the next few years entail. And also on the residential side, a lot of these folks that are going permanent remote or realizing I don’t need to pay San Francisco rent, I can move to you know, Denver, Colorado, and Des Moines, Iowa or wherever they want to go. I’m I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day, I’m wondering how long that’s going to last and employers are gonna pay California wages to somebody that’s now in Idaho.
Greg Owens 14:12
Yeah, right.
Michael Yorker 14:14
40 50% reduction in their salary. And then are they going to then want to return back to the Bay Area and Silicon Valley? I
Greg Owens 14:22
have a lot of friends doing that right now that are that are being paid in San Francisco wages but move to much, much cheaper areas. And they Yeah, I think you have to prove their worth much more so right.