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It’s surprising that the edict came from the tech industry, where competition for talent is fierce. But there it was, in a memo to all Yahoo! employees: “Beginning in June, we’re asking all employees with work-from-home arrangements to work in Yahoo! offices.” Estimates of the...

There’s a lesson to be learned from this year’s FMXcellence honorees, but the lesson may not be obvious. ( Click here to read about the honorees. ) This year’s honorees were recognized for very large projects or programs. The enterprise real estate group of TD Bank Group helped meet...

In our society, competition is everywhere you turn, from our political system and economy to sporting events and the television shows that pit singers, dancers, chefs, and even those trying to lose weight against one another. For facility managers, the natural human impulse to compete is like free cooling...

Anyone who thinks that cutting costs is the only reason to give employees less space should consider what Facebook did when it moved into the old headquarters of Sun Microsystems. Sun, one of the tech stars of the 1990s, designed its headquarters with private offices for software engineers. Not large...

It certainly wasn’t good news: There was a serious fire in my son’s residence hall, which forced students to evacuate at 4:30 on a Sunday morning. But I can’t consider it bad news that the university emailed parents within hours to let us know what happened. Sending that email was not...

I heard some really good news not too long ago. I was at a presentation for top executives, and the topic was sustainability. One of the speakers started describing tax deductions for energy efficient upgrades in buildings. The takeaway, and I quote: “You can pretty much get a tax deduction for...

In case you forgot to make a New Year’s Resolution, here are some retroactive resolutions to consider: Get more exercise. Save more money for retirement. Expand your network across the organization. Good ideas, right? And what better way to start 2012 than by resolving to improve yourself. Still...

When it comes to facilities, there are plenty of opportunities to complain — it’s too hot, it’s too cold, this is leaking, that isn’t working. But if you ever start thinking that no one notices the good things about facilities, consider the following thought from a software engineer...

Facility managers get handed so many problems that it’s no wonder some adopt a sort of fullback mentality. Take the ball, put your head down and try to plow ahead. That works, up to a point, but you take a lot of pounding along the way — from occupants, other managers, even top executives...