EFM KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE-SHARING


96% 72% 79% 71% 79% 50% 36% 31% 63% 62% 89% 52% 55% 65%


Technician (n=23)


97% 100% 94% 100% Problem-solving (2) 84% 85% 81% 84% 85%


93% 91% 73% 91% 77%


69% 86% 49% 76% 74% 78% 78% 78% 73%


83% 74% 72%


70% 72% 67%


Manager (n=37)


75%


Head of EFM (n=14)


85%


82% 77% 73% 93% 75% 66% 79% 42% 63% 52% 34%


89% Legal & Regulatory Knowledge (7)


89% 100% Resilience & Risk Management (3) 85% Communication Skills (6) 76% Organisational Skills (6)


45% Leadership & Team Management (2) 44% Financial Management (3)


38% Human Resource Management (3) 69% Collaborative Proficiency (10)


65% Strategic Management & Planning (8) 78% Data & Information Management (3) 82% Benchmarking & New Technologies (5) 85% Professional Development (4)


Director of EFM (n=32)


83% Technical Expertise & Experience (7) Auth.


Engineer (n=12)


Job Level (# of participants in sub-panel) Figure 3: A heatmap showing the importance of 14 knowledge areas to five sub-panels.


agreement, which is the percentage of participants who rated the knowledge type as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important to their job role. We averaged ratings within each knowledge area and used R’s ‘Pheatmap’ library to create the heatmap (see Figure 3), displaying average importance ratings across sub-panels with a colour-coded gradient, and clustering knowledge areas by similarity.


FINDINGS – Shifting knowledge priorities across different organisational levels of NHS EFM This section identifies the following overarching categories: (i) cross-functional, (ii) regressive, (iii) progressive, and (iv) expert knowledge areas. To enrich the quantitative data and underline the observed trends, we use qualitative comments from participants. Firstly, the study identifies five essential


knowledge areas across all organisational levels: Problem-Solving, Legal & Regulatory Knowledge, Resilience & Risk Management,


Expert (AEs)


Benchmarking & New Technologies


Trust-external Trust-internal


Financial Management


Strategic HR


Management Tactical


Leadership & Team Mgmt.


Strategic Mgmt. & Planning


Collaborative Proficiency


Data & Information Management


Operational


Figure 4: Summary of identified knowledge priority patterns (in red) across organisational levels of EFM.


48 Health Estate Journal February 2024 Regressive


Legal & Regulatory Knowledge


Resilience & Risk Management


Organisational Skills Problem-Solving Communication Skills


Professional Development


Technical Expertise & Experience


Communication Skills, and Organisational Skills. These areas are deemed very important by over 70% of participants for their daily tasks. Yet, within these, some skills, such as Negotiation (part of Communication Skills) are less prioritised at the operational level, with under half of Technicians rating them as important. Therefore, it is imperative to prioritise ongoing learning, even in fundamental areas such as Communication Skills, as there is room for growth in advanced abilities as EFM staff advance in their careers. The current absence of dedicated training programmes for such skills was underscored by a Director of EFM, who noted that communication skills ‘should be a core skill of any in-house estates manager, [but are] not something taught on surveying/estates-related courses’. Secondly, we identified five progressive


knowledge areas crucial as EFM professionals ascend the organisational hierarchy: Leadership & Team Management, Financial Management, Human Resource


No priority


Environmental & Sustain. Awareness


Importance of interdisciplinary collaboration Collaborative Proficiency stands out as a vital knowledge area for both Managers and Heads of EFM, reflecting the significance of interdisciplinary and interorganisational collaboration. A Head of EFM reflected that ‘to plan any strategy we need to link with colleagues in other fields not just restricted to ICT, Finance, and HR, but clinical colleagues, too’. Despite this importance, another Head of EFM emphasised that they often feel that collaboration is ‘more important to me than perhaps the team’. Managers, however, expressed challenges, since there is ‘often limited time to network with [peers] and share learning’. This discrepancy becomes more striking at the Director of EFM level, where – surprisingly – there is reduced emphasis on collaboration, despite the NHS’s push for strategic alignment among regional Trusts through Integrated Care Systems (ICSs). Interestingly, Strategic Management & Planning does not have the highest perceived importance at Director of EFM level, but at the tactical level – something underlined by a Head of EFM highlighting that ‘some top management wouldn’t know how to write [reports], so it’s easy to push responsibility to lower grade staff’. Financial Management stands out as the most important for Directors, aligning with their significant role in budget management, and possibly because many Directors of EFM do not sit on the Trust Board, but report through the Directors of Finance. However, a Director of EFM pointed out that these organisational structures can lead to ‘a conflict of interest, since the Director of EFM is also our Finance Director’. This can impede the ability of EFM teams to advocate for and secure funding for state-of-the-art technologies.


Percentage Agreement 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%


Management, Collaborative Proficiency, and Strategic Management & Planning. The importance of these areas was rated highest at the tactical level. For example, Leadership & Team Management is most crucial for Managers, but diminishes in importance towards Director level. This trend might be due to Managers having more immediate supervisory duties compared with heads of EFM. However, a Manager highlighted a lack of preparedness for such responsibilities, saying: ‘I often need to lead without being a line manager… That is an area some people struggle with [and which] needs better understanding.’ In contrast, Human Resource Management is most critical for Directors and Heads of EFM, who handle staffing budgets. While some Managers view HR knowledge as useful, but are reliant on HR specialists for support, a Head of EFM contrasts this by stating: ‘We do HR planning ourselves without HR involvement.’


Cross-Functional


Progressive


Knowledge Area (# of subordinate knowledge types)


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