Boston, MA This year’s IFMA International FM conference and tradeshow—World Workplace, took place in Phoenix from October 16-18. IFMA’s flagship event is one of the most longstanding and well-respected conferences and expositions for facility management and related workplace professions. Held annually, World Workplace is an interactive conference focused on finding innovative, resourceful solutions to common facility challenges; gaining achievable strategies that will get the attention of customers, supervisors and colleagues; and sharing best practices for managing facilities, teams and projects.

Each year they celebrate the best and brightest within the organization at their annual Awards of Excellence. After IFMA Boston won Large Chapter of the Year in 2018, they were awarded once again. This time for excellence in professional development. IFMA Boston’s award submittal focused on the strides the chapter has taken to increase value for its facility management members by diversifying its programming including more options for peer-to-peer networking and programming that can be accessed anytime via white papers and webinars so the busiest members can still receive rich FM content. They’ve also assured that all programming aligns with one of IFMA’s 11 core competencies and have added a one day conference to help members stay on the leading edge of FM trends and technology. IFMA Boston’s inaugural FMForward conference was attended by more than 200 with 55% of the attendees being facility managers and was met with rave reviews. 

As a result of the changes the chapter has taken, and continues to improve upon, they’ve seen a 300% increase in facility manager participation across all programming with an average of 50% FM attendance at all live programming. And it’s for this, that IFMA Boston was recognized for their professional development achievements. 

Joy Shapiro, IFMA Boston president elect, was on hand to accept the award on the behalf of the chapter. IFMA Boston is the third largest chapter in the world and had more than 50 members in attendance at this year’s conference where IFMA Boston hosted a welcome reception and lunch. They were joined by another 50 attendees from New England. 

Interested in attending or participating in this year’s FMForward? This year’s conference will take place on March 31, 2020 at Bentley University. This year they are also bringing the 17^th annual Awards of Excellence to the conference. They are currently accepting submissions for speakers (20 minute tech talks and 60 minute case study sessions) and awards nominations—all on one easy form! Visit the IFMA website to download the call for submissions. All submissions are due at 5 p.m. on Friday, November 8^th.