Most senior FM hiring failures are not caused by a shortage of candidates. They happen because decision quality collapses under pressure: roles drift, criteria blur and activity replaces judgement. Organisations that hire well decide what success looks like early, keep panels small, run to firm timelines and protect those decisions when pressure arrives.
Every FM leader talks about the talent shortage. It has become the industry's favourite explanation for why roles stay open and why good people seem impossible to find.
After more than 25 years recruiting Facilities Management leaders, I see it differently. Most hiring failures are not caused by a lack of candidates. They happen because decision quality collapses under pressure. Roles drift. Criteria blur. Urgency masquerades as progress. And organisations respond by doing more (more interviews, more CVs, more activity) instead of thinking better.
That is the paradox at the heart of senior hiring: the more pressure we feel, the less judgement we apply, at exactly the moment judgement matters most.
You are short of decisions, not talent
Skills are genuinely scarce. In SFG20's 2026 survey, 51% of organisations reported a shortage of FM staff, and the CIPD found that 64% of UK organisations that tried to recruit had difficulty attracting candidates. But scarcity is exactly why the decision process matters. When good people are rare, the organisations that secure them are the ones that know what they want and act on it.
Behind the scenes, the same blockers appear again and again:
- too many interviewers with competing agendas;
- scheduling delays that stretch a process over months;
- vague criteria that amount to "we'll know the right person when we see them";
- internal politics dressed up as rigour; and
- no one willing to make the call.
Meanwhile the strongest candidates are decisive people by nature. If your process does not match their momentum, you will not lose them to a competitor. You will lose them to speed. The average UK time to hire reached 12 weeks in spring 2026, according to Totaljobs. A process that drags beyond the market tells the best people the role is not valued.
Activity feels productive. Judgement actually is.
It is easy to confuse movement with progress. Long lists, packed interview calendars and stakeholders "having input" all look reassuring. But activity without judgement does not reduce risk. It hides it.
That is why so many searches fail late rather than early. The cost of an unclear decision is deferred, not removed, and it tends to arrive at offer stage or in the first months of the appointment. The CIPD found that 41% of organisations had seen new recruits resign within their first 12 weeks at least some of the time.
Clarity is the real differentiator
Most organisations believe they have a talent problem. In reality they have a clarity problem. When success in a role cannot be described cleanly, interviews become subjective, trade-offs are avoided and confidence wobbles. People then reach for proxies:
- credentials instead of capability;
- confidence instead of competence; and
- consensus instead of alignment.
Clear roles attract better candidates, not because the market has changed, but because the decisions have.
Good hiring is subtractive
Weak hiring tries to keep options open. Strong hiring does the opposite. It removes unnecessary criteria, false "nice to haves" and profiles that look impressive but do not solve the problem in front of you.
Every "maybe" carried forward becomes a delayed decision, a longer process and a weaker signal to candidates. Senior hiring rarely fails because too many people were excluded. It fails because people who should have been ruled out early were allowed through.
Signals matter more than statements
What people say in interviews is easy to rehearse. What they consistently do is much harder to fake. Strong hiring pays attention to patterns, trade-offs, follow-through and behaviour under constraint. Weak hiring listens to narratives.
Credentials signal access. Experience reveals judgement. In Facilities Management, where leaders are tested by incidents, budgets and stakeholders rather than presentations, that distinction matters more than in most professions.
Pressure reveals priorities
Pressure does not change an organisation's values. It exposes them. Under time pressure, weak hiring systems widen criteria, delay decisions and rationalise shortcuts. Strong systems narrow focus, clarify trade-offs and protect standards.
This is where most processes quietly break. Not because people stop caring, but because the system was never designed to hold when pressure arrives. Good process is not bureaucracy. It is insurance for the moments when instinct is unreliable. The best processes feel unnecessary on good days and earn their keep on bad ones.
How to fix the decision shortage
Fast hiring does not come from urgency. It comes from commitment. The fastest searches are usually the ones that slow down first, settle what matters, and then move decisively.
1. Define great before you look at a CV
If you cannot describe the three outcomes this appointment must deliver in its first year, and the behaviours that matter most in your environment, you are not ready to recruit. Decisive hiring needs decisive standards.
2. Shrink the panel
You do not need six people interviewing a Facilities Manager. You need one accountable decision-maker, a technical assessor where the role requires one, and someone assessing leadership and culture. Fewer people means clearer accountability and faster decisions.
3. Set hard timelines and keep them
Schedule interviews before the shortlist arrives. Aim for no more than ten working days from shortlist to offer, debriefs within 24 hours and a final decision within 48 hours of the last interview.
4. Let your recruiter tell you the truth
Too many processes fall apart because the recruiter feels obliged to be polite rather than useful. A recruiter should be your early-warning system: challenging delays, flagging lost momentum and pushing for clarity.
5. Put alignment in writing
Where several stakeholders are involved, agree the criteria and the decision-maker in writing before interviews start. Written alignment surfaces disagreement early, when it is cheap to resolve.
Calm beats aggressive
The organisations that hire well are not more aggressive. They are calmer. They make fewer, better decisions, earlier, and protect them under pressure. Candidates and stakeholders borrow their confidence from that clarity.
Most hiring advice focuses on what to do. Very little looks at how decisions degrade under pressure, and how to stop that happening. That is the work. Not sourcing harder, and not simply moving faster, but thinking better when it matters most.
If you are planning a senior FM, estates or workplace appointment and want a second view on the brief before you start, talk to us. You can also test your brief with our role readiness check.
