Background
Bruntwood is a leading commercial property company operating across Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham. With a portfolio of over 100 properties, it provides office space, serviced offices, meeting rooms and retail premises to customers across multiple business sectors. Its commitment to operational excellence and customer service meant that finding the right Facilities Manager was a priority for maintaining those standards, and Bruntwood asked Maxwell Stephens to lead the search.
The Challenge
Bruntwood needed a Facilities Manager who could oversee the delivery of Total Facilities Management (TFM) services across multiple buildings. The role required extensive FM experience, a strong ability to manage teams and a proactive approach to operational standards. The ideal candidate also needed to be highly organised and customer-focused, with real competence in health and safety compliance, financial management and team leadership.
Several things made this more demanding than a single-site facilities appointment:
- Breadth across hard and soft services. TFM delivery makes the Facilities Manager answerable for everything from plant and statutory compliance to cleaning and customer-facing standards. Candidates who have only ever run one side of that divide struggle to prioritise across both.
- Multi-building responsibility. Maintaining standards across several buildings, rather than being present in one, calls for someone who leads through their team, their systems and their supplier relationships instead of by walking the floor.
- Cultural fit. With the company's emphasis on long-term relationships, it was crucial to find someone who not only had the right technical skills but also embodied Bruntwood's values. That is not something a CV shows.
Our Approach
To give Bruntwood a genuine choice of candidates, Maxwell Stephens focused on professionals who could demonstrate:
- Extensive FM experience — with a background in managing both hard and soft services.
- Strong leadership skills — capable of managing a team of Facilities Team Members (FTMs).
- Health & safety expertise — knowledge of compliance, risk management and H&S standards.
- Financial acumen — the ability to manage budgets, monitor financial performance and deliver value for money.
- A customer-centric approach — ensuring clear communication with stakeholders and improving service delivery.
- Proactive problem-solving — able to handle operational challenges effectively.
We tested each of these directly. How a candidate has structured a facilities team, how they report on budget performance and how they respond when service slips in a customer-facing building tell you far more than a list of previous employers. We also gave the cultural side of the brief proper weight, looking for people whose approach to customers and colleagues matched the way Bruntwood works, rather than treating fit as an afterthought once the technical boxes were ticked.
From this work we identified a shortlist of highly skilled professionals who met Bruntwood's criteria.
The Outcome
Following a thorough search and selection process, Maxwell Stephens placed a Facilities Manager who:
- Oversees the smooth operation of Bruntwood's buildings with a focus on efficiency and compliance.
- Leads a team of Facilities Team Members, maintaining high service standards.
- Manages health & safety compliance, minimising risk and maintaining regulatory standards.
- Drives operational improvements and cost efficiencies within the FM function.
- Ensures customer satisfaction through excellent facilities services and proactive communication.
Why This Placement Worked
Multi-site TFM roles are often filled on technical credentials alone, and the appointment then struggles because the person cannot lead a dispersed team or carry the customer relationship. This search treated leadership, financial control and cultural fit as core requirements from the outset, and assessed them with the same rigour as the FM experience itself.
If you need a Facilities Manager to run TFM services across a property portfolio — someone who can lead a team, control the budget and represent your values to customers — Maxwell Stephens can help. Get in touch with our team.