Healthcare Facilities Network
The Healthcare Facilities Network podcast highlights the essential role of facilities
management in delivering high-quality patient care. Hosted by Peter Martin, this show brings you expert insights on the issues, trends, and solutions shaping the future of healthcare spaces. Learn from industry leaders and discover ways to drive positive change in your facility.
Healthcare Facilities Network
Solving FM Challenges with AI & Smart Hiring
What does it take to excel in facilities management today? In this episode of the Healthcare Facilities Network, we welcome David Trask, National Director of Facilities and Emergency Solutions at Arc Facilities Solutions, to explore this question.
Drawing on his extensive experience across industries—including healthcare, municipalities, education, airports, and manufacturing—David sheds light on how Artificial Intelligence is shaping maintenance strategies and why smart hiring practices are essential for success.
Tune in for expert perspectives and real-world solutions that can transform how your facility operates.
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© Healthcare Facilities Network.
The following is a presentation of the Healthcare Facilities Network. Hello, and welcome to the Healthcare Facilities Network. I am your host, Peter Martin, Vice President of Business Development for Cref, with offices in Boston, Mass., Dallas, Texas, Salt Lake City, Utah, and down in the same state in which my guest is located, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. More info on Cref, go to
SPEAKER_00:cref.com. If you can train people to do the job, you're going to have long-term employees, okay? Especially if you provide some of those resources to support them. Maybe you help provide some resources for them to go get that certification that they need. I would like to
SPEAKER_02:welcome today's guest, David Trask, National Director, Arc Facilities. David, welcome.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, thank you, Peter.
SPEAKER_02:David, in addition to being National Director for ARC Facilities, David also has a podcast. And maybe you've heard his podcast. Maybe you're subscribed to his podcast. David, tell us a bit about your podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so about a year and a half ago, I started the podcast as Facility Voices, and it's basically a platform for facilities directors, maintenance teams to share their stories. I always say that no one ever asks the facilities guys and gals on the team behind the curtain what they do, and they're so open. They've been fantastic, and they're sharing everything from how they deal with a problem to how they how they work with leadership, how they work with finance, how they've addressed specific problems that everybody faces. And I love the fact that they share so many different key little takeaways. I always say it's those little nuggets that they can walk away from an episode and put into practice at their facilities.
SPEAKER_02:recently spoke with mike hatton the new ashy president we spoke with brian cannella who works for aramark but he's a long-term director of fm and david now you as national director while you were talking this it hit me all three of you and i think it is really what makes the profession or the discipline unique, you come at it with great passion. You can hear it visually as you're talking, the words you're using, and I think it's what makes people who are good in this profession, it can be a real differentiator is that passion that you feel for what you do.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. I cannot stress that enough. I love the industry. I love that people are so open. I always say in facilities, they're not in competition with each other. It's not a sales environment. They're not competing against each other. They're trying to operate the business. They're trying to operate the buildings and make sure everything is running efficiently and safe and healthy. they also don't want to reinvent a wheel. So they're so open about sharing how they're doing it. And I love that it is very much so a community of just salt of the earth people. They're out there trying to figure out how to do things and they're so open about sharing it. And I love that. It is that community feel and I love to be a part of that. So I know that...
SPEAKER_02:we ran into each other. You were moderator for a panel at the Florida Healthcare Engineers in November, and I know that you're going to moderate another panel in June at the Florida Healthcare Engineers, which I'm actually very jealous about. Now, do you know, and I'm not meaning to put you on the spot, have you met Josh Morgerman yet? Because he's part of your panel, right? I met him at the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I met him at the show. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a weather nerd. I love all things weather. And so Josh, who's keynoting, I think, in June, he's a hurricane chaser.
SPEAKER_00:And
SPEAKER_02:so he gets into the eyes of the hurricane and measures them scientifically. It's fascinating. I follow him on Twitter, especially when, and he'll travel the world. He'll go to Taiwan. He'll go to the typhoons in the Pacific, the Gulf, all over. And so I'm actually looking forward to going in June and you're hosting, as I said, another panel. And I think, is your panel about hurricanes and natural disasters?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it is. And I actually went around, gosh, as you mentioned, I live in Florida. So about a year ago, year ago not quite a year ago um before hurricane season i actually went around to our clients i met with multiple different clients all different industries so i met with and even public utilities so i went to a public utility up in jacksonville florida i met with a university down in in the south florida market i met with a municipality and i asked them what do you do What do you do to prep for hurricanes? What are the things that you put in place? And more importantly, what are those lessons learned? And what did you do to tweak your program from those events that have happened in the past? And like I said, this industry, they're so open. And I heard some things that shocked me, some things that surprised me. And unfortunately, in the Southeast, we are impacted by hurricanes every year. Tropical storms, hurricanes, other natural events. And the things that I heard and the things that they shared ranged from water barrier systems that didn't exist five years ago. other things like managing where the assets are. I mean, I even met with a tribal council member and he was telling me that, you know, they didn't realize, you know, some of the things even addressed with water like has to be stored at a certain temperature. It's only good for a certain amount of time. And even I didn't know that there was a 10 year or even 100 year water product that's out there that how would I know that you know but yeah but it's shelf life of a hundred years uh so those types of things they were so open about sharing you know that they they've got these different things in place and and what does that mean to better serve the community and their their employees as well and and and that's part of what we're going to be sharing at that panel is those best practices some of the things that they learned um for the betterment of those those attendees Shelf life of 100
SPEAKER_02:years. Think about that. That outlives all of us. I mean, 100 years of shelf life of water. How much water in the... What is it in?
SPEAKER_00:Well, they have they have pallets of boxed water. So it was boxes of water, pallets of them. And, you know, again, they're going to they're going to cycle through that as as they need it. But but I mean, it's not just the water. It's the, you know, during the last hurricanes that we had last year, I saw a hospital down in the the West Coast or the West Coast of Florida and the Gulf side that had these water barriers. that essentially it looked like a wall, okay? The guy's standing behind a wall and there's four feet of water on the other side of this wall and he's perfectly dry. I saw that on Twitter.
SPEAKER_02:That was an amazing visual.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What hospital was
SPEAKER_00:that? Because I don't remember. I don't remember the exact hospital. But it was one down in the Tampa market. But again, I've never seen that. So it's those types of things that, again, five years ago, you would have never seen that on Twitter or anywhere. And I saw it on Twitter as well and reached out. So again, I think it's interesting how facilities these teams are finding those types of resources to help them with those types of events. You're right.
SPEAKER_02:The reason I went down the Florida Healthcare Engineers avenues when you were talking about how the hospitals really aren't in competition with each other and I was talking to Adam I had a mail down there, Memorial Healthcare, and I had him on the facilities network when he was president of the engineers. And he said that, he remarked, he's like, even when it comes to trying to help a competitor, not a competitor, help another hospital find people, he's like, I'll try to help. If you have a director role, I'll try to help you fill it because again, it's such a small community and you're interacting with people all the time. So you try to help them because you're going to need help at some point. And it is, I think it's one of the things that makes this world a little bit unique is they all feel each other's pain and they kind of know what it's like. So therefore they try to assist when they can. They do. They share resources and information. It's not a competitor. They're there to help you.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I think that's why so many of these are active. These people in facilities are so active at these regional conferences as well is because Sure, they walk the show floor to see the vendors and things like that, but they're walking the show floor to see what's new too. And that's why they attend these sessions at the different shows is to hear things that they may not be doing or they didn't even know existed. And it's all about education. It's understanding. Listen, I don't know what I don't know. And I go to these shows to find out some of those little things that I may not even have been aware of. And I attend shows myself. And I go to the education sessions and listen. And I love to learn from, I thirst for that knowledge of the new things, the other things that are out there. And I hear something in every session, you know, and and it's sometimes you hear something is just slightly different, but that can make all the difference in the world to another organization. And I joke that I have a in my backpack that I carry on the planes. I have a stack of business cards from all different companies that do all different kinds of things because I'm always asked, hey, do you know somebody who does X? Well, you know what? I don't know them, but I saw them at a show. Here, call this guy. And that's invaluable because you want to be that resource. But it's not just me being your resource. The facilities guys and gals that I see at these shows, they're a resource for each other. But again, it's that community.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yeah, very much so. So you do travel quite a bit. You have a Great perspective on kind of what's going on. You're actually just back from Hawaii, correct? Would you get back from Hawaii last week if I'm
SPEAKER_00:reading
SPEAKER_02:LinkedIn correctly? I
SPEAKER_00:am. It's a labor of love. But, you know, people think that, oh, my goodness, you're in Hawaii. Well, yeah, I'm working in six hospitals in Hawaii. So, yeah, you go to work and it's dark and you come to the hotel and it's dark. So it's not all glamorous. But at the same time. Again, it's hospitals on remote islands. I was on three different islands over basically a week and a half and working at some rural hospitals over there and mapping out shutoff valves and all their isolation valves at some different hospitals over there.
SPEAKER_02:I have to imagine even on Hawaii that they feel the same pain relative to finding, attracting candidates, even maybe more acutely in an island world?
SPEAKER_00:They do. They do. They've got, you know, it can be a challenge, obviously, because they're literally on an island. But they face the same things that anybody does on the mainland. The challenge is trying to find qualified people that can fill a void. That may be an electrician, a plumber, an HVAC tech. their challenge is because of the location um it can be it can be hard to find because you've got a smaller labor pool on island you know it's not that they're less qualified it's just a smaller labor pool right so they are trying to pull people from them from the mainland but i look at it i look at it from the standpoint is they're no different than somebody in in south dakota You know what I mean? So sometimes it's just geography and population. There's not a huge population in the Dakotas. There's not a huge population in Montana as compared to Orlando or New York or Chicago or LA, where there's just a lot of people. There are challenges with that. There are those geographical challenges. There's other challenges, too, with resources, getting people. It's not just about getting people. It's also about getting materials there. So having those those locations so remote can be a challenge across the board.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I remember prior to joining CREF when I was doing the recruiting at Gosling Martin Associates, we did a recruitment for a hospital on the Virgin Islands, St. John's. And this is before. They got hammered by a hurricane three years ago and they lost the whole building. So this was prior to that. But I remember the hospital CEO telling me and it's probably I'm sure it's the same in Hawaii. He's like, listen, it sounds beautiful, but it's like after six months when you've seen the beach every day and it's been bright and sunny every day, you kind of get. sick of it. So he's like, whoever we recruit here, you got to tell them it's not, you know, it's not like going to everybody. So I can go to the beach all the time. But after a while, it just becomes kind of like anything else. You're used to it. So he's like, if they're coming just for the beach, it's going to get old.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's different. I mean, Hawaii is a little bit different because you can bounce between the different islands. That's the thing I love about Hawaii is, you know, you're 30 minutes, 40 minutes from another island, which can be completely different. The islands can be so different. I was on the Big Island, then I was on Oahu, and then I actually went to Molokai, which is a very small island. I think the population of Molokai is only like 8,000 people. Yeah. Very rural, but they're all different. But you are right. I mean, there's only so far you can go. I mean, my gosh, some of the islands, you know, you jump in a car 20 minutes, you're on the other side of the island. But at the same time, the people there, the culture is just, to me, it's amazing. They are wonderful, wonderful people. Just the culture is just phenomenal. And I tell you, I send pictures back to my family while I'm there and you cannot describe the beauty. A photo doesn't do it any justice. I always say in Hawaii, everything glows. It's like everything just glows and you will see 20 rainbows a day in that time of year. It's just beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we went there on our honeymoon long ago and I was like, I'd love to get back. I just just loved it. So Let's come back to the mainland. I know you don't like to fly because I read a LinkedIn post, right? That not a little puddle jumpers that go islands.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Little planes. That's a little different. Yeah, I like the bigger ones. But yeah, I was on some. You better,
SPEAKER_02:right? You fly enough.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, my goodness. Yeah, yeah. My posts on LinkedIn, the life through an airplane window, the struggle, the struggle is real.
SPEAKER_02:So let's go to a different struggle. When we talked two years ago, and actually I went back to listen to the podcast we did, it was posted on January 24th, I think 2023, and three themes that we talked about. And I'm wondering kind of your report card, what have you seen in the two years and are they still issues? You were talking about generational differences was something that you would see at different organizations. old buildings and the demand that old buildings, and then the labor market, people retiring and nobody coming in through the trades, no younger people coming in. So generational differences, old buildings and the labor market. How are we two years later in those three areas?
SPEAKER_00:Buildings are older. The buildings are all older. Equipment is older. But the labor market is, honestly, it's the same. I think a lot more people have left the market, whether they've retired, whether they've seen some reductions in staff. I've seen that quite a bit. I think with regards to the younger folks moving into the industry, there is a and I post on LinkedIn about this all the time on social. The trades are an underserved market. They truly are. I think it's it's the there was actually a funny video I saw the other day and it and People on the listeners may have heard this where someone walks up. This is this guy has a whole program on this. He walks up to people who are getting in a really fancy car, Bentley or Mercedes or whatever, a Ferrari. And he says, what do you do for a living? And there was a guy that was in in the car. He says, I'm a plumber. And he says, what? You're a plumber. And he says, yeah, I'm a plumber. And he said, well, how much did you make last year? And he said, I made two points X million dollars last year. And he said, as a plumber, he said, yeah, I started out as a plumber and then I opened up my own plumbing company. And now I have X number of offices in this particular area. That is what I think needs to be screamed from the rooftops. Okay. if you're a trades person um it always used to be looked down upon a blue collar job where you're you know you're you're out there you're you're in the mud you're fixing the you know the plumbing you're you're fixing the electric you know electric you're running lines you're you're chasing hvac chases you're working on a unit whatever the case may be there's a shift OK, because there is such a need right now, if you're a plumber, you're a trades person, you can get a job anywhere. OK, that's no different than it was a year ago. But I think now advocates, whether it's the Mike Rose of the world, whether there's the other people that are out there screaming this from the rooftops like I do literally every day, I think you're starting to see a shift, and I think it's a positive shift for the market. The trades are such an underserved community, for lack of a better term. But I think even at the high school level, my daughter's in high school, she's a junior, and they have a trades program. They actually have it at school. They have an engineering program in our high school. That's phenomenal. Okay. And I think where we're going to see a shift is going to be the shattering of that misconception that it's just a job. It's a career.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yeah. I agree with you. I think there has been a subtle shift in the last year or so, which is a good thing.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It really is that, you know, I was amazed. I'll occasionally talk to folks down at the Maritime Academies, the Maritime Colleges, because those are great. Those are great places to get that next generation. The problem is, as always, is kind of salaries and health care not paying as much. But I was amazed, and I've said this before on the Healthcare Facilities Network, you know, the folks at Mass Maritime were telling me that Even down to seventh and eighth grade now, there's kind of competition to put these kids, or not put them on a career path, but outline a career path. I'm like, when I was in, I don't know about you, in seventh grade, I'm not looking at a career path. I mean, I just wanted to go to recess. And it's like the competition is acute.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It is. It is. And I think, you know, I have a little different perspective when I think about trades or I think about going to a four year school versus going to a trade school. OK, I look at it a little bit differently. I look at it as why is a trade school looked as a lesser program than a four year degree? OK, and think about that. And I'm not meaning to degrade anybody who's got a degree. That's that's not what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is it's it's still your goal is to find a career that you want to go into right now. Not everybody wants to be a lawyer. Not everybody wants to be an architect or whatever the case may be. OK, some people want to work with their hands. Some people want to get out there and they want to be a mechanic. They want to work with, you know, they want to be an electrician, whatever the case may be. Some people fall into that as well because, you know, family background, you know, their dad was an electrician or a plumber or whatever. But how many people do you also know that went to school, they went to a four-year degree or got their four-year degree or their master's, they're not doing what they went to school for. Okay. And that's okay. But they may. And I've I've heard multiple people that went to a four year university, got their degree and then went back to school to be an electrician because that's where the jobs are. OK. And I again, I kind of think of it from the perspective of a four year degree is not for everybody. And that's OK. And I think at the even at the K through 12 level, again, everybody was steering people you've got to go get a degree you've got to go get a degree well i think there's a little shift in that now um sometimes that's not meant for everybody and that's okay because now they're also saying well listen we've got this trade school that's also going to the uh the counselors and saying here here's another option or a different option for a group of people uh these kids coming up and and i don't think that was always there in the past Right, right. Yeah, no. And
SPEAKER_02:I agree. That was always a frustration. You back in the recruiting days, you might have an electrician or a plumber, they don't have their degree. But they've worked in a hospital. And they've run their own business, like they worked in a hospital, they've run a business for multiple years. And They know the trade and they've managed people and they've managed budgets and they apply to a hospital for a director role and they're not qualified.
SPEAKER_01:Well,
SPEAKER_00:I think there's a disconnect too. And I love that you brought that up because this is, I'll share a story that I heard that just makes me shake my head and it's a disconnect. Okay. It's not pointing fingers at anybody. It's just there has been a disconnect for years. And that's the disconnect between HR and the hiring org or hiring manager. And let me explain that. HR tends to do a cut and paste. This is the job description we've had forever. Well, now you've got other tools, though. So they've got AI tools or they've got other pre-qualifying tools, for lack of a better term, that if you don't check this box, you're disqualified. And I'll use an example. There was a facility director who's in health care that I met and he's actually become a friend. he he said i had a friend of mine who owned his own company that has 30 years experience right does not have a degree though i told him apply for the job call me when you've applied for the job and that way i'll go to hr have them pull your resume or pull your application so that i can get you in the interview process he's not the only person he was going to interview but he wanted to make sure he was at least in that pool of interviews and The guy filled out the application online, uploaded his resume, hit send. Five seconds later, he got it. Sorry. Okay. And it was because he didn't check the box of a degree. Well, the hiring manager goes to HR and says, what the heck? Well, he doesn't have a degree. Who said he has to have a degree? This is what the job description says. So I think where people are, I'm starting to hear a shift is I would rather have people that are trainable and teachable than necessarily even the people who have the degree. I love that because if you can train people to do the job you're going to have long term employees. OK, especially if you provide some of those resources to support that, maybe you help provide some resources for them to go get that that certification that they need. But looking at it only from people who check off this box, those days are not going to fill the void, the huge chasm that we have in the need for skilled tradespeople.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. It's almost like you were in our office this morning because we were talking about that exact thing. We were talking about, and I saw it all the time, job descriptions. It's just a cut and a paste. The job descriptions have not changed. advanced with the needs. Or sometimes they're just copying and pasting. They're 10 years old. And I'm not blaming HR. They're busy. And these facilities roles, they fall to the margins. They're not sexy. They're not the doctor who's going to bring in money. They're not the nurses, but they're just as important. So we were talking about job descriptions, but then you just touched on And I was going to say, you know, as I said, I listened to our podcast from two years ago and we talked about technology. The one word we never or two words or acronym that we never mentioned was AI. And so I want to talk to you a little bit about AI. And I was actually going to ask you and you've just answered it. AI through the hiring process and in resumes, because I really believe you need eyes from somebody who you can't outsource, especially when we don't have enough people. You can't outsource resume, yes, no, to an AI person, to an AI function at this point, because you need to put eyeballs on it because there are those people who are in those margins who can do the job.
SPEAKER_00:100%. And I, you know, AI is, is, is evolving so quickly. I was a keynote at a, at an IFMA conference down in Phoenix last year, and I kicked it off. It was about AI and in the industry and in the facilities industry. And I, I wanted to, to get some eyeballs to, to really open when, or eyes to open when I, I, I started, and I basically asked this, I said, Raise your hand if you've used ChatGPT in the last year. Virtually every single person raised their hand. A room filled with people, right? I said, keep your hand in the air if you could have said that five years ago, and everybody put their hand down. I said, that's how fast our industry is changing with AI. And that was shocking to a lot. And I had probably 20 people come up to me afterwards and said, I never thought of it that way. my perspective on ai is different in facilities my perspective on ai is sure everybody everybody looks at it from the standpoint of predictive maintenance potentially being uh helped helping you to do budgets and understand trends 100 100 but i look at ai for the field technicians differently okay the field technicians i see ai working a little bit differently from the standpoint of say i uh i'm on my phone and i'm looking at a work order i'm looking at uh smart technologies because buildings are getting smarter okay the stuff in the buildings are getting smarter uh the the the things operating the buildings and maintaining the buildings your air conditioning system your electrical systems even your your security systems are all getting smarter But imagine I've got to go work on something because I got a hot cold call, which is, you know, you get a hundred of those a week. Okay. And the building's too hot or my office is too hot or too cold or whatever. There are a lot of tools and depending on your system and how modern your system is, you can adjust the, you know, your, your temperatures from your phone or whatever, but say something broke, nothing's working. Okay. Now you're going to work on that HVAC unit.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So you click on an HVAC unit and now AI can potentially make suggestions. OK, because keep in mind, AI is not just looking at you, it's looking at the globe. It's looking at everything online. So you click on something and say it's an HVAC unit and it makes a suggestion that, hey, you know what, that unit has had problems. Or that unit had a recall. Or you know what, that unit uses belt number one, two, three, four, five. Or it uses this size filter. Or you know what, somebody just posted a video about they were having a similar issue. That's where I see AI for the field technicians differently. I see it as making suggestions or they're running around like crazy. They're fixing 50 things a day. But rather than them just have to remember that, oh, you know what? I had a problem with this a year ago or two years ago that was similar. Or now somebody reported this unit's making a noise. Well, I may be able to even just voice in and say, hey, has anybody else reported on this unit or this type of unit this particular noise? And, oh, you know what? There's five YouTube videos on somebody recording something similar. And not just reporting that they had something similar, This is what they did to fix it. It was a bearing. It was a motor going out. That's the stuff that I think is going to help field technicians. And AI will be able to help with that, with those predictive things for the guys and gals, the boots on the ground, people in the field. And I think that could be a game changer for these people because for the field techs, because at the end of the day, you know, depending on if you've got a large campus, it's got 50 buildings, it's impossible for them to remember not only where everything is, but what is it. So I think that's going to be from a predictive and even a suggestion, for lack of a better term, way that it's going to help field technicians. And I can see that evolving quickly. Have
SPEAKER_02:you seen, and that's a great question, Distinction, because you're right. I mean, if you're in a big hospital campus, staffs are short to begin with. You're looking for people. And even if you do zone maintenance, some of these places are so big that you still can't utilize your time well. Have you seen, you travel a lot, you go to a lot of hospitals. Have you seen AI deployed in that way yet? Or what are people doing?
SPEAKER_00:I think, and I'm going to oversimplify AI this way. It's, I think everybody has looked up on, and I'll use this example, looked up how to do something on YouTube. Okay. And I look at it as AI is a, for lack of a better term, let's call that AI light. Okay. Or AI that's been around for a long time. Because think about that. I can type in how to do anything in YouTube, and I'll find 100 videos. I was putting a desk together the other day at home, and for whatever reason, the instructions are gone. I not only found the instructions in two seconds, I found videos on, oh, you know what? Make sure you don't screw that screw in too tight because it will strip out.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow. How
SPEAKER_00:would I know that? You know, I didn't know what I screwed it in too tight. Right. But, but again, it's, it's that type of thing that I think has been around for a long time and everybody has done that, whether it's in their personal life or they've done it at the office. You know, I think that has been around for a long time. I think AI is going to enhance that by providing not just a YouTube link, It's going to provide, maybe it's manufacturer information directly from the manufacturer. Maybe it's a third party part that you can order. I think that's the way AI is going to help field technicians is make other suggestions just outside of the things that we've used for a long time. But also think of it from this perspective, okay? You're not always going to be the same guy that goes and works on the thing. OK, things don't break on your clock. They break when they break. So imagine, you know, you're the first shift guy that worked on it. But maybe the fourth shift or I'm sorry, the third shift guy worked on it is going to work on it next because it breaks at one o'clock in the morning. OK, maybe AI is going to. scour your network or scour your system to say, wait a minute, you guys have worked on this thing 15 times. Now, work orders can track that kind of activity, meaning you've done 15 work orders or 20 work orders on this thing. That's fine. But maybe you don't see the note that Bob put in there that says this thing's about ready to die. Make sure you point this out to the boss because I reported this six months ago. AI will be able to pull some of that detail in too. I
SPEAKER_02:was just saying, in 2023, we were talking about generational differences, not in terms of AI, but in your travels, do you see generational difference? Listen, stereotypes exist because, well, this one's a real one. A lot of our techs are aging. You got the young and you got the old and a lot of the older are leaving. Do you see generational differences in the acceptance of and just willingness to utilize?
SPEAKER_00:100%. I see a shift and I'll use this example. Every single technician on your team has a smartphone, all of them. I don't even know if you can buy the old analog type phones anymore, but at the end of the day- If you could, I would. Yeah. Well, and at the end of the day, everybody's got them and everybody sees that every application that you use virtually anymore has a, an AI component. I mean, you see it on, on your social media networks, you see it on other applications that you use on your phone. I mean, everybody that, you know, has a smartphone is at one point probably use Surrey or whatever the, the Android portion of that is. That's AI. Yeah. That is AI. They've been using it for years. I think the acceptance of it has been rapidly increasing. I think the fear that everybody had was it was going to take my job in facilities. The challenge is AI is not going to replace the filter. It's not going to replace the belt. It's not going to fix the problem. It's going to help you better predict things that might be happening, but it's still going to require somebody to turn a wrench because it's a mechanical component. But AI will also be able to start helping you better predict those things or see when things are starting to go sideways.
SPEAKER_02:And it's core too. It's like a change management issue. And I think sometimes no matter what that changes, and actually we see so many changes in healthcare these days, I think a lot of the times that's either minimized or not acknowledged that there is a component of change and there is a degree, whatever that degree is that you have to bring that to the table because without it, you can't, you can't be successful.
SPEAKER_00:Right. I think, uh, yeah, it's, it's, It's a culture shift. Yeah. You know, it's it has to be because and I think it's top down. It has to be top down driven. It's, you know, sometimes change and you know how it goes in the industry. Change can be hard. But I think when you get past that barrier of everybody thinking that it's going to take my job or that fear that, you know, fear mongering almost that, you know, it's this evil thing. Where's AI going to evolve? I don't know. I don't think any of us know. But at the same time, you know, it's I think it. I think if we can change the mindset that it's a scary thing too, it's something that can potentially help me or make my life easier or better, that's a win. And I think that's where the industry needs to shift from this mindset of it's taking jobs to it's going to help the jobs.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Yes. You just mentioned cultural shift in my guest is David Trask. David is the national director for our facilities. We're coming up to the end, but you mentioned cultural shift and this really is a cultural shift. You work not only in healthcare facilities, but you work for academic institutions. You work at stadiums. You see a lot of industries across the United States coming out of COVID work from home. was huge. Now, in the FM world, it can be difficult to work from home. You're going to have eyeballs and sights. But we're five years later. Is the culture shifting? And this is across all the industries you work in. What are you seeing as far as coming back to the office? Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:in facilities, obviously, it's different because facilities is on-site. They're working on-site. I think there's the biggest shift with regards to the facility side versus the day-to-day office folks is I've seen a reduction in... the number of sites that orgs can tend to have in some cases. Now schools, it's different. Schools, they're working in some hybrid models still where they're offering online courses. My goodness, I know several people that got their degree, their four-year degree, never stepped on foot at the school. And it was across the country. But I think with regards to the industries, it really depends on the industry too, whether or not they can have that remote potential workforce in the day-to-day outside of facilities. I think people are still trying to figure it out. They're trying to figure out what model works. And some of them are doing this hybrid model still where it's part-time outside the office work from home. The organizations that are pulling people in, I've heard there's been a fall off, meaning they're losing people because they're requiring people to come back in. Others, they embrace it because they want that face-to-face interaction community. I think it really just depends on the organization.
SPEAKER_02:Do you guys have a main office? And obviously you're traveling all over the country. Do you ever go to a main hub, a main office setting for ARC? I'm
SPEAKER_00:that remote guy. I'm that remote guy, and what's funny is I've been that remote guy since before it was a thing. So everybody joined you. Yeah, I have not reported to a physical office in about eight years.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you like it.
SPEAKER_00:That painting you see behind me is my house. I love it. So my office, I oftentimes say your office is where the Wi-Fi is, and that's true.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it is. Absolutely, it is. Well, David Trask, National Director, Art Facilities. As always, thank you. I love getting your perspective. You see so much. You can share so much. I appreciate your time.
SPEAKER_00:My pleasure, Peter.
SPEAKER_02:It's Peter Martin for the Healthcare Facilities Network. As always, thank you for tuning in, and we will be back. See you then.