Introduction
According to the International Organization for Standardization, facility management, also known as facilities management (FM), is a professional management discipline that focuses on the efficient and effective delivery of logistics and other support services related to real estate. It integrates people, place, process, and technology to ensure functionality, comfort, safety, and efficiency of the built environment (ISO). Through member organizations of the Global Facility Management Association (Global FM), the profession is certified.
Important Facility management
Any organization's facilities, whether they be a storefront, eatery, or office facility, are crucial for both smooth operation and creating positive first impressions on customers and visitors. Knowing what facilities management is, why it's necessary, and how it's carried out is crucial because it's a relatively new field.
1. It makes a good first impression on guests
Because the facilities will determine your company's first impression, they must be managed properly. Unmowed lawns and littered premises will immediately set the bad impression in the thoughts of potential and present clients. The same effect is produced by unclean workspaces, smudged windows, and dusty offices.
Making a good first impression on visitors to your premises for any type of business starts with having professionally managed amenities. This is one of the reasons why facilities management is vital.
2. It increases productivity.
The efficiency of the company is greatly increased by properly managed facilities. When all of your facilities are handled, very little can prevent work from getting done. People will be more efficient since they won't have to waste time looking for things because they would know where they are kept.
Additionally, it enables you to recognize and anticipate issues before they occur, such as running out of toilet paper rolls or broken equipment, and it enables you to address the issue as soon as feasible.
3. It boosts staff morale
Employee morale is significantly impacted by having well-managed facilities. They are able to concentrate better, feel proud of their workplace, and like working for the company because to it. Additionally, it reduces sick days, which raises staff productivity.
When facilities are effectively managed, employees are happier, more motivated, and more productive, which benefits the company.
4. It facilitates cost savings
For cost savings, having properly managed facilities is crucial. Maintaining your property and equipment properly will help you save a lot of money by reducing the frequency of maintenance problems.
Additionally, since you can deal with issues before they develop, you may concentrate more on prevention than cure. This is also highly advantageous for cost-saving because costs won't add up to a big expense.
Recognizing the roles that facilities management plays
It might be challenging to accurately define the range of duties that facilities management is accountable for due to its universal nature. This has been separated into 5 main groups for easier digestion:
1. Keeping and improving facilities
First, as the name would imply, maintaining these facilities in top condition is a key responsibility of facilities.
This will include everything from normal maintenance and reactive repairs throughout the facilities to frequent cleaning and beautification of the workplace to give the finest possible atmosphere for personnel, residents, customers, and more.
This necessitates precise and current classifications of all the facilities' diverse assets. It becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of when they need to be fixed or replaced without a reliable CAFM system to gather and store this information, preventing firms from realizing the advantages of proactive maintenance.
Additionally, FMs will be in charge of comprehending a property's layout and how to make the most of the space. This is crucial for maximizing how the building is used to control costs and prevent some areas from becoming overly busy (which is particularly relevant in a post-Covid-19 environment).
Additionally, finding and keeping partnerships with pertinent vendors is necessary for the maintenance and upgrading of facilities, as is long-term planning for the growth of the company.
Maintaining facilities effectively helps to guarantee that:
1. Assets receive regular maintenance, which reduces breakdowns and lengthens their life cycles.
2.Any spills, clogs, or other events can be reported right away, given priority, and addressed in order to safeguard health and safety and create a pleasant environment.
3. Any asset inefficiencies are promptly discovered and addressed to minimize the cost impact this might have.
2. Creating and organizing procedures
FMs assist everyone involved have more effective and predictable days by incorporating processes into the everyday working environment.
This FM feature is designed to bring order to a potentially chaotic work environment and to communicate to employees what is expected of them in various scenarios.
1. Requests for work orders
2. Signing in and out of employees at work 3. Task management
4. Meeting schedules
5. Checking in visitors and guests
6. Managing porters
7.Stock management
8. Mailroom customs
Additionally, it is the duty of FM pros to modify and advance workflows in accordance with how the workplace or company environment is developing. If a brand-new unforeseen circumstance occurs, they should examine what happened and put in place a structure for handling that issue going forward.
3. assisting others
To create a welcoming workplace for all employees is a facilities manager's primary function and responsibility. People are happier, form stronger ties with their employers, and are often more productive when they are at ease while working.
A bad work environment, on the other hand, will irritate employees and hinder their performance as well as perhaps hurt your capacity to hire and keep personnel over the long run.
A growing number of FMs are aware of this obligation and are searching for creative ways to distinguish their work environment while also enhancing the corporate culture. It aims to enhance the entire "customer experience," from the moment an employee enters the building in the morning to the moment they leave at night.
FM services should aim to empower staff members and assist them in taking charge of their own daily goals in addition to making them happy. This might entail a streamlined mechanism for employees to monitor their daily duties or a shared system for them to report any problems to the FM team, like our own Ad Hoc Tasks app.
Facilities managers will regularly assess the workplace for any opportunities to improve the environment for staff, visitors, customers, and more, and they will also provide key strategic data to company executives. This means that it is not just about the here and now.
Maintaining staff welfare and contentment involves planning desk and seating layouts, efficient climate control strategies, and water management throughout the building.
4. Supervising projects
A crucial task for FMs to manage is overseeing finances and making sure deliverables are completed by deadlines. FM specialists will be in charge of making sure that projects, whether one-off, short-term, or long-term, stay within budget and that each work is accomplished and recorded.
Monitoring the work of the contractors and subcontractors hired to support the project from start to finish is another important part of project management. For effective cost management, it is crucial that these groups are present, have the required licenses and certificates, and are keeping precise time records.
Using a platform like MRI's Contractor Portal, FM experts can carry out duties such:
1. Providing contractors with all the information they require to perform their duties successfully
2. Keeping an updated and properly managed contractor database
3. Ensuring that safety and security standards are consistently followed
4.Getting product updates and verifying that tasks have been completed and signed off on.
5. Making use of technology
The incorporation of technology inside the organization and how it is incorporated into existing infrastructures is the final facility management function for this study.
This has grown in importance as a component of an FM professional's responsibilities in recent years, especially with the development of CAFM/IWMS technologies like MRI Evolution, which have the power to affect all facilities management goals. While implementing new technology is normally the duty of IT, FMs frequently have the last say in the technology's choice and application.
The growing integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) into routine facility processes serves as a contemporary illustration of this. The Internet of Things (IoT) gives devices wireless network connectivity, enabling them to communicate and exchange data in unprecedented ways.
The workplace can be substantially improved and employees' lives can be made more comfortable with the use of devices that communicate over a worldwide network, such as those that automatically monitor changes in water temperature or make climate control adjustments in real-time. As a result, FM managers have the following duties:
1.Recognize how such technology functions in the workplace.
2.Examine the costs involved and whether they are in line with the advantages the organization will experience.
3.Accept the possibility of change rather than ignoring chances for creativity
Utilizing technology has become a key task for the global facilities management sector as the importance of technology in FM increases in the digital age.
What Is a Facility Manager Responsible For?
The continued performance of a corporation depends on its facilities managers, who are "considered key leaders." They are in charge of keeping up "places of work" (such offices, shops, and warehouses) and making sure that commercial operations run well.
The field of facility management has developed from a "handyman" job to a sophisticated professional management discipline requiring initiative, forethought, and planning. Universities now offer advanced facility management degrees.
Facilities management descriptions, which should not be confused with property management, place greater emphasis on the procedures and personnel needed to maintain security and safety than on the actual structures. For instance, they might schedule routine fire alarm inspections and get in touch with electricians as necessary.
Functions of Facility Managers
Building and facilities management, which includes single buildings as well as sprawling campuses used for a variety of revenue-generating sites, including retail, manufacturing, and healthcare, can be defined as the effective coordination of all tasks related to maintaining physical spaces and infrastructures.
By adhering to the necessary legal requirements, performing routine maintenance, and changing structural layouts, facilities management ensures that every component of a workplace is secure.
Conclusion
Resources were being taken away from mission-critical tasks and leading to financial and operational inefficiencies as a result of the reactive approach to facility management.
As a result, facility management was updated to incorporate business strategy and building sciences disciplines, increasing the organization's value. The most typical components of modern facility management are as follows:
Strategic: in line with the mission, beneficial to the primary functions, and representative of your brand
Collaboration: linking the boardroom and the boiler room through an inclusive, stakeholder approach.
Proactive maintenance is a planned, risk-averse technique as opposed to the "run to failure" method.
Data-driven decision-making: employing accurate information, facts, and benchmarks
Sustainable: Less expensive, emitting structures have a smaller carbon footprint.
