You are not alone in your lack of understanding of facilities management best practices. Best practices in FM are ever-evolving and will differ from company to company.
Whether you are an experienced facilities executive or just starting, you know the field is constantly evolving and will need training and guidance as you adapt to new technology.
Best practices for facilities management, outside of adopting cutting-edge technologies, might appear significantly different from one firm to the next.
Their primary responsibility is to ensure that the workplace runs efficiently and that workers are satisfied. Therefore, effective FM practices aid in achieving these goals while also considering financial considerations.
To aid FMs in any workplace setting, we’ll be discussing facilities management best practices.
Supporting change management in our increasingly complex workplace is a top priority. The facilities team plays a crucial role in achieving this goal.
Enterprise facilities management is no different in this regard. Wherever FMs are employed, they are usually in charge of a sizable infrastructure and its associated workforce.
It’s also true for individuals in charge of a few floors at a smaller company.
A significant contributor to this complexity is the growth of hybrid jobs.
The Great Resignation is being fueled in large part by employee unhappiness.
Facility managers (FMs) must now focus on enhancing and perfecting simultaneously the hybrid work environment and staff experience.
Think about what matters most to your company. You need to be an expert in facilities no matter what your firm does.
Meanwhile, there is an unprecedented availability of technological advancements.
Workplace ideals and employee treatment are developing in tandem with technological progress.
All of this indicates that FM duties are more intricate, significant, and appreciated than ever before.
As we’ve discussed, the FM best practices for one company may not be the most remarkable for another.
If your firm’s goal is to become carbon neutral, your FM will look quite different from that of a company whose goal is to reduce its real estate holdings as rapidly as feasible. Or from those that have to cope with a sudden inflow of employees.
Although the priorities of a facility manager can change over time, these four tenets will always be essential-
Based on these bases, we have pinpointed the following seven facilities management best practices for your workplace-
Establish a standardized procedure, educate all involved parties on it, and run day-to-day business as though the procedure were being strictly adhered to.
By doing so, individuals may release the mental burden of finding out how to get things done and instead concentrate on what must be done.
By using this format, you may:
With insufficient cooperation and communication, no plan can be carried out. A key part of a facilities manager’s job is to ensure that their staff is on the same page.
The best way to build trust among your facilities staff is to talk to them, so set up periodic conferences with your suppliers to check in on open work orders, use facilities software to share information in real-time, or use a mobile app.
Selecting appropriate software is a crucial part of FM. The three basic principles of organizing space are planning, executing, and monitoring, thus it’s important to use cloud-based software capable of doing all three.
In addition, it involves selecting software that will assist you in streamlining the administration of projects, moves, and requests, all while maintaining the office space user-friendly and easily accessible to all employees.
The Internet of Things (IoT) can eliminate the need for any human intervention in problem-solving beyond the arrival of a service provider.
Use of analytics technologies to prove, regularly, the FM division’s worth to the company as a whole. You’ll require support from adjacent units as your facilities grow more interconnected.
Having the proper metrics to support your plan will make your task easier.
Especially, when you are trying to invest in improved technology, you obviously need clearance from the head of finance.
Moreover, Facilities Managers can forecast when a component may fail, allowing them to prepare for such failures in advance.
The real devil lies in the details, yet many FM broadcasters prefer to keep things at a high level and draw generalizations about their programs without having sufficient knowledge.
Be knowledgeable about your company and how it truly operates.
Make informed choices and judgments by consulting reports and gathering relevant facts. Apply pressure to the contractors so that they can execute to a better quality. Make them more responsible regarding the technology.
To make informed judgments regarding the building and its operations, FMs must utilize data.
This dataset includes real-time information regarding employee office use that can enhance the quality of work life.
FMs may better manage crucial areas like space usage, facility planning, and staffing with the use of these insights by constantly visiting, revisiting, and reviewing pertinent data and KPIs.
Once again, FMs need the appropriate IWMS software to obtain access to such detailed data.
Putting money into tech may make your life simpler, smarter, more automated, and more open. Unless you can prove otherwise, you belong in the Jurassic period.
The facilities sector is becoming more sophisticated as new technologies are being adopted. Keep up with the newest products on the market and think about how they could benefit your facilities management staff.
In particular, facilities software for facility management is facilitating the streamlining and efficiency of teams, as well as the reduction of expenses and the improvement of decision-making.
The most important abilities for a facilities manager to have might vary greatly depending on the software they use.
Like keeping everyone and everything secure inside the firm, including personnel, property, and communications.
There are several options for Facilities Management for commercial services and FMs can choose the appropriate one.
FMs must also ensure that their networks are safe for users.
So, it’s important to make sure everything is safe, particularly when linking Internet of Things (IoT) devices to the building’s automation system or the radio broadcast system.
Keep in mind that ensuring safety in BAS systems might be difficult. The security of a BAS may be worse than that of your company’s network because of its age. It may or may not be responsible for their upkeep.
It is even more important for FMs to have open lines of communication with the mechanical contractor.
As we’ve seen, FM is an ever-changing field. So that their firm doesn’t fall behind, FMs should be abreast of, and ideally shape, the current developments in the workplace.
There are many different sorts of workplaces, and FMs should constantly be aware of the hybrid and other options. They should be enthusiastic to learn and use new techniques and tools on the job.
They should also be open to and comfortable with a variety of flexible work arrangements and be prepared to argue for them.
Activity-based working (ABW), agile work environments (AWE), and workplace communities are all viable alternatives.
In the world of facilities management, there is no such thing as a universal solution. When it comes to managing facilities’ best practices, it’s not all about employing expensive tools for comparisons and cost-cutting.
The goal is to build a workplace that can adapt to people at each stage of their careers and help them succeed.
The only way that FMs can contribute to their companies is by helping their staff members perform at peak efficiency.