Key Attributes for becoming Best-in-Class in Facilities Management

 

Facilities management is an extensive field. It is no more just brick and mortar and encompasses everything that is required to help a facility operate smoothly and efficiently. The modern-day facility manager is responsible for a lot of things and their responsibilities do not just remain limited to maintenance and management. With the facility management sector embracing more and more advanced technologies every day, it has become imperative for facility managers to get up to date with the latest technologies.

It is well known that there are a lot of areas that demand the constant attention of facility managers. Right from building maintenance to being prepared for emergencies and disasters to ensuring the safety of the residents and maintaining all the equipment of the facility, everything that you can think of in and within a facility is directly or indirectly the responsibility of a facility manager. We often hear people asking what does it take to become the best in class in facilities management. Especially people who are new to the profession might feel overwhelmed in the initial days considering the wide scope of the sector. Let us take a look at some of the key attributes to becoming the best in class in this profession:

• A facility manager needs to be a good listener and an excellent communicator: the days when facility management meant operating from the basement are long gone. In order to be able to enhance the values of your organization and reinforce the strategic goals of your organization, as a great facility manager you need to be a good listener and need to understand the requirements of the people who use your facility and its services. For example, you need to focus on the work lives, styles, living standards, eating habits, and ways of commuting of the residents. The facility manager is required to use all this information properly in order to make new approaches and implement new strategies. A change in a workplace always can result in resistance. As a result, a good facility manager needs to have great communication skills and someone who can translate new workplace strategies into something that is tangible for the individual employee that is impacted.

• A facility manager needs to know how to create a strategic value: a good facility manager must never see facility management and business operations as two different entities. Rather, the role of a facility manager is to combine the KPIs of facility management to the KPIs of the business. A good facility manager needs to be able to deliver business value that goes beyond the regular maintenance and governance. In today’s age, facility managers are more experienced managers. They are expected to possess the ability to use a workspace as a tool to strengthen the culture of orientation and improve productivity and employee engagement. This enables them to develop workspace experiences and communicate the value proposition of the organization.

• A facility manager needs to challenge the status quo: the role of a facility manager is to keep evolving at a rapid pace. A workplace or an organization is always subject to constant change. Whether it is a new generation of employees entering the office for the first time or the entire workspace gets restructured or there are external pressures that are influencing the operations of the organization, a facility manager needs to imbibe to all these changes. A good facility manager is someone who always embraces change and is never afraid to challenge the status quo by introducing solutions that are innovative and can create new cost efficiencies and support organizational transformation. 

As mentioned earlier, the facility management sector is evolving at a rapid pace and new technologies are being introduced in this sector. A good facility manager needs to be adaptive and flexible to change. Whether it is a facility management app or a facility management software that gives facility managers instant access to information or whether it is a building management system to introduce environment-friendly features in the facility, a facility manager needs to be updated with the knowledge of using and enforcing these technologies in his daily operations. Any high-performing company would agree that one of the most significant aspects of workplace management is to be able to enhance and develop an environment that can engage, attract and retain employees. Most would agree to the fact that leadership will not be able to do this alone. Companies are therefore always on the lookout for facilities that can reinforce their vision and mission and support systems that are able to reflect the employee-centric goals. It is in this regard that the need and requirement remain irreplaceable in any facility whatsoever. In order to handle and perform these tasks, a facility manager needs to keep evolving himself every single day.