Building maintenance is the process of ensuring that buildings and other assets have a great appearance and perform at peak efficiency. Inadequate maintenance can lead to decay, degradation, and decreased performance, affecting the health and safety of users, tenants, and others in the area. For this reason, it is important to adopt good building maintenance trends, strategies, and technologies to help your business reach optimum performance.
Technology is changing the way things are being done nowadays and the building maintenance sector is one of them. In addition, the sector is becoming increasingly competitive. Key players in the industry are consistently looking for ways to automate operational activities, improve the efficiency of communication and facilitate smooth service and field functions.
Why your business need to join the bandwagon
The building maintenance and facilities management market is a prominent area of interest for many software and field service mobility solution providers because of its annual growth rate of 11.4 percent%. This is termed to be a goldmine for many providers.
To further buttress this fact, a recent economic studies done in the building maintenance industry estimated it to be worth over $35 billion per year and is predicted to reach nearly $60 billion by the end of 2023.
The 7 Top Trends in The building maintenance industry
CBRE, an industry heavyweight, ran its own research program in late 2018 to find the top trends in building maintenance industry. According to this research, emphasizes should be laid on the significance of following this seven trends in building maintenance:
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Improving employee wellness.
This means that industries need to ensure a happy and healthy workforce by adopting strategic business activities throughout the work environment.
Though not a new trend, employee wellness has exploded in popularity in recent years. According to recent research, the health and well-being of a company’s employees has a significant impact on the core functionalities of many companies.
It is therefore a concluded fact that employees who are happy, healthy, and engaged are less likely to be absent. The morale is higher and the overall mood and balance of employees do boosts team member productivity and utilization, allowing a corporation to deliver more billable work with fewer resources.
The Facilities management implication of implementing this trend may warrant that the establishment makes provision for new workspaces and employee facilities, such as child care facilities, gyms and fitness centers, relaxation areas, and recreational spaces that are geared to deliver industry-leading health and wellness programs.
This is an opportunity for a building maintenance company to expand their service offering to include routine maintenance contracts for these types of wellness-focused venues, as well as to expand their service offering for businesses.
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Using Systems Integration like Cloud ERP and Field Service Software
A growing number of building maintenance firms are now looking for ways to link their core systems with those of their clients with the help of modern API technology. The need to integrate systems together is owed to the rapid rise of cloud technology and the intrinsic benefits it gives to companies worldwide.
Firms who choose to invest in modern software platforms are breaking down the barriers to crucial data communication between the service provider and the client and streamlining the flow of information in real time as a result of this.
Benefits of using a Cloud ERP and Field Service software in your Organization
There are various advantages to this and they include:
- Improved visibility throughout the entire organization using a single database.
- The ability to manage and maintain project management, sales, inventory, accounting, and field service management in one centralized location.
- The availability of and access to data in real time.
- The availability of giving access to any device at any time.
- Speed and ease of operations across systems and field locations.
- Automated service requests and customer communication
- Access to dashboards made for reporting on the field service
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Facility Management Outsourcing
For a variety of reasons, many organizations agree that they were outsourcing their building maintenance department to experts in facilities management. And many of these reasons were also linked to trends pushing for the improvement of employee experience.
Major Reasons given were:
- Facilities management experts were professional and result oriented.
- There is always a visible improvement in the maintenance of fixed assets and equipment.
- There is better detailing and focus on improving the building to increase employee satisfaction rather than wasting time on trivial matters such as repair requests and general maintenance.
- It was less expensive than using a paid in-house team.
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Leveraging on a Single Provider/Partner
The era of using multiple building maintenance providers/partners is long gone. Many companies are gradually abandoning the old idea of different providers and fragmented workforces. Instead, they are relying on developing a partnership with a single building maintenance professional and integrating their service offerings across all sites and locations.
The following are some of the advantages that have been observed as a result of this:
- The Provider will learn and understand the core features of the company and how to integrate with it.
- The total portfolio of the company’s properties will be better managed.
- Requests for preventative and emergency maintenance will be streamlined.
- The maintenance management data will be simplified.
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Defining the Experiences of Employees
The emergence of Cloud Technology, and its intrinsic capacity to provide flexible work patterns and remote access to critical corporate processes, has changed the character of the workplace substantially in the last 8 years. For both office-based and mobile workforces, companies are beginning to pay more attention to the total employee experience. And as a result, it is not uncommon for the employees of most companies to expect this as a standard therefore; organizations must change their facility management techniques to meet this growing demand in 2021/2022.
Some Companies now provides flexibility in work location and work patterns for both traditional office workers and remote workers easing access to work processes.
Flexible workspaces also necessitate improved communication and collaboration capabilities, which means that a building services and maintenance firm can specialize in this type of technology and equipment once again.
Even though employee will not using the facility as frequently as they should, it still make for a scalable, feasible and cost efficient building maintenance program.
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Leveraging on Co-Share Workspaces
From defining and improving the employee experience comes the rising need for Co-Share workspaces. The rise in the number of Co-Share workspaces is due to an increase in the number of small and medium-sized enterprises looking for a dedicated part-time space to help them expand. Co-working spaces provide exceptional amenities that are often out of reach for the ordinary small business or startup. Building maintenance companies will benefit from an increased market share and the potential to specialize in this type of workspace.
However, this type of workspace demand for the right equipment and technology for it to work and can incur considerable investment. In this regard, it is very paramount that appropriate maintenance planning and execution is critically done to ensure that a shared space or workplace meets the needs of the end users.
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Remote Asset Monitoring
Given the recent emergence of the pandemic, remote property and asset monitoring has swiftly become one of the most important drivers in facilities management in recent years. The importance of being able to work remotely cannot be overemphasized.
Building maintenance companies can get a complete picture of important assets and environmental parameters in all of the facilities managed, no matter where they are, using smart sensors, cloud technologies, and data analytics.
Sensor-based condition monitoring allows service providers to drastically minimize the number of on-site engineers needed.
Additionally, data gathered from buildings that are vacant due to virus outbreaks or tenant migration can result in energy savings significantly exceeding the 15% expected when a building is completely occupied.
How can you company utilize this trends?
In the ever increasingly competitive landscape, smart organizations are seeking for new ways to improve their employees work experiences and well being, strengthen their relationships with existing clients, and automate core business tasks to free up time for other more demanding sectors. Therefore they are increasingly seeing the need to outsource building maintenance and facility management companies who can easily help them do this with readily available and cost effective technologies.
They’re doing this because they realize that if their systems serve their employees and customers’ essential demands, they’ll be able to create superior brand experience and stand out in the market.
For more information on how to optimize prioritize your company’s building maintenance program, speak with us today.
Building Maintenance | By Maxmigold
