This is a valid question that might have crossed your mind a time or two especially if your business is growing and expanding. As you experience growth, you also experience an expanding staff, more stationery and tools, more equipment and its accompanying technology. With this expansion, you will experience clutter, mishap processes and wastage in a variety of ways. Your organization will need more storage and buildings to house these infrastructures and a comprehensive process to make sure everything runs together smoothly and in an integrated manner. This is where you’d need a facility manager or a facility management team.
Facility managers and what they do
Facility management is an occupation that primarily focuses on the smooth running and maintenance of organizational structures and equipment in a way that provides exceptional value to the building’s users and proprietors alike.
Additionally, facility managers are multi-disciplinary support providers who offer services that can be utilized in any niche or industry. Even when the nature of your business might experience an evolving change, facility management is a continually essential service.
Facility management integrates all the operations in a complex system. For example, businesses such as food manufacturing factories, oil and gas industries, health care facilities, schools, sports complexes, jails, hotels, and other revenue-generating or government institutions are examples of these kinds of facilities.
You can never go wrong with having a Facility management team. They are generally in charge of ensuring that everything related to the physical infrastructure of the business is functioning properly, as well as identifying areas for increased efficiency and cost-cutting, as well as keeping employees satisfied and their needs met.
Do really you need a facilities manager?
Deeply understanding what facilities manager will help you to make a more informed decision. You must first understand the scope of their work and why it is so critical to have them in your team.
Some of the responsibilities of a facilities manager involve taking charge of your company’s day-to-day organization and service delivery. The position’s goal is to reduce your company’s outgoing costs while still ensuring that it meets all of its objectives.
It is their responsibility to ensure that your company complies with the law and meets its environmental goals. With the assistance of a facility manager, your company will be able to stick to a strict budget while also providing a safe and positive workplace.
A Facility manager’s Core Responsibilities
Facilitates Support and Daily Maintenance
The facility manager’s role is to ensure that the facility operates as it should on a daily basis by performing daily inspections and performing proactive and reactive maintenance. These responsibilities are divided into four categories.
A Facility manager offers support and assists employees in the following:
- Handle emergency preparations
- Creates easier movement and better utilization of space in and around the facility.
- Management of employee directories
- Coordination of desk arrangements
Facility managers act as a liaison between the employees who work there and the workplace. When problems with accommodation, safety, or comfort arise, it is the facility manager’s responsibility to resolve them.
Maintains Processes
When it comes to establishing and maintaining processes, it is very necessary to have a facility manager. In order to achieve this, they must do the following:
- Making a reservation for space within the facilities
- Making a request for a work order
- Checking in visitors and guests
- Preparedness for an emergency
When a new problem with the workflow arises, facility managers must resolve it. They must, however, develop a dependable action plan for resolving the same issue if it arises again in the future.
Increase improvement and Workplace efficiency
When you think of a manager’s responsibilities, facility maintenance and improvement is probably the first thing that comes to mind. Here are some examples of this broad range of responsibilities:
- Property management both on and off-site
- Obtaining and retaining vendor contracts
- Cleaning and decorating the workplace
- Repair, upkeep, and building enhancement
A facility manager’s job is to turn the workplace into a place that can meet the needs of the people who use it. Facilities are the second largest expense after labor—then it’s job of a facility manager to turn the workplace into a place that can meet the needs of the people who use it.
Technological Integration
Lastly, there is technological integration. Workplace management systems collect data, which is then used to make critical decisions about how to run the business. That is why facility managers are primarily responsible for identifying and implementing the appropriate technology. While technology is primarily the domain of the IT department, facility managers are the ones who decide how it is selected, used, and leveraged. Here are some examples of how this might appear in a modern setting:
- Providing electrical safety
- Investigating IoT devices based on data collection requirement
- Integrating Internet of Things (IoT) devices into day-to-day facility processes
- calculating the cost, ROI, and benefit of smart technologies
- Using aggregated data to gain a better understanding of the workplace
To gain insights about the workplace, facility managers can collect and analyze data from networked technologies. This leads to better decision-making about how to optimize the work environment for those who use it.
Summary of the benefits and how it can help you
Consider your company and the issues you may be facing now that you understand what a facilities manager does and how they work. If you are experiencing recurring safety concerns or difficulties with asset management or tracking, it is time to seek professional assistance.
Furthermore, if your maintenance costs are rising or you notice a growing backlog of unfinished maintenance tasks, it is clear that time and valuable resources are being squandered.
It makes no difference whether you enlist the assistance of an in-house facility management team or consider outsourcing everything to an independent contractor. The aim is that you recognize how facility management can result in huge cost savings, increased safety performance, and dramatically improved service delivery for your organization.
At Maxmigold Limited, we can get you started on what you’ll need to start an efficient FM sector/department within or outside your organization. Book an appointment with the CEO today.