Roles, duties and responsibilities are integral aspect of every profession and is a subject that one planning to choose or already practicing a discipline should not just be acquainted and familiar with but study it often in order to be effective and deliver in that profession. Facilities management just like every other has his own unique duties and responsibilities. before we can clearly understand the duties and responsibilities of facility managers, we must dive a little bit into the history of facility management because these roles and responsibilities varies over time. From an article facility management history and evolution, in the journal of facility management speaking on the history of facilities management it was stated that some say it is IT, technology outsourcing in the late 60s and some say property management in the early 70s. Some even refer FM development way back to the old American railroad in the mid1800s. To date, the author has personally accounted various interpretations of theories of how FM begun but none of the claims besides the one by IFMA appears to be cast in stone.
According to Price research work, the first documented existence of the FM term was noted through a snowball research in 1968. The following is a passage from an email, which started as a result of my investigation into the origin of FM, dated 8 September 2006 from Dr. Price to the bureau of Wisconsin State Facilities, which laid out his research findings on FM history.
Some 6 years ago I was asked to compile a history of Facility and Facilities Management, a project which included a worldwide survey of practitioners, an electronic literature search and a survey of the major professional bodies. The oldest date any practitioner could recall hearing the term was 1968 and the early literature (from 1971 on) refers to “Facilities” Management as IT outsourcing. Some people claim Ross Perot coined the term in EDS. The US Facility Management Association (the property people) dates their foundation and first use of the term Facility Management to 1978. They became the International Facility Management Association in 1981. “Facilities” used to refer to the property aspect came into use (Wisconsin apart) in the UK from ca 1983.
Price set up a ‘snowball’ survey of other authors and their networks asking people when they had first heard the term. One respondent claimed 1968 and another had heard of it, and become involved, in 1974. The oldest reference Price (2006) could find on an electronic database (Scott, 1971) described ‘Facilities Management’ as the practice of banks outsourcing their data-processing operations. Price (2006) mentioned that only the abstract survives online but it states:
Price (2006) also quoted (Anon, 1972) who stated the term as follows: Facilities management is the complete takeover and operation of a client’s data processing by a service firm. However, in a separate historical chronology of the event by Wisconsin State Facility Services Department, in the article 90 years of DSF History, it was noted that the first usage of the term FM referred to property management rather than IT as agreed by Price in his email dated 8 September 2006 to Jon A. Jensen below.
The practice of having buildings from which to conduct ‘business’ and managing those buildings probably goes back around 5,000 years. However, in the interesting history you located the Office of the Supervisor of Territorial Property did not get renamed the bureau of Facilities Management until 1971. That is still interesting because it takes the first recorded instance of use of the term to refer to property rather than IT back by some 12 years ahead of any other documented instance of using the term Facilities Management to refer to any aspect of property supply.
From that brief chronology from the 1900s to 2000s we could see that those duties and responsibilities o has varied over time. From the primitive times some claim it to be IT outsourcing and as the years goes by there were still fleeting mentions of facility management the services were tied mainly to caretaking and janitorial services building maintenance was carried out by separate individuals portfolios ,mechanical electrical, plumbing ,civil, but not as a complete entity .as the world evolves discipline like property management came into place and then general maintenance was treated as a single portfolio with space management, relocation and then cost control that was when the FM industry started taking shape until it got to where it is today .and as of today it has expanded oversight encompassing administration, technical, client relation and others.
IFMA defined Facility management as a profession that encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionality of the built environment by integrating people, place, process and technology. The roles of FM will be given in categories in reference to the definition, which are environment, people, technology and process. These are the Roles and duties of facilities management but not limited to. These roles vary with time, organizations and positions.
ENVIRONMENT
- The facility manager is responsible for ensuring a healthy and protective work environment.
- The facility manager is responsible for ensuring that the environment and facility follows set codes, standards and regulations.
- It is the duty of the facility manager for ensuring a sustainable environment.
PEOPLE
The facility manager is responsible for training and managing operations and maintenance staffs
The facility manager is responsible of supervising and coordinating vendors /contractors
The facility manager would also consult with individuals and department across organization to managerial purposes and influencing of creating polices.
PLACES
The facility managers can also be responsible for space management which involves s the maximizing of space for more productivity
The facility managers is also responsible for relocation and extensions of firms the might involve the constructing of a new company building, store house the facility manager can be involved in the entire construction process through out all the stages. or even if it’s just the relocation to fully constructed building.
PROCESS
- The facility manager is responsible of understanding the companies’ goals, mission and vision and work according to their strategy to see that those goals, missions and visions are achieved
By operating at a strategic level and not just tactical of operational. - The facility manager is responsible for developing, operational plans, schedules, requirement and anticipate need for adaptations.
- It is the duty of the facility manager to ensure the lowest possible failures of the entire facility system through operation and maintenance at the highest possible reliability at the lowest overall total cost.
- It is the duty of the facility managers to understand and manage contract and agreement.
- It is the duties and responsibilities of facility managers to ensure there is every increase in productivity with every increase in energy consumption, through energy efficiency processes.
- It is the duty of the facility manager to maximize asset potential through an asset management process.
- Maximize cost saving. Through cost-efficiency processes.
TECHNOLOGY - Integration and utilization of technologies and software’s for all managerial functions, for maintenance, operations and for ensuring safety.
Those are the roles and duties of facility managers but not limited to the ones listed above they changes and varies over time as stated earlier. These changes are also affected by evolution.as a facility manager there is a subject that should be studied and understood and be familiar with and also backed up with the skills to actualize these duties I would suggest engaging in continuous training and acquire certifications of those training to be up to speed with those duties and necessary skills to achieve them and Max-Migold training is a profound way to start it for those interested .