FMJ Facilities Management magazine providing industry-specific intelligence to FM and property professionals
Facilities Managers (FMs) continue to face significant challenges, including rising costs and staff shortages, which puts pressure on budgets and compliance activities. With the government prioritising sustainable business practices, FMs should be poised for more strategic roles. However, skills shortages are getting in the way, with lack of resources leading to delays in repair and maintenance, thereby undermining both productivity and end-user satisfaction. Morale is plummeting, exacerbating the talent exodus. The challenge lies not only in improving the working experience for current FMs to boost job satisfaction and retention but also in attracting the next generation into the industry.
How can technology, including CAFM systems, help FMs address this issue?
In August, Idox conducted research involving over 100 global FMs, highlighting the future of CAFM and the role of technology in delivering business value. The research findings conclude that workforce shortages in the industry remain a top concern for FMs in the next year, and the industry is prioritising efforts to mitigate these effects and find ways to address the issue.
This is not an easy task: 66% of FMs and staff left or considered leaving their job in the previous 12 months, and 54% of corporate leaders expect to have open FM-related positions at all levels of the organisation this year.
The outsourcing model
These recruitment and retention issues are accelerating the shift towards outsourcing. According to the research findings, 22% of businesses already outsource FM, while another 11% plan to adopt this model. However, outsourcing demands proactivity from FMs and does not remove the compliance obligation. While the third party is responsible for ensuring servicing, for example, is achieved effectively and on time, the employing organisation – and its FM – remains responsible for the compliance of its own equipment:
- How is the FM planning to manage that process and enforce contractual Service Level Agreements (SLAs)?
- Where are the reports to provide early warning if the quality of third-party work is not good enough? Third parties are also struggling to recruit and retain staff, which means an FM cannot assume the outsource provider has the skills and expertise required to fulfil obligations.
- Is the FM tracking the outsourcing activity to ensure the service remains cost-effective and in the best interests of the business? Or is the outsourcer buying new equipment to minimise servicing requirements, for example?
Even if a fully outsourced model is not in the plans, the majority of companies will be using some third-party contractors, from plumbers to electricians, and the ability to manage and monitor the quality and timeliness of this work is a vital component of effective facilities management.
Automation and Optimisation
With the outsourcing model here to stay, FMs must effectively manage their outsourced workforce while staying aligned with key strategic goals such as project planning and sustainability initiatives. For this to happen, there needs to be an improvement in the current working environment: manual, tedious, and repetitive tasks need to be better handled, and staff at every level need to feel empowered to do the right job at the right time.
Adopting technology such as a CAFM system to automate and optimise core FM processes can help balance these tasks, enabling FMs to prioritise critical activities such as preventative maintenance. This leads to an improved working environment that makes it easier to retain and recruit talent. Research supports this, with over two thirds (69%) of respondents confirming that facilities management helps to increase employee satisfaction and wellbeing, and 55% saying it helps the productivity of workers.
By streamlining workflows and automating key processes such as work order generation and scheduling, the efficiency of the existing workforce is transformed. A CAFM system such as CAFM Explorer® can help manage the entire operation, providing one source of truth and giving FMs vital data to support day-to-day activities. An at-a-glance dashboard provides immediate visibility of service compliance deadlines, maintenance schedules and Service Level Agreements (SLAs), including outstanding jobs and their associated timeframe, enabling an intelligence-led approach to prioritising tasks and allocating resources that minimise downtime and improve end-user satisfaction.
Most importantly, a CAFM system allows FMs to be proactive in keeping on top of their compliance obligations when it comes to outsourcing. With CAFM Explorer®, FMs have full visibility of job status at any time and can also track the performance of engineers and third-party service providers. Problems are automatically surfaced, enabling the rapid remediation required to mitigate operational risk. CAFM Explorer® also provides a simple way to track and report on technician performance, helping to identify areas for improvement.
Conclusion
As the industry explores ethical, sustainable solutions to workforce shortages that can be an alternative to third-party outsourcing, the opportunity remains for FMs to automate processes, maximise efficiency, and enhance the working environment, making the profession more appealing and rewarding for both existing and new recruits.
With a CAFM system, FMs can explore areas of innovation, such as the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) to monitor environmental performance. They can use in-depth insight about the entire operation to consider ways of improving the workplace environment thereby encouraging employees to adopt flexible working arrangements that best suit the business. By adapting technology such as CAFM Explorer® in their workplaces, FMs can inspire the next generation to pursue a career in facilities management.
Read Idox’s full report on the state and future of the Facilities Management industry: The Future of CAFM
