FM Clinic: Keeping on top of compliance

THE CATERING AND FACILITIES MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT’S VIEW
KARL CUNDILL,
PARTNER AT LITMUSFM

The Health & Safety regulators didn’t give any leeway during the pandemic in terms of compliance. If a building was occupied by four people or 400, it made no difference. Failure to meet compliance is seen as a Statutory requirement and potentially a criminal offence and so for many facilities managers, staying on top of the usual compliance regulations, in addition to dealing with the extraordinary additional pressures that the pandemic brought, was overwhelming and became impossible to manage.

Now we’re emerging out of the pandemic and offices, schools, universities and leisure destinations are reopening, staying on top of asset management can still easily be overlooked. More pressing urgencies arise, and the day-to-day maintenance of the facility can be pushed to the bottom of the list. But the impact of not maintaining can be inconvenient at best (equipment breaking down) to catastrophic (users within the facility becoming exposed to injury, or worse, through dangerous assets or equipment).

Why is compliance such a minefield? Merely understanding the varying, and complex, regulations and legislation for buildings and equipment, is a feat in itself. Rarely is a facilities manager an expert in all areas of compliance legislation – why would they be, it’s just one part of their multi-faceted facilities management role. But because of this it’s hard to know, with 100 per cent confidence, that a facility is fully compliant.

So what can be done? Aside from employing a dedicated regulations expert – which would be an ongoing salary cost which in reality is only needed once or twice a year – there are digital tools available that help facilities managers understand where their building and equipment is currently at and which areas need work. One tool is the use of Premises and Compliance Evaluation, but there are many others out there.

These tools make compliance digestible and understandable for the average person. They break down the various UK guidelines and regulations into different assessments, with a scoring model attached to each one. Once the assessments are complete, the facilities manager receives percentage scores for each one – which shows them the areas that require the most urgent attention – along with practical steps that can be actioned to remedy the issues. Investing in a tool like this is invaluable; it’s easy to execute, means your facility is running as efficiently as it can be and gives facilities managers the peace of mind that their building is compliant (and if it’s not, it identifies the areas where these issues can be remedied).

There are also solutions that provide ongoing maintenance to buildings and their assets, meaning they never get to the point where regulations and legislation aren’t met. The use of Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) programmes is a good example, and can mean unexpected equipment breakages are potentially a thing of the past. There are huge financial benefits to implementing a PPM programme too; the time and cost to repair equipment that fails out of the blue is three to five time more expensive than the cost of making a planned repair of the same equipment prior to any potential failure.

With PPM programmes, facilities record all their assets (so air-conditioning units, boiler plant, chillers, generators and fire systems etc.) on an asset register, which includes details such as when they were last serviced, their current condition and the residual life expectancy. A Forward Maintenance Register (FMR) can then be created, which essentially captures the remaining service life of each of the assets. The development of the FMR could initially span five years and detail the maintenance required over this period. Or it could be developed further into a full lifecycle programme covering a 10, 15, 20-year period. 

THE FM SERVICES PROVIDER’S VIEW
ANDREW HULBERT,
MANAGING DIRECTOR, PARETO FM

The management of statutory compliance remains one of the core drivers for the outsourcing of facilities management services. Still, today, we see in Pareto there are huge gaps in clients’ compliance and, most concerningly, often this includes when a contractor is ‘providing’ a service. The last 18 months have created a genuinely interesting scenario, whereby, most of the world has gone home to work. However, the vast majority of facilities management teams are remaining in the office.

There has been a greater reliance on the facilities management departments to just take ownership of compliance. This raises an interesting scenario; as now, FM teams, whether in-house or outsourced, are being entrusted to deliver compliance, without anyone watching. This new found level of trust is both a blessing and a curse.

As a service provider we have seen both extremes of the potential outcomes here. On the positive, we’ve seen team members step up and take absolute ownership in terms of all thing’s facilities management – and especially compliance. We’ve seen FM teams abandoned on site, to some degree, and, yet, they have picked up the ownership and just run with it.

We, at Pareto, internally, have seen people take their shot and showcase just how valuable they are to the facilities management function. This has helped determined individuals to fast track their career and we’ve seen some rapid and deserved promotions in this time.

On the downside, we have seen a rise in panicked potential new customers contacting us to say “we haven’t done any compliance for 18 months and people are due back next week, HELP!”.

There is a frantic approach to completing water risk assessments, fire compliance, emergency lights, general H&S audits, building shutdowns, air quality assessments and everything else it takes to be compliant. Couple this with organisations still using physical paperwork and, all of a sudden: no one can find the folder and Johnny the engineer is still on furlough so no one knows what to do. Ultimately, this creates great opportunity, and it also highlights the challenging side of our sector.

As we start to come out of the pandemic, there is such a brilliant opportunity for the facilities management sector. Over the last 18 months, we’ve had the rule of the workspace. We’ve been able to use the best meeting rooms, gain a greater understanding of exactly how the plant works, re-paint everything we wanted to, complete FCU maintenance during hours, and just enjoyed the freedom of empty offices. Now, we have to take this learning and enthusiasm for the space and impress our colleagues on their return. We need to showcase the work we have done and create the opportunity to show our people the office is ‘safe’.

There will be an increased focus on air quality, fresh air volumes, control of ventilation and how air handling is managed throughout the spaces. We need to be proactive and, with this information, we need to demonstrate that, once again, the best facilities management teams have got ‘it’ covered and can continue to provide the utmost support in order to enable our client organisations to thrive.