Six key management skills for Facilities Management Heroes – and one skill to rule them all…

For those more visually inclined, this article is based on a video on the Xenon Group YouTube channel – you can watch it here

When you tell people that you work in Facilities Management, what do they think you mean?

I can tell you a few responses I’ve heard.

‘Looking after buildings’ (those who have a vague idea)

‘Bogs and Boilers’ (those who think they have a sense of humour)

‘Not a clue’ (sadly, most people outside the industry)

But this article isn’t about raising the understanding of FM outside the industry. Before we can do that, we must make sure that those who work within it understand what it’s about.

Ask most FMs and they’ll reel off a list of facilities services – maintenance, catering, cleaning, security, front-of-house, groundskeeping etc.

But that’s not what FM is really about.

These services are common amongst FM roles. Some managers look after all of them, some just a handful. Regardless, there are some universal areas you’ll need to manage.

Let’s take a closer look…

People

It’s likely that at some point you’ll be responsible for managing people. Whether you’re asenior FM with a large team or a single FM with one receptionist, you’ll need to keep your staff motivated and productive.

You’ll need to plan their workloads, getting the most out of them without burning them out. You’ll need to structure your team to utilise their strengths. You’ll need to conduct appraisals, deal with disciplinaries and grievances and support those suffering from stress.

Health and Safety

In many organisations, facilities managers take responsibility for Health and Safety, both overall and on specific projects. Even when there’s a dedicated Health and Safety Officer, the FM will work closely with them and must understand relevant legislation and best practices.

Health & Safety is often derided as boring and bureaucratic, but this is a mistake. Poor Health & Safety leads to fines, imprisonment, bad publicity or loss of customers and staff. It’s your job to promote Health & Safety and develop a safe culture within your organisation.

Budgets

Nearly everything you’ll do in FM costs money. Sadly, there’s a finite supply. That’s why an effective FM must be competent with budgets.

This can be encountered at all levels. Senior FMs set budgets while middle managers manage them, ensuring that spending falls within established parameters. Even junior FMs may be responsible for purchase orders and invoices.

Budgeting can be tricky, but you’ll rarely be alone. You’ll likely have a finance department tohelp keep the budget on-track.

Projects

You’re unlikely to go through an FM career without managing projects. Projects are one-off occurrences and can be small and simple or large and complex, with various issues and stakeholders. Either way they’ll need careful management to be completed successfully, on-time and within budget.

Contracts

Even if you keep services in-house, you’ll need contractors for projects or specialist services. If you outsource, contract management becomes more significant. And if you work for anoutsourcing company, you’ll still need the occasional sub-contractor.

Managing contracts effectively is critical. You need to be sure that you’re receiving the service at the agreed standard. You’ll need to negotiate terms, monitor performance and deal with issues.

Customer Relationships

Your customers are the people who use your services. Without customers, FM departmentswouldn’t exist. You must be sensitive to their needs and responsive to their issues. Customers often want diamond-level service for the price of cubic zirconias, so you’ll need to manageexpectations.

The key to good customer relationships is communication. Communication works both ways. You need to listen to customers, whilst keeping them informed about how your actions willaffect them.

The common thread

“One skill to rule them all, one skill to find them, one skill to bring them all and in the darkness bind them…”

If you’re familiar with the Lord of the Rings, you’ll recognise the reference above. If youdon’t know your Sarumans from your Saurons and think it’s all a load of tosh, the statement should still make sense. Regardless of the services you manage, the organisation you work for or the size of your team, there’s one skill that will increase your effectiveness in all thedisciplines above – people skills.

Whether it’s your team, other departments, contractors or customers, your ability to work effectively with them will define your success.

People think FM is a technical discipline, but it’s not. Technical knowledge helps, but someone with little technical knowledge and great people skills will usually outperform someone technical with poor people skills.

To be an effective FM, you must develop skills that will help you work with people. Emotional Intelligence, communication, empathy etc. These will take you from being a good facilities manager to a great one.

If you want to learn more about the fundamentals of FM, or just want to have a good laugh at me, check out our videos on the Xenon Group YouTube channel

If you want to take your FM skills to the next level, you can learn about IWFM Professional Facilities Management Qualifications here.

Or if you’d just like to know more about the people behind all this stuff, check out our website at www.xenongroup.co.uk