This is a study of, “The Facility Management Handbook” written by Roper and Payant. Continuing on into the building of one’s own philosophy it must first be understood that, historically, Facility Managers were known as caretakers, naysayers, advocates for employee welfare, controllers, employee efficiency multipliers, heavily reliant on the purchasing, service providers, producers of voluminous policies and regulations, project handlers, and major consumers of the administrative budget department.

Characteristics of a successful facility manager in today’s business environment could be considered business leaders, strategic business planners and implementers, resource obtainers, financial managers, spokespersons and advocates, agile purchaser, lessor, and a contractors with a major regard for ethics, an information manager, an environmentalist, a networker, a mentor, an innovator, a risk taker, and a survivor.

The other two fields that compare and in many circumstances surpass the strategic approach of the facility manager are Human Resources and Information Technologies. When it comes to managing multiple facilities, or even one extremely large facility such as a high-rise, skyscraper, or industrial plant, the Facility Manager becomes less and less of a technician and more an more of an overseer.

And so, to continue on to the development of the Facility Manager philosophy. As noted before, this is unique to each person, but the building blocks are the same. Regardless of the organization there are always ethics, codes, and safety precautions that role over across the globe.

First, Facility Management is a business function. The actions of facility managers have financial and organizational impacts. Due to the nature of Facility Management there are both cycles of prediction and seasons of chaos that have to be in balance for longevity. Realizing that anything that can go wrong may in fact go wrong should be the basis for why it is critical to not burn through the annual budget within the first, second, and hopefully third quarter.

Obviously, the goal for the annual budget is to last the entire year, and hopefully if managed well the reserves of an organization can compensate for dire situations, but this is not a leg to stand on in perpetuity. Consider skydiving in how the primary should always work, but there is still reason to have a backup when life security is on the line. With that, stewardship is absolutely critical of any and all business funds. Due to this responsibility, it is a requirement for all Facility Managers to show a longterm code of ethics in the workplace and ideally outside of the workplace as well.

Safety is always the first concern followed by legality, cost, and customer service. When safety is compromised, then the lifeblood of the organization is at risk of being spilled out. This lifeblood is money. Lawsuits are the number one killer of any organization. Lawsuits are not preventable in the modern world, but boundaries and policies in place are a phenomenal deterrent when it comes to avoiding potential wolves in sheep’s clothing who constantly hunt for their next big pay day.

A Facility Manager staff member should be directly responsible for every physical asset and function. Ultimately, when things go wrong (and they will go wrong) the common person, or outsider, will assume it was failure upon the Facility Manager. There is a cost of ownership of facilities; it is the facility manager’s task to ensure that management understands that cost. The cost covers all things on or belonging to company property, and that includes people as they pass through.

Facility Managers should be cost-conscious in everything they do, and should capture all costs in this analysis. Record keeping is the foundation for all things Facility Management. Without a proper system, structure, and training, then there is no way to keep up with the mound of information compounding on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and ultimately annually basis.

If something looks like a good idea, investigate whether anyone else has tried it. If it works in one place, it can be adapted to another. This is the essence of benchmarking.

A good, commonsense decision beats ‘paralysis by analysis’. Within regular intervals and occasionally during beyond hectic seasons there can be hours in a given day where potentially dozens of decisions need to be made. In between managing emails, text messages, meetings and follow ups, phone calls, and facility management software it is easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the operations of an organizations. Maintaining clarity throughout these seasons is imperative to maintain and sustain longevity in the field of Facility Management.

The budget should be the chief management information tool. Put effort into its preparation and format, and then monitor its execution carefully. A good rule of thumb is to conquer quarters one through three within budget, and then utilize the fourth quarter to pull the reigns back on spending and prepare in fulness for the upcoming year.

Every physical asset should be under appropriate life-cycle management. When an outside consultant is used, take care and time in defining expectations. Clarify life-cycle and sustainable design and operational intents before launching new projects.

As the design-construct cycle proceeds, changes become costlier and less effective. The facility manager must retain control of the design-construct cycle. In the planning of major projects, engineering requirements are nearly always understated. Plan for flexibility and redundancy in building systems if FM expects to use them permanently.

Plan with care, and always retain the capability to react. Cultivate long-term relationships. Remember that the successful FM organization is a team (staff, suppliers, contractors, consultants). Remember that the customer, and the customer alone, defines service. The facility manager’s responsibility is to find out how the customer rates the service.

The facility manager must regularly measure both the effectiveness and the efficiency of the department. The facility manger must be active in public relations out the department. If the facility manager does not promote the department, then who will?

The best way to save money is to participate in facility business planning. A facility business plan should support the company business plan. Business plans should be the result of long-range facility master plans. The facility manager should prioritize the development of an FM information system with the budget as the base document.

Lastly, conduct oneself with a high regard for ethics.

Regarding ethics and the massive need for competent Facility Manager training can be better understood by realizing that the U.S. Department of Defense alone has over 2.3 billion square feet of infrastructure as of 2014 and that number has grown significantly worldwide as of 2018.

Along with payroll, the biggest administrative expense is within facilities management. Studies show that thirty to thirty-five percent of general expenses within an organization’s facilities expenses can be saved simply by applying sound principles of planning, lease management, and energy management.

Viewing the Facility Manager as more of technical manager and not a business manager is a surefire way to cost your organization’s bottom line. With that, there are twelve major actions that every facility manager should take. These are referred to as, “The Big Twelve”.

These twelve major actions will be expounded upon, but for now, the list goes…

1. Conduct and regularly update an assessment of both physical facilities and operations.
2. Measure! Measure! Measure!
3. Develop a facilities master plan from which all midyear and annual planning derives. As part of the master plan, include a recapatilization plan covering at least ten years.
4. Get your organizational structure right. Don’t confuse staffing with organization.
5. Recognize that in all but a few special cases, staffing is a blend of staff, contractors, and consultants, in order to minimize cost and maximize flexibility.
6. Institute a customer-based quality program that uses multiple means to obtain customer input.
7. Determine the information you need in order to manage, and then develop automation to produce it for you. You FM information system should be budget-based.
8. Institute facility business planning that can feed into company planner. Use the company’s criteria and systems for making financial decisions.
9. Show results! Companies don’t pay for good intentions and plans, only results. View your department as a business within your company.
10. Use innovative contracting. For other than simple contracting situations, low-bid contracting will result in unsatisfactory results. Partner with your contractors and consultants but demand that they perform if they are to continue to work with you.
11. Have a public relations plan each year that targets each of the constituencies that you have identified.
12. Get management commitment to good FM. You, and you alone, can obtain it. It is worth the investment.

As Always, God Bless,

James Arthur Ferguson