What is the Role of a Facilities Management Company?

What is Facilities Management?

A facilities manager is a vital role within any organisation. Every business needs to run as efficiently as possible, not only in order to provide the best service for their clients and end users, but also to ensure the business is profitable. The role of a facility manager is to cast an eye over the entire facility, ensuring that everything runs smoothly, with minimal interruption, and that there are plans in place to deal with both expected and unexpected maintenance.

So, what does a facilities manager do?

Facilities Management Responsibilities

Maintenance

For any successful business it is important to not overlook any aspect of the company; a well-run premises and well-maintained equipment is no less important than good customer service and healthy profit margins. It is the responsibility of the facilities manager to ensure that these assets are managed properly. Assets should be maintained, tested and inspected regularly to ensure that breakdowns are prevented as much as possible, as well as to maximize the life of equipment. To do this, FM’s must create and carry out planned maintenance schedules so that all aspects of the facility are reviewed, and any problems sorted quickly. Additionally, facilities managers will have processes in place should any unexpected issues occur, ensuring that breakdowns are dealt with quickly and efficiently.

Health and Safety

Facilities managers have a duty of care to the staff and customers within the facility, and so must ensure that the building and company are health and safety compliant, this includes attaining appropriate certifications and conducting employee training. If a business fails to manage safety related issues properly, this can lead to potential injury, prosecutions, and loss of business.

Having a facilities management company can help to keep your building, customers, and employees safe. Regular inspections will ensure your building remains compliant within the relevant legislations applicable to your business and that health and safety regulations are adhered to. By ensuring that the fabric of the building is well maintained you can be sure that everyone working within is kept as safe as possible.

Stay on Top of Legislations

Having a team at hand to deal with your compliance maintenance takes a massive weight off your shoulders. It is very time consuming and often overwhelming to think of all the laws and legislations that you have to keep in line with, so having a team ready to deal with everything for you is extremely useful. A facilities management company can help to ensure you are working in line with various legislations such as electrical compliance, fire safety and water safety.

Cleaning

The cleanliness of a facility is ultimately the responsibility of the FM. This may be creating cleaning schedules and managing cleaners, if cleaning staff are in-house, or, if an external cleaning company is used, choosing the right contractor and ensuring that their work is of a high standard. Generally, cleaning is undertaken when the office is closed, but there may be a few tasks that are undertaken during business hours, such as cleaning toilets or emptying bins. This schedule will be decided by the FM, who will assess when each task needs to be done and how often.

Fire Safety

Fire safety is an integral part of any FM’s role. There are a number of procedures a business must adhere to when it comes to fire safety, and the overall responsibility of ensuring these are adhered to, will lie with a responsible individual within the business, however employing a facilities management company can help ensure that regular inspections take place and the relevant equipment is compliant. Not only does a FM ensure that all fire safety equipment is maintained, inspected and tested regularly, but they also make sure that fire risk assessments are carried out, evacuation plans are made and fire drills are conducted frequently.

Security

Security is essential to any business to protect employees, staff and assets. A facility manager can ensure that necessary structures are in place to make sure the facility is suitably protected. This can range from organising manned guards to installing and maintaining CCTV equipment.

Technology

Computerised Facilities Management Software, like MSL’s inSYNC portal, allows you to have a clear and transparent overview across your entire organisation so you can easily organise and manage a vast range of tasks from start to finish. They also help you create and maintain planned maintenance schedules, as well as keeping you up to date on your spending, so you can be sure that you are keeping within your budget. Utilising a management system really does take a lot of the stress out of large-scale facility management.

Benefits of a Facilities Management Company

Save Money

A facilities management team is a cost-effective way to maintain your building. Having a team to regularly check your facility is in working order, at a time which is least disruptive to your business, can help you to avoid things which could have direct impact on your bottom line.

Without a facilities management team on hand for planned and reactive maintenance you could face costly repairs from a variety of contractors should something go wrong, and any business downtime as a result of these repairs can be greatly detrimental to your profits.

Avoid Costly Repairs

By having a facilities management team on hand, you can ensure that your building is well maintained, and any repairs are conducted in a timely manner. Implementing a planned maintenance schedule will help to ensure that all your building maintenance is up to date, which in turn helps to avoid larger repairs and allows you time to budget for them if they are necessary.

Avoid Downtime

Hand in hand with avoiding costly repairs is avoiding business downtime. When large repairs are required it can result in a loss of working time or a complete shutdown of the building which can directly impact your bottom line. When you employ a facilities management team you are in control of when maintenance work and repairs are carried out so a lot of the time you can avoid any business downtime and continue functioning as normal.

A Greener Business

Making sure your premises are energy efficient not only helps reduce your energy bills but will also reduce your company’s carbon footprint. The process of inspecting every aspect of your facility for energy efficiency can be time consuming, so a facility management partner will take on this responsibility, as well as employing an energy assessment and energy saving identification scheme (ESOS) if appropriate.

For more information on how your business can benefit from facilities management, contact MSL on 0333 1234 450.