What Should Your Facilities Management Team Focus On?
Where do the most important investments of time, money, and effort belong within your facilities management team? Is their mindset most important? How about their skills? Maybe it’s the tools they use? Here’s how you should explore the issue.
The Importance of the Facilities Management Mindset
The mindset of your facilities management team is what dictates the culture of your entire facilities management department. Do your workers have a can-do attitude? Are they hyped up about serving others? Or, does your facilities management department feature all of the enthusiasm and joy of the average funeral service? Mindset is an easy thing to notice, but a more difficult thing to address when it gets on the wrong track.
Begin by illustrating how important the work that they do is to the entire organization. Make your facilities management team feel important and appreciated. Then develop a camaraderie among your team members, and emphasize a customer service focus.
FM team members are sort of the ‘jack of all trades‘ around the organization. Workers need the ability to budget and plan for the financial future, but don’t have to be mathematicians. They also need to know and understand how to comply with building codes and other federal, state, and local regulations (such as fire codes and requirements for handicapped access), but they do not need law degrees. Employees also need industry-specific knowledge, the ability to lead successful projects, and the ability to resolve conflicts and other emergencies.
You begin building a team with strong skills during the hiring process, and hone those skills with good training and team building exercises. Reward excellence. Make it clear that skills are valued, appreciated, and fostered within your organization.
The Importance of the Facilities Management Tool Set
Unfortunately, a great team mindset and stellar skills cannot compensate for a lack of appropriate tools to get the job done. Facilities management software is crucial to empower your team to use their skills and great attitude to get the actual work done. Without the tools, your workers can never adequately keep up with what groups are using which areas of the building, what is leased out or available for rent, where cleanup crews need to be, and whether a facility has been properly maintained.
Even the most skilled violinist is useless without her instrument, and the most talented artist is worthless without a brush and paint. Tools aren’t everything, but certainly are important.
Which of these is most important? It takes a healthy balance of each to develop and maintain a successful team. Together, mindset, skill set, and tool sets make the perfect spice to season the stew.
