One thing which comes to everyone’s mind while talking about facility management is that it is one of the functions supporting the core business. It is an arm which helps the organisation to do its business well. Over the last three decades the FM function has grown to a great extent and is now being recognised as a special function necessitating a change in the way we look at FM today.
FM is going to take a large role as everything is changing in BPO and KPO business. People today are shifting jobs only because of wanting to have better facilities. We made FM such a topline department that in the recent past, FM was made into a separate company. And we drove cost and budgets to ourselves. FM services which was put on a separate balance sheet created a profit centre from the cost savings that we managed.”
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“Facility Management team is a stakeholder in any business and must have a representation in the board room”
Dr Shakti Singh Chauhan
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Trained Manpower
There’s no doubt that FM requires to have trained manpower to deliver. It is the manager’s duty to employ people who can perform using the latest technologies.
If a company does not have trained manpower, it will affect the business continuity plans. A small negligence can lead to business disruptions. For ensuring business continuity, it is important to train the manpower by conducting some mock drills and prepare them for situations like strikes, power cuts, equipment failures. Here the FM team must work as the extended partners understanding each other’s roles. It’s an evolvement which takes place. There is a need of identification in training which is required.
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“FMS is a team which has a heart of the mother with a control and all the people in a corporate are looking forward to it for their personal needs every day, every hour because office is the home for most of corporate employees”
Ralph Sunil
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When you are dealing with human beings, compliance comes into the picture. The government is the other stake holder. Government is interested in maximum welfare of the human beings. That means being clear to every stake holder about the importance to comply and being clear internally and also externally to the vendor. FM should not be compromising on the compliance. Everything has to be met.
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“Communication– internal, external and absolute no compromise attitude is the key towards getting compliance done”
Solomon Ellis
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Technology
The revolution of technology has started 15-20 years back. The trend of smart building and technology has brought facility management into place. Technology is playing a very significant role in managing any facility. Whether it is a smart building, or your own premises. While we create an office, we know what sort of trend should be adapted while executing a project to reduce the cost and resources. While creating a building, we should know to efficiently utilize the design of the building.
It is important for an organisation to consider FM as a part of its strategic decision. Technology is growing very high ahead. Automation in direct operations has gone to next level which is taking FMS to a great level. Merit is the only way in which we can achieve our credibility in any area.
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“Instead of calling FM a cost centre, we are required to be known as a profit centre”
Bhupesh Pathak
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Manpower to SLA
FM is no more a support function, it’s a stakeholder. The best of FM team works with a proper delegation of ownership.
Manpower to outcome-based contracts is a good concept. If you accurately carry out time and motion study, you will be able to curtail the wastages and the seepages which are there. Manpower driven contracts would be very tough in the coming time. There are salaries which are going to be unaffordable for a larger team. SLA’s and technologies are going to be way forward. Going forward, it will be SLA based contracts enabled with technology which has to be built on transparency.
We are evolving from manual type of processes into adapting to technologies. Expectations of clients are rising day by day. When we move from manpower to SLA based activity, the most important thing is, FM manager of the company should be qualified to select a qualified team. Once you have SLA’s, it should be high matrix like a balanced scorecard that an HR has.
FM is a very strong player. Three things that every FM person should be aware of which will take facility management services to great places:
- Respect and make the service provider part of the team
- Implement as much as possible. Low cost implementations which can touch everybody from time to time on a weekly basis
- Communication
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“Technology has a wider role to play when it comes to admin and facility as of today”
Dr Abhijit Sarkar
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