Have you ever wondered how much time we spend inside buildings and various facilities? Research suggests that an average of 90% of our lifetime is spent indoors. No matter what the space is, an office, a shopping complex, a factory or a hospital, there are countless buildings and facilities that are created for diverse purposes. The maintenance and management of these countless facilities is a complex operation that requires tremendous coordination between various teams.
Given the diverse nature of the task, facility managers who oversee large properties need to be aware of the challenges and the solutions in order to streamline workforce management. In this article, we’ll shed light on some of the major challenges encountered in facilities management, and how facility or property managers can resolve these challenges. But first, let’s talk about what facilities management exactly is.
What Is Facility Management?
Facilities management is a vital combination of manpower, processes and equipment to ensure that the functioning and the infrastructure of the real estate are secure and well-maintained. Facility managers are responsible for executing strategic plans to ensure improved operational efficiency, reduced costs and strong preventive measures for the smooth functioning of the place. It is an extremely crucial aspect of every organization since it helps people living and working in various spaces feel secure and have the best experience.
What Are the Different Types of Facilities Management?
Facilities management is a multidisciplinary industry with diverse specialties and demands. Here are some of the major types of facilities management.
- Real estate management
- Enterprise asset management
- Energy management
- Space and floor management
- Environment and safety management
What Are the Top Challenges in Facility Management?
1. Increasingly Distributed Workforce
A large on-site workforce is required to manage diverse operations involved in managing a facility. But managing a large workforce itself is a complex chore, and that includes employee training. Facility management encompasses a largely dispersed workforce. Keeping track of employees’ locations, coordinating with remotely located team members, communicating the latest updates, and ensuring ongoing employee training are all part of this cumbersome task.
2. Constant Damage Control
Facility managers have to always be on their toes and expect a constant inflow of problems that require instant damage control activities. It can be highly pressurizing to receive constant urgent calls, locate relevant on-site teams to have various issues fixed and prioritize every task to ensure people working, visiting or residing in your facility do not encounter obstacles.
3. Maintaining Productivity
Facility management can be demanding at times, as the workforce is required to constantly multi-task and get diverse operations done in a time-critical manner. There needs to be a smooth communication flow, seamless exchange of information and documents between on-site employees and a tad bit of automation to reduce excessive hours spent on manual tasks. All these factors help teams improve their productivity and operational efficiency.
4. Safety & Compliance
Security is a big subset of facility management. In the event of security failures, the on-site workforce needs to have an instant means of communication in order to execute urgent actions. Utilizing SOP software in these scenarios enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of communication and task management. Managing risks of the facility or people working on the facility need to be dealt with on an urgent basis. Manually hunting for your crew members on-site is time-consuming. Efficient contingency plans, supported by SOP, rely on speed and accuracy to ensure that procedures are followed correctly and promptly.
Read more: How Do Push-To-Talk Services Help Businesses To Save Costs?
Instant Communication: The Key to Efficient Facility Management
Considering the key challenges, establishing superior facility management requires seamless communication between diverse on-site teams to coordinate and execute various activities. Facility managers need to constantly be aware of the whereabouts of their team members, employees need instant connectivity with their crew members, as well as other departments. Time is of the essence and the workforce is distributed, which means a fast and reliable communication platform is a must.
NuovoTeam is a push-to-talk app that helps diverse businesses streamline their remote communication. Communicating with a distributed workforce over phone calls is time-consuming and impractical which is why facility managers have relied on outdated walkie-talkie radios for so long. NuovoTeam helps the facilities management industry to turn smartphones into walkie-talkies. Your on-site workforce can connect with each other over cellular networks just by the push of a button.
NuovoTeam offers the following capabilities to help your facility management team communicate with ease:
- Instant push-to-talk connectivity
- Over-the-air file sharing
- Multi-media messaging including images, videos, etc.
- Corporate directory integration for faster contact search
- Location sharing to quickly locate on-site team members
- Monitoring employee attendance and clock ins & outs
How does this benefit facility management teams?
- No need to rely on bulky and unclear radio devices
- No need to invest in expensive radio equipment
- NuovoTeam is easily integrated into Android, iOS and rugged smartphones
- No need to waste time on dialing or typing protocols
- Distance is no more a barrier, you can connect with anyone, anywhere
- You can conduct group calls to keep your entire team well-informed
Closing Lines
Facility management is required by every organization. But managing large properties and facilities has several complexities that need to be addressed and resolved. NuovoTeam helps facility managers to streamline one of the most important aspects of facility management – instant communication.