Facilities Management: An Overview on few current practices, challenges and trends

Till a few years earlier, lot of companies with advanced maturity in processes and technical capabilities too used to consider facilities management as a spend centre and not a revenue generator. This traditional approach has seen a shift in paradigm when professionals started managing facilities heralding the effect of bench marking and best practice adoption. With considerable savings on costs as well as enhancement of service levels, this view started to change. An emerging trend is the focus on facilities management to make the work place safe, comfortable and productivity focused.
Facilities and buildings that facility managers operate not only contribute to the commercial activity, trading, back-end support, manufacturing etc but also are responsible for a considerable chunk of energy usage and in effect the carbon emissions as well; Another emerging parameter under microscope these days.
A trained resource is a scarcity across the industry spectrum and more so in Facilities management as the function is still nascent stages in lot of industries. We all are aware of lot of trained junior resources quickly graduating to become a Facility heads for smaller sites, resulting in scenarios with simultaneous advantages and disadvantages. While people will have to grow and with efficient leadership, the quality of the function in itself will improve, a semi-trained resource in leadership roles has its own disadvantages.
Training the facility management team has multiple angles to consider. Let us list down a few of them
1. Energy management, emissions, carbon foot print and sustainability
2. Emerging best practices and leveraging common knowledge
3. Legislations, changing statutory requirements and regulations
4. People practices, technology advancements and innovation




When we look at any Facility Management operation, the following 4 tenets are apparent
1. Existing state of the facility, readiness of operational team
2. Transition to and expectation from facility management team
3. Establishing the probable gaps and possible bridges
4. Sustenance and way forward

Each of the above is valid for any facility and their interdependence makes them an intrinsic part of any feasibility study, scoping exercise as well as aspect-impact study that one has to undertake apart from business needs and commercials for a site mobilization, certification and efficiency enhancement exercise.
1. Existing state of the facility, readiness of operational team: Fortunate are those who get to manage a new facility- for a lot of the stringent requirements are added in the design stage itself. When planning facility management for a heritage building or a facility with issues and concerns due to improper planning, it becomes that much more difficult for the facility manager to plan the staffing, identify the skill level required for technicians and deploy them. The concept of retro fitting the older facilities to improve energy efficiency etc. The facility management team’s day to day activities are largely focused on keeping the facility operational, comfortable, productive and safe.
However, there are multiple challenges that the FM teams face in managing the existing facilities:
Challenge 1- Qualified and trained resources- There are very few training programs available for technicians, operators, supervisors and facility managers. While business management programs are aplenty, focused facility management programs are only offered by institutes like IFMI (International Facility Management Institute). Manpower is recruited at entry level with minimal qualification and bulk of the training or operational guidance is imparted through On The Job Trainings (OJT). While few service providers in the realm have formalized these OJT programs with dedicated resources focusing on training, bulk of the workforce is not exposed to education or training in the area. The limited class room or structured training too focuses on broad areas of the subject, and definitely not comprehensive exposure. This historical way of learning on the job is applicable for some industries and functions, but to completely bank on OJT for facility management will lead to higher numbers of untrained workforce which has its own disadvantages. Another emerging trend is the incidence of few vocational training institutes offering short term courses in Housekeeping, office administration etc, but keeping current strength and immediate requirements in view, the outflow from these institutes constitutes a small part of the industry requirement. Adding to this, lot of newer concepts in facility management energy management, water conservation, efficiency enhancement, green building etc require not just a practical-hands-on exposure but a detailed theoretical comprehension of the concepts and the nuances of sustaining the improvements.
Challenge 2- Independent Design, Execution & Operations- Very few organizations have a singular vertical that encompasses the design, projects execution and day-to-day facility management. With diversity in leadership, thought process and investments of resource and time, the objectives end of being different. Current trend of out-sourcing these activities brings in additional complexity. Translation of plan to design specifications, design to drawing and execution and from there transitioning to operations team brings in multiple elements to be closely monitored. If any of these steps are slightly mismanaged, the facilities management team bears the brunt of the user group as well as the management. The facility will not yield its optimum utility if not properly thought through during all these phases.
Challenge 3- Investment Crunches- With the government providing multiple platforms for organizations to invest, like STPI few years ago and SEZ in of late the pressure on investments on existing facilities is huge. Companies are more comfortable investing and creating facilities in the areas that attract the subsidies rather than invest in older facilities. This is understandable from an investor’s point of view as newer facilities need less to maintain, abide by the stringent laws and are good to show-0ff. At the same time, older facilities need continuous investment to keep up to the newer laws and periodic refurbishing to keep up to the changing demands of the users. This creates a daunting task for the facilities team. A funds cut, if has to happen, is most probably in the maintenance budget of an existing building than a projects budget of a newer place.
2. Transition to and expectation from facility management team:
A typical transition or Hand-over as popularly known in the facility circles starts with a snag list preparation by the proposed facility management team. This is usually against an impending backdrop of business pressure to take over and mobilize the start immediately. Unless there is a detailed explanation of various design and architectural elements to the facilities team, and passing on the specifications and details to the facilities team, the hand-over would be incomplete. The facility management team should thoroughly comprehend the complete aspects of construction, electrical, water, HVAC, landscaping, server rooms, rest rooms, along with design drawings, as-built drawings, OEM warranties, attic stock, vendor contacts and locked-in AMCs for a period of at least years.
If a building is transitioned from the projects team with all of the above elements, it facilities team would function with much more efficiency than other wise.

3. Establishing the probable gaps and possible bridges: The 3 main probable gaps lie in resource, technology and process. While shortage of skilled manpower as earlier discussed is a primary resource constraint, in few cases mere meeting the desired numbers of necessary manpower itself becomes a challenge. There aren’t many established training schools or graduating colleges where people can study and get trained to become a facility employee, with CAFM certification being the lone exception. A definitive bridge here is to create more awareness about the career opportunities that lie in this industry and to invite private sector along with government initiation. In India, we already have a very successful model in Hotel and Catering management institutes run by government as well as private institutes since 2 decades that have effectively been supplying necessary manpower to the hotel industry. This model can be used for facility management as well. The gap in the requirement-available technology is already huge and is widening due to the increasing expectations from the facilities- viz., LEED certification, Green Building certification, conservation, carbon foot print reduction etc. A deeper insight into using the technologies from manufacturing industries with regards to quality and safety, IT and ITES with regards to CMMI etc and Food industry with regards to HACCP etc will definitely help the facility management industry in general. The gap in process strengthening is due to a self defeating policy that facility management teams adopt. In overlooking the processes and adapting short cut methods, the practicing facility managers add their bit in depleting the life, aesthetics and efficiency of the facility. Processes bring in consistency, predictability and safety.

4. Sustenance and way forward: The facility management function will only become stronger and better managed by professionals in future. This of course necessitates lot of combined effort by the service providers, facility managers, property owners and the real estate industry as well.
a. Identifying the areas of improvement and opportunities for training intervention in all aspects of facility management and bringing in professional and education into the function
b. Use the collective experience of the human resources. With collective experience which is immense in value, new entrants can be trained and existing resources can attend refresher sessions
c. Get the government attention into the industry and seek clarity in the legislation (Power conversion, carbon foot print advantages, water neutral exercise, cGMP training etc) and attract subsidies for facility management education
d. Popularizing certification courses from IFMA and other authorized institutions
e. Creating a platform for sharing knowledge, experience and best practice sharing
f. Documentation for archival and process creation









Finale:
The function has immense potential. The practicing managers only need to get networked and share the knowledge, practices and experiences.



My sincere thanks to IFMA, FM Zone, MMG Worldwide, Paddy Menon, Sunil V, KN Rajan for inspiring me to collate common thoughts and put together this article.
The article is collection of thoughts from my colleagues, current and old, experiences shared over various forums over the internet and facility management events and other relevant sources like project material, submitted papers etc.
Please feel free to use any part or complete article as deemed fit. These thoughts and collation have no copyright whatsoever.