Anand
Product Manager
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What does top management expect from Facility Managers during recession?
If this recession goes on like this the senior management will want facility managers to cut costs and add value simultaneously.
The trick to doing that is to focus on corporate outcomes, not on faciltiy operations outcomes. Facility Managers have to have business acumen, they have to understand the financials, and have to know how to manage relationships internally.
Some examples on: How add value while cutting costs?
• Facility Managers have to optimize to the fullest when it comes to space. Getting rid of unnecessary space is the fastest way to cut facility-operational costs. But cutting down too much space could leave the corporation ill-positioned when the economy rebounds. A lot of corporates are concerned that they’re going to cut too much. There has to be some flex in how you manage your property portfolio.
In past downturns, corporate facilities were managed to balance “value creation” strategies to improve operational efficiency with “value protection” measures to cut costs. Greater use of alternative work strategies such as hotelling or telecommuting helped to maintain this balance because they achieved both goals.
• Corporates continue to emphasize measures to reduce their environmental impact, but Facility Managers are more sensitive to costs than, say, a couple of years ago. The idea of paying a green premium is harder to sell; so is the cost to get LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standard certified, though LEED remains the touchstone for green building initiatives. Instead, there’s a new focus on energy efficiency.
• In the 1991-92 “depression,” as the Urban Land Institute called that downturn, one telecom took the opportunity to buy property at 50 cents on the dollar. The same thing may happen in this recession period too, with corporates willing to own a higher percentage of their space than in the past, when the industry average was about 60 percent leased space.
As an employee, we expect just a well ventilated and good atmospheric workstation. And don't feel like an small room that hard to do your work.
The expectations are to keep the building in the "as built" condition", the people happy, and doing it by being creative with the budgeted dollars. If you feel you are working hard and being ignored, that's ok, it means everthing in your world is working fine. Like a Super Hero, "That Facilities Guy" does each job and moves on, many time doing it un-noticed. I know because I am "The Ghost".
Right on, Ghost. I tell my staff if they're in it for the fame and glory,you've got the wrong job. If we can, we try to stay a few steps ahead of folks and anticipate the needs. We all know at times we can be like the guy in the circus sweeping behind the elephants!
We’ve found that one of the most important things expected from facilities managers today is to understand what your organization’s overall strategic goal is and how facilities fit in to that. This article hit the nail on the head - facility managers DO need to think about maintaining facilities from a business perspective. Thinking ahead and gathering data to determine where it makes most sense to spend maintenance dollars is part of that. Essentially, facility mangers must be able to make a business case to upper management for how they are going to make an impact on the company’s bottom line.
Working for the WHQ of a traditional corporation like Eaton definitely has its challenges when it comes to space planning. With the mix of the multi-generational workforce, there are many employees who still like the status symbol of having a large plush office to work in. There are even those who will count ceiling tiles to compare office sizes.
Then you have the younger crowd who just want a place to plug in and work.
Maintaining facilities from the strategic business perspective of the company is all well and good, but adding the human factor is definitely something that can throw significant obstacles in the way!