As a facilities manager, you are likely always overloaded with work. You are responsible for ensuring our organization fulfills its mission, meets the members’ needs, and is fiscally prudent. The amount of paper organized in filing cabinets around their facilities makes it challenging to track vital files. This “paper overload” makes the job more complex and often leads to cumbersome ways of managing files.
Facilities managers are responsible for managing a company’s physical assets. This means they must ensure that facilities are up and running efficiently, while also ensuring that they meet compliance requirements. However, facilities management has evolved from being a purely administrative role to one where you must now take on more tasks with different responsibilities.
As the world changes rapidly, so does the role of facilities managers. Here are five challenges for facility managers that they often face daily:
- Too Much Paper & Too Little Organization
Facilities managers face the first challenge of too much paper and too little organization. With so many different tasks to perform each day, it can be challenging to keep track of everything needed to be done and when it needs to be done. Without proper organization, it’s easy for small tasks like maintenance or cleaning to fall through the cracks and not get done. This leads to wasted time, money, and resources on unnecessary work. Zuper’s FSM software makes it easy to organize your tasks by date, priority, type, and all associated paperwork, so you know exactly what needs to be done and when.
- Lack of Enough and Consistent Communication
In most organizations, multiple departments and people are involved in the decision-making process, leading to a lack of communication consistency. Communication is crucial not only among different teams but also between different levels within the same team. For example, when facilities manager communicates with their team members, they must be clear about what they want and why they want it. If someone on the team does not understand what is being asked of them or why it was asked for in the first place, misunderstandings can cause delays in completing tasks. This can lead to team members’ frustration and create an environment where people feel they are wasting their time due to miscommunication from higher-ups or other teams within their organization.
- Manual Work Management & Scheduling
One of the most prominent challenges facilities managers face is managing day-to-day tasks manually. Without software tools like Zuper’s FSM Software, facilities managers must resort to spreadsheets and handwritten notes to manage inspections, maintenance logs, and other work assignments. Not only does this make it difficult for these managers to keep track of everything they need to be done daily, but it also makes it hard for others who need access.
- Keeping Track of Preventive Maintenance
Maintenance of a building is costly and requires a lot of money. If you have to keep track of every piece of equipment in your office or building, it can become quite expensive for you. Preventive maintenance means looking after all the small things that may not seem significant but can be very important for your business growth. For example, suppose you want to check the air quality in your office. In that case, you need to maintain a proper ventilation system which will help you in reducing carbon dioxide levels inside an office or any other place where people gather together.
- Compliance Management Changes
Facilities managers must keep up with all kinds of regulations and standards. The problem is that these rules are constantly changing, making compliance management more challenging than ever.
When a building is first built or renovated, it’s usually designed with one set of regulations. However, those rules can change over time due to new legislation or regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). As such, facilities managers must keep their buildings up to date to comply with these laws. For example, when California passed a law requiring sprinklers in all residential buildings over three stories high, many older buildings were retrofitted with sprinkler systems at great expense just to remain compliant.
This regulatory change is becoming more common as lawmakers become more aware of how things like asbestos removal can impact human health and safety. As such, facilities managers need to ensure they have up-to-date information on any upcoming compliance changes — especially if they involve expensive changes like installing sprinklers or changing out windows.
Zuper’s FSM Software Meets the Modern-Day Needs of Facilities Managers
There are many challenges to take care of as a facilities manager. Zuper can help alleviate the stress of facilities managers through its state-of-the-art software. Facilities managers (FSMs) manage and maintain buildings, whether commercial, industrial or nonprofit/government. As buildings become more complex and energy costs rise, FSMs must be more careful about every aspect of facility management, safety, and budget.
