OPERATIONAL TIPS FOR A FACILITIES MANAGER

1.     KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS (KYC)

Have a clear knowledge and understanding of who your customers are and put up a strategy to understand their changing needs.

Your customers may fall into one of these categories;

·         The Occupants, residents, staffs, co-workers, etc

·         Other stakeholders including: Site Personnel, Contractors/Suppliers, Investors

2.     KNOW YOUR BUILDING (KYB)

^·          Know the facilities under your scope of services and develop a functional Asset Register showing the specifications, the history and important manufacturer information about each of the assets

^·          Gather relevant information about the current operating condition of the assets through a well-organized and documented condition assessment/survey

^·          Plan and execute measures to close the identified facilities / service gaps noted.

3.     UNDERSTAND SERVICE SCOPE & CUSTOMERS’ EXPECTATIONS

• Timely response to request

• Proactive approach to problem identification and solution

• Timely resolution of identified problem

• Timely notification on service disruption

• Timely and regular feedback on progress or anticipated delay in commencement or completion of progress

• Under promise – Over deliver

• Keep your integrity and avoid negative perception in your word and action

• Timely delivery of work

• Care, respect and courtesy

• Cost effectiveness (manage perception)

• Professionalism in outlook and in action

• Good housekeeping

• Attention to detail in problem identification, scoping/costing and job completion certification

4.      COMPLY WITH SPECIFICATIONS AND STANDARDS (Local & international)

·         Work procedures, policies, etc

·         Fire Safety codes (Federal Fire Service Codes, NFPA codes, etc)

·         Materials standards

·         Tools and equipments

·         HSE Standards, specifications, etc.

5.      SHOW LEADERSHIP AND BE PROACTIVE

• Be focused on the agreed deliverables and quality expectations.

• Design & adhere to available Planned Preventive Maintenance.

• Observe Daily Routine Inspection.

• Report identified issues and log them in the daily inspection logs.

• Ensure there are adequate consumables/materials on-site to address unplanned issues.

• Do appropriate communication and over-communicate if need be in order to meet clients’ needs.

• Prepare yourself and your team for the unknown (Recourse Management from Top Management is highly required)

• Develop a lesson learnt log and a risk identification log to avoid reactive work flow.

• Always plan your work and get a clear overview before execution.

• Know when to seek help.

6.      MAINTAINING GOOD DOCUMENTATION AND RECORD KEEPING

·         Appropriate record management (Soft copy- cloud based is more preferable).

·         Occupants’ details.

·         Facility plot plan, asset register and condition survey report.

·         Procedures and standards.

·         HSE Plan, statistics and records.

·         Work requests and completion certificates.

·         Important client communications.

·         Minutes of meeting with customers and suppliers.

·         Important company policies and announcements.

·         Staff and contractor information.

·         Equipment maintenance history (Both Planned & Unplanned)

·         Incident, near miss, accident unsafe conditions reports.

7.      EMERGENCY RESPONSE/INCIDENT REPORTING

·         Communicate Emergency Response procedure and contacts to all occupants and staff-Display at strategic points within the facility.

·         Conduct periodical test of site preparedness for emergency e.g fire drill

·         Ensure timely notification of HSE incident or unplanned critical service disruption (e.g. power, water, sewage, lift, swimming pool unavailability)

·         Ensure incident report latest within 48 hours of occurrence after due investigation.

·         Agree on established means of communication with general residents e.g email, bulk sms, etc.

·         Agree on effective communication plans with client representative; who, what and when?

8.      KNOW AND COMPLY WITH HSE PROCEDURES & STANDARDS

·         Be conversant with overall HSE management system of the company

·         Have an HSE plan for specific projects/sites.

·         Regularly review performance against HSE plan

·         Some important HSE issues requiring close attention:

o   Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) for site/project.

o   Safe Handling of Chemicals (SHOC Card).

o   Daily toolbox meetings.

o   Plan keep up to date minutes of monthly HSE meetings.

o   Annual plan & report of fire drills

o   Periodic HSE audit and close out tracking

o   Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

o   Security review report

9.      CONDUCT DAILY ROUTINE INSPECTION

·         Daily MBWA (Management BY Walking Around) is the best way to be on top of your game in FM.

·         Identify and pay particular attention to the “Blind Spot” of the facility (Ares least frequently visited or used)

·         Ensure adequate recording and follow-up to close out identified snags.

·         Provide feedbacks to relevant parties on close out.

10.  MAINTAIN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION WITH THE CUSTOMER

·         Effective communication is necessary during both good and bad times.

·         Success is determined by how well the communication is handled in terms of who, what, when and how?

·         Know all your customers by first name, also knowing the names of important people to them could be interesting to some of them, e.g children’s name.

·         Research important events about your important customers and use the opportunity to connect with their hearts and minds e.g birthday, children’s birthday, weddings of self or children. Be careful not to overdo this otherwise it could be termed as invasion of privacy.

·         Connect with your customers regularly through the following means;

o   Weekly Highlights.

o   Incident Report.

o   Service Disruption Notification.

o   Monthly/Quarterly Service Charge Account Update

o   Client Joint Inspection and meeting Schedule (e.g quarterly).

o   Customer Survey.

o   Annual Facility Report & Budget.

11.  PLAN TO EXECUTE RIGHT

·         Do NOT start what you have not planned.

·         Execute only what you have planned.

·         Planning gives you a total overview of;

o   The work

o   Resources required (money, personnel, materials, tools & equipment, etc)

o   Critical Success Factors

o   Risks to be managed

o   How success or failure shall be measured and reported.

o   Recovery plan.

• Engage the right personnel, materials, tools and equipment, processes and systems
• Execute and monitor progress
• Know when and where to seek help
• Determine the stage to activate recovery plan
• Familiarize with the site operations request handling procedure/workflow

12.  INTEGRATE TECHNOLOGY WITH YOUR FM PROCESS

·         Design your work process flow and integrate appropriate technology to enable your process to save time and money.

·         Remember, use of Technology is just an enabler. If your processes are not right, then you will not add value to your clients. It’s just going to be a waste of resources. This means all your departments (Finance, HR, Procurement, Audit, I.T, and Business Development/Marketing) has to be in sync to have a desired output.

Reference

Lecture notes by Femi Akintunde (2011),'Important Tips in Promoting Facilitis Management'

TALENT MANAGEMENT IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT: A STRATEGY FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.

I have always been an advocate for people (team) development, maturity, mentorship and retention in the workplace because it carries the highest cost in terms of salaries, remunerations etc, in the built environment. In the facilities management industry for instance, the people make up the 4P’s (people, place, profit & planet) and the appropriate management of this determines the realization of the organizations’ vision, mission, values and reputation.

I wish to recall the definition of facilities management as provided by IFMA and BIFM to elaborate and drive home my points. The International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) defines Facilities management as “a profession that encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionality of the built environment by integrating people, place, process and technology”. The British Institute of facilities management (BIFM) also explained that Facilities management is the “integration of processes within an organisation to maintain and develop the agreed services which support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities”. Therefore, this brings me to provide my own simple definition of FM as the profession for the people (end users) with good processes and technologies executed by motivated people. It is people-centric because it always considers the provision of comfort for the workplace and occupants in order for them to realize their laid down strategies.

Canaty & Chavan (2010) suggested that “if businesses managed the money as carelessly as they manage their people, most would be bankrupt”. They further explained that “the great majority of companies that control their finances masterfully don’t have any comparable process for developing their leaders or even pinpointing which ones to develop”. I quite agree with their thoughts because I have seen top management focus so much on their balance sheets, budgets, cash flow and profits with lots and lots of strategies without having a single strategy for workforce development not to even mention talent management. But they easily forget that it is still the same people that make the decisions and take actions that produce the numbers.

Now, we cannot discuss talent management and retention without explaining what motivation, reward, recognition, reinforcement and relationship can do for an organisation to retain the best brains in the system. Aubrey (1999) explained that “few organisations are satisfied with their reward and recognition system and every change in these system results in someone else becoming unhappy. Most often, top management becomes cynical, because no matter what they try, nobody is satisfied’’. Although, this may be true and realistic, but it is still very important to have an effective and efficient reward and recognition system in place to keep the good hands in the organisation.

Recognition can be defined as a “symbolic way of showing appreciation for some accomplishment (including plaques, trophies and letters of commendation)” (Aubrey, 1999). Reward is also defined as a tangible item, usually money or exchangeable for money, that is intended to influence behaviour in a particular direction. Aubrey, (1999) further asserted that “because most rewards are not tailored to the person receiving them, it is not surprising that it does not motivate everyone”. Another definition that is important is incentive and is explained to be an inducement to perform.  

All the aforementioned definitions are key to the level of motivation received by the people driving the vision of the organisation to its realization. It is often much more than just receiving pay cheques or salaries at the end of the month. It is far beyond that and the hierarchy of needs is triggered whenever the mind of the people expands and they continually search for answers and solutions to them. In view of this, I will like to identify four models and explain only two which we will be using to explain the reasons why top management need to have a strategy not just for competitive advantages in terms of operational activities, cost advantages, technology leadership but a strategic approach for workforce development and talent retention. The models are; Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Mc Cleland’s Achievement & Acquired Needs, Herzberg’s motivation & Hygiene Theory and Vroom’s Expectancy Theory).

1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Maslow’s pyramid represents a hierarchy of needs that must be satisfied in a sequential order from bottom to top. Mc Grath & Bob Bates (2013) suggested that failing to satisfy a need at any level will prevent progression to the next level.

We can divide this pyramid into two categories. Basic Needs include physiological and safety. Growth needs include affiliation, esteem and self fulfillment. Maslow argues that people die if their basic needs aren’t satisfied and feel inferior and dissatisfied if their affiliation and esteem needs go unfulfilled and if they cannot achieve self-actualization.

Considering the practical application of this theory in the built environment for me as a facilities manager. My sole need as graduated from basic needs years back and my focus is self fulfillment. Salaries, incentives, recognition, self belief, reputation and respect are no longer the catalyst that motivated me in the workplace. I am not inferring that these things are not good or important, but their presence alone does not motivate me to continually add value in the workplace. There is more that I sincerely feel will do the magic. A smart and forward looking top management should have systems and strategies in place to periodically check the needs of their best hands and provide such for them so that they don’t leave. Richard Branson said recently that employers should deliberately train their staffs so well that they’ll be the best, but motivate them such that they wouldn’t want to leave. This is talent management in its simplest form.

2. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory

The other theory that I’ll be considering here is Vroom’s Expectancy Theory. Victor Vroom suggested that an individual will behave in a certain way based upon the belief (expectation) that a specific act will be followed by a desired reward (valence) once the act has been completed (instrumentality), (Mc Grath & Bates,2013)

He expressed his expectancy theory of motivation in terms of mathematical formula: Motivation= Valence X Expectancy X Instrumentality. If any one of the three factors is nil, the overall score will be zero, and there will be nil motivation. This means all the factors are dependent on each other to be able to achieve true motivation.

Please see diagram below;

This model assumes that it is possible for top management to score these factors when in reality they are subjective and may be different to assess in ourselves. However, we can see the basis of what Vroom is trying to bring into such as what do I want? How likely is it that I can get it, will the organisation delivers on its promises?

For the employers who want to consider this model, Mc Grath & Bates (2013) suggested that they should “forget about the scores, rather focus on what your employees want from their job and provide work that is economically beneficial and/or intrinsically motivating for them”. This will have the effect of creating rewards that they really want. In addition to this Mc Grath & Bates (2013) suggested that if expectancy is all about effort and results, then make sure that you create an environment where effort is both encouraged and rewarded and employees have access to the resources, equipment and materials they need to get results. These can be classified as critical success factors, also strengthen the instrumentality link in the chain by keeping your promises and distancing yourself from those that don’t.

The two theories were important to provide a background about the expectations of the people and other motivating factors in the workplace. Following this thoughts, Conaty & Charan (2010) argued that talent is the leading indicator of whether a business is headed up or down. They further suggested that it is a company’s most important resources and a spread sheet full of numbers is a lot easier to praise than the characteristics unique to a human being. In the same vein they explained vividly that talent management will be the big differentiator between companies that succeed and those that don’t. This also is in tandem to the result of the business confidence Monitor research carried out in the UK and UAE in 2015 by BIFM, where they concluded that factors like financial stability, technology may be factors that will influence the FM market, but capability development with rare skills will be the differentiating factor that will create a competitive edge for most FM companies.

Sometimes I ask myself lots and lots of question about the fortune 500 companies and how they have managed to sustain value over the years and maintain their market share? Conaty & Charan (2010) gave a simple answer to my question by explaining that organisation that will win will be led by people who can adapt their organisation to change, make the right strategic bets, take calculated risks, conceive and execute new value-creating opportunities and build and rebuild competitive advantage.

For the facilities management market in Nigeria where there is no barrier to entry to start-up an FM business, the only differentiating factor is still the unique skills and capabilities owned by the workforce and that can bring innovation and create a new market in the industry. More explanations revealed that the only one competency that lasts is the ability to create steady, self-renewing streams of leaders. As suggested by Conaty & Charan (2010) again is that money is just a commodity, talent supplies the edge. In relation to this, Ron Nersesian the head of Agilent Technologies Electronic Measurement Group: explained that developing people’s talent is the whole of the company at the end of the day. Products are all time- perishable. The only thing that stays is the institutional learning and the development of the skills and the capabilities that we have in our people’’.

The background knowledge and explanations on motivation, incentive, and talents is important for clarity, but not to lose focus on how retaining talent in the built environment can create competitive advantage for an organisation, we will continue to explore ideas that can be utilised in achieving this fit. In the facilities management industry for example; quality, speed, reduced cost, efficiency and satisfied customers and as increased profit are the characteristics of a good and performing company.

The focus now should be on how to realize these and carve a niche for themselves. These criteria are good, but they will not happen without putting systems and structures in place in order to a achieve them. The most important resource that will ensure they are achieved are the “People’’. Owning to this premise, the question to ask is what can we do ensure our people are well endowed to continually measure to the ever changing needs of the customers? Lindell’s CEO explained that the only one thing he is serious about is creating a pipeline of future leaders. Therefore, top management should identify high-potential leaders early and give them experiences that will develop them to their fullest potential.

Consequently, we need to understand what we should be looking for in our people to even suggest that they have the small flame of rare skills and capabilities in them. Conaty & Charan (2010) opined that for one to know this as suggested above, we need to assess and express what each person is in reality, not against some predetermined checklist. They continued that insights can also be obtained through observing the person’s actions, availability, and passion for excellence, decisions and behaviours. In addition to this, it is also important to get the core of the people/person’s values, beliefs. This might seem like a lot of work and most top managers may not want to commit to this, but the return on this kind of investment is really huge. They explained and I agree more that it is like analyzing a business problem or opportunity: it requires drilling down to find the causes, understand the context, and assess options.

A word of advice to my colleagues out there is that, fat pay cheques are good as well as promotion from one department or level to the other with promises from employers that tomorrow will be better. This may sound good, but the most realistic thing to consider is to follow your passion especially if you have one for the built environment. In addition to this, learn rare skills that will help build and prepare you for the future challenges and position you for more opportunities and success.

References

1. Aubley C. Daniels (2000), "Bringing out the best in People: How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Position Reinforcement". MacGraw-Hill, USA.
2. Harvard Business Review (2011) "On Managing People", Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation USA.
3. Mc Grath and Bob Bates (2013),"The Little Book of Big Management Theories and House to use them".  James, Pearson Education Limited, UK.
4. Bill Conaty and Ram Charan (2010) “The Talent Masters’’ Crown Publishing Group, USA.
5. Michael E. Porter (1980)," Competitive Strategy" The free Press, USA.

FACILITIES MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY FORECAST FOR 2016

Seasons greetings colleagues and friends.                                                                                                                                                               

The current year is gradually coming to an end with its good and bad in the Facilities Management Industry. It was also filled with lots of activities which were meant to raise the demand for facilities management locally while riding on the support from the international organizations such as BIFM and IFMA. For example, local FM Company’s in Nigeria organized programmes in the Federal capital territory, Abuja and Lagos which is the commercial nerve of the nation. Some even invited international renowned speakers to grace their occasions in order to spice their events and give it the class it deserves as well as send a message to their prospective clients nationwide.

In the month of June, 2015, which commemorates the world FM day, the Global map was filled with activities here and there. Two significant events took place in Nigeria with FM Company’s continuously making noise in terms of trying to reach out to their customers and the international community. Some other FM organizations decided to make the celebration a quiet one with their team in-house. In India, NEXT Facilities Management Company organized a facilities management meeting to celebrate the global event which attracted key professionals around the world and was streamed live for the rest of the world to join. In addition to this, Australia, United States of America, UK and other European countries which also include SAFMA of South Africa dedicated the day to educate and learn new tends in FM. Other international events such as facilities fusion, Think FM by BIFM, MEFMA conference, world work place organized by IFMA and other related programs took place within the year to discuss issues underlining the progression of the profession and the solutions to combat imminent challenges within the built environment.

In Nigeria for instance, the BIFM established its presence with its first committee members and first launch in Africa; where else would it have been rather than the most populous nation in Africa and the most populous black nation in the world. A nation filled with lot of potentials to affect the global economy positively. Several committee and members meeting took place to propagate BIFM agenda and its focus to develop a robust knowledge of FM through research and development. This is just one of many benefits it offers its members. The major event organized by BIFM Nigeria region took place in September 2015 with a breakfast meeting with the C-suite in order to raise more awareness of the profession through the leadership of their respective organizations. The need to have a business confidence monitor for Nigeria was discussed after same research was achieved in UK and UAE. This will provide a realistic data and help investors and FM leaders to make informed decisions.

The FM profession is really struggling to be recognized in Nigeria and it’s really affecting the growth of the business because there is a very low percentage of an outsourced FM service in the country. Some enthusiastic FM leaders have taken a bold step through the current IFMA presidents [Lagos & Abuja] to send a bill to the senate for consideration.

Looking forward, 2016 is just by the corner with FM practitioners filled with a lot of expectations. I am sure so many FM companies must have had their strategic meetings to study the Nigerian and global FM market for new opportunities to penetrate the market and increase their market share. Significant investments must have been made in terms of new FM tools/assets to purchase in order to build capacity and differentiation to bring in more business. Leaders of these organizations should understand that FM is meant to add value and should not be done as business as usual manner. Low operational cost and increase in value to customers is just one of the many advantages of engaging a competent FM in the first place.

The coming year from my prospective is based on the current global economic state with the increasing free fall of oil prices will affect the FM industry greatly with other micro and macro-economic factors. Economist around the world forecast as low as $20 per barrel of oil within the first quarter of the New Year.  In addition to this, increase in security threat by terrorist both locally and internationally will affect the business of FM and thus increase the demand of FM professionals around the world through the development of a concise business continuity plans, project risk appraisals and security management of high end assets, critical system as well as protection of key personnel in any organization.

There will be more power challenges in the country and I do not really think the plans of government to make power more available will be realized in 2016, may be in 2017. Hence, FM’s have the opportunity to deploy cost savings strategies through the aggregation of the activities in their processes to identify and eliminate non-value adding processes for their clients. This will inevitably reduce the impact of our activities both in the industrial sectors and residential/commercial sectors on the environment. The only challenge here is that the real FM players are very few; others are just there to make the numbers. I will like to say here that consumers should seek knowledge and employ highly trained and experienced FM consultants to help develop a robust systems and standards for a seamless process for them to achieve their bottom lines.

In view of the above and regards to the banking industry, the CBN policy on no COT will open more doors for Banks to outsource more of their services to professionals and thus facilities management firms will benefit more from this. I see more Banks merging before the end of the year to reduce operational cost and synergize to meet statutory demands.  Currently, some Banks have engaged consultants to help harmonize a good procurement process to help identify world class FM’s which will manage all their assets and in turn build more capacity in their own core area of business. Following this thoughts, more banks will close their branches due to inflow of technologies for consumers operations because it will be more expensive to maintain those branches in terms of operational cost especially the provision of power and security. I think there will come a time where professional and not just the financial institutions will have to share resources in order to stay competitive in business.

Small scale businesses will be on the increase with unique offerings that will meet consumers demand. The established FM’s companies will be too expensive for client to buy in because of their high overhead cost mainly because they have not integrated FM technology to help improve their processes and influence the speed and quality services deployed. I see more big FM companies losing more of their portfolios to these new companies because they will be more solution focused rather than just doing the FM business in the usual manner.

More international FM companies will be attracted to come to Nigeria to do business                          if our institutions are strengthened for them to be able to repatriate their profits. This will increase a lot of foreign direct investments which will gradually build our GDP and reduce the level of unemployment in the country. It will be a case of talent retention and management competition and poaching of good hands here and there. This is already happening and the old ways of using salaries to attract talent will not really work because knowledge has increased and even the young Facilities Managers understands sustainability in relation to their future wherever they work. The few places I have worked, I have seen top management make same mistake over and over again in terms of treating their employees as if they are doing them a favour rather than seeing them as key elements in their business and forming a symbolic relationship with them.

To my colleagues around the world, this is the time to plan, prepare and remain focused to develop capabilities that are rare and imitable. Next year will have so many opportunities for those that have unique solutions that comes with the ever changing needs of the customers and only the prepare will see it and translate it to individual expectations. Enough of just studying for certificates and not actually studying to grow in the right knowledge of a professional facilities manager with keen understanding of the FM market and its economics. This is an opportunity for us to share ideas and knowledge in our different localities especially during our BIFM and IFMA meetings through research and networking to solve problems that are imminent in 2016. These challenges are ubiquitous, having heaps of certification cannot solve the problem but putting into practice all we have learnt for the year may do the magic. Therefore, we need to set continuous personal and profession development goals for ourselves to remain resourceful, make a great mark and write our names in gold come 2016.    

Kindly drop a comment on my blog www.facilitiesideas.blogspot.com. I wish you a merry Christmas and a resounding new year. Remember, it always start with an idea to be great.

LEVEL 5 FACILITIES MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE: A VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT

This article is mainly to look at some of the attributes of level 5 facilities management performance and not performance management. It also offers insight into the required abilities and skills for a Facilities Management firm to deliver world class FM services and view other competitors at their summit to see how they struggle at the parity level. Also, quick steps to what a Facility Manager to become seasoned can do will be highlighted, for them to build a personal reputation while meeting customers' ever changing needs.

Here, a level 5 facilities management performance is described as relevant inputs from organisations with appropriate processes that results into outputs that meets and exceeds the consumers or end user’s expectations. It is about adding value and raising the bar in the workplace and moving above the parity space in the support of the core business activities of an organisation. This performance describes the provision of high performance with focus on the built environment with low cost and increased value within the value chain of an organisation.

In order to attain this kind of performance from an organizational perspective, it requires that facilities service providers excel through the appropriation of certain skills and strategies to overcome the external forces to the built environment. These forces range from poor infrastructures such as unavailable power supply, poor road networks, inadequate communication system, collapsed supply chain management, unsustainable supply relationship management and Generation Y attributes. Others are failed government policies and development of a sound judiciary system. For there to be a clear understanding of what a level 5 performance connotes, it is important to note that there are basic strategies a firm must imbibe and execute.

Based on this premise, I quite agree with Whittaker and Shouse (2013: 9) that "high performance organizations are those that are skilled at developing a strategy, implementing a plan to follow that strategy, operating with an effective performance management system, and constantly reassessing and adjusting their plan to meet an operating and regulatory changing environment’’. This reminded me of a discussion I had with a colleague during a recent professional engagement in Accra where I inquired about what strategic inputs they plan to offer in the coming year. To my surprise, he said they only have operating procedures and they do not do strategies. It became obvious that the firm was only focused on reactive system of operations and obviously will not be adding value and attracting high net worth customers.

In order to address the aforementioned scenario, and some other relative concerns to FM's, I will be discussing a model that can be used to evaluate and develop a simple but effective high performance facilities and in turn achieve a level 5 facilities performance.  Before this is explained I think it is instructive to identify the key attributes of a high performance organisation. Although Whittaker and Shouse (2013) identified six (6) important characteristics of a performing organisation, I will like to include the use of technology to add value through sustainable means. Please see the list below inclusive of my suggestion which makes it the seventh attribute for clarity. These are;

• Strategic approach to the future of the organisation.
• High level strategy and planning skills.
• An in-depth knowledge of their stakeholders/customers.
• Sound process for accomplishing work.
• Process for continual improvement.
• Commitment to the development of the workforce
• Use of appropriate Technology (CMMS, IWMS, CAFM, BIM)

Still in line with the use of technology, I agree with Teicholz (2013) that appropriate technology use empowers problem solving and enables new opportunities and approaches that expand the role and capabilities of facilities management. Hence, it will make a lot sense to use the above attributes to scan a facilities management firm and address all concerns. He further explained that an organisation can meet its market leadership quest and differentiation goals through proper selection and implementation to achieve future values. I have had the opportunity to use three (3) different softwares for process integration and I really find one of it which is Essets (www.essets.com) to be a simple, cost effective and a veritable tool. There are hundreds of such, but care should be taken to select an appropriate one for specific purposes. Engaging a consultant in this instance will really go a long way to meet the organisations needs.

Now, let us look closely at the role of an FM will have to play in order to achieve good organisational effectiveness. To achieve a level 5 performance in the built environment, knowledge is required as well as unique abilities, an optimum level and a well maintained physical infrastructure to deliver top notch services in a sustainable manner. In congruent to this, Whittaker and Shouse (2013:11) added that "the Facility Manager must carefully balance inputs such as energy, labour, materials and capital (both political and financial), to deliver quality services to the organisation. They further argued that this is achieved by the Facility Manager through the development and implementation of processes such as real estate portfolio planning, work management, space management, continually monitoring customer feedback, and managing operating and capital budgets.

As identified earlier, one of the proposed models is the high performance facilities model which is a three-fold stance; organisational effectiveness, facility life-cycle performance and business practices. Pedraza (2014), an independent Consultant explained organizational effectiveness as "the efficiency with which an association is able to meet its objectives". He explained further that "an organization that produces a desired effect or an organization that is productive without waste". Hence, looking closely at his definition of an effective organisation runs itself without waste, we can argue that such firms has the in-built capacity and effective processes to deliver high level result with minimum energy, time, materials and money while still meeting their bottom-lines which is to make profit. Consequently, the main measure of organizational effectiveness for a business will generally be expressed in terms of how well its net profitability compares with its target profitability.

The figure below shows the three basic areas that determines the achievement of a high performance FM services.

Still in line with these thoughts, Dattagupta (2014) added that additional measures might include growth data and the results of customer satisfaction surveys. In addition to this, he explained that highly effective organizations exhibit strengths across five areas: leadership, decision making and structure, people, work processes and systems, and culture. For an organization to achieve and sustain success, it needs to adapt to its dynamic environment. organisation to be an icon of model in the built environment.

The second stance of the high performance facilities model is ability to measure facility life-cycle performance. Hodges & Sekula (2013:275) explained that "one of the facility manager's greatest contributions to their organisation is the ability to look at the entire life-cycle of its physical assets and make capital purchasing decisions that provide the greatest economic benefits". I agree with their suggestion that having a full grasp of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of purchases made will help achieve a high facility performance. The TCO hinges on the cradle to grave of a facility in terms of all-in-all cost, which is also defined as the total expenditures an owner will make over the course of the service life of the building or system under construction.

Hodges & Sekula (2013) provided strategies on managing building life-cycle and in turns promotes the facility performance. This involves the following;

• Strategy: Extension of service life, gain in efficiency, reduction in space demand.
• Tactics: Proper O&M and timing of capital repairs, equipment replacement, consolidation and space management.
• Results: Longer service life, lower life cycle cost, lower occupancy cost.

The third stance is the business practices, and is defined as the method, procedure, process, or rule employed or followed by a company in the pursuit of its objectives, (www.businessdictionary.com, 2015).  Owing by this simple definition, it involves the organisations corporate governance, culture and values geared up to meet their relative vision via strategies for growth and profitability. It also involves employees capability build-up to meet customers' needs and for necessary market differentiation. Although there are concerns that some employers do not really invest in their team because they fear they will leave soon. The level of risk the employer is working to avoid cannot be compared to the liabilities accepted by not providing adequate and strategic training for their team.

According to the business confidence (2015) report by BIFM for UK & the UAE, I discovered that a lot of Facilities Management firms may go bankrupt because of no specialized skills and thus new entrant firms come to squeeze their margin because of no barrier to entry. Therefore, I agree with the common saying that a trained staff is an asset and an untrained staff is a liability to his employers. Therefore, it is expedient to develop rare skills in the eleven competencies identified by IFMA bothering on the current Facilities management needs. This can be achieved via continuous professional development training and deliberate association with first class professional FM professionals globally.

References

Business Dictionary (2014),'Business Practice', http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/business-practice.html#ixzz3pUrPXGU7 (Accessed:22/10/2015)

Chris Hodges & Mark Sekula (2013),'Sustainable Facility Management-The Facilities Management Guide to Optimizing Building Performance', USA

Dattagupta (2014),'What is Organisational Effectiveness', http://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_organisational_effectiveness_How_an_organisation_could_achieve_it (Accessed: 15/10/2015)

Eric Teicholz (2013),'Technology for Facility Managers-The Impact of Cutting-Edge Technology on Facility Management', John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Jim Whittaker & Teena Shouse, (2013),'High Performance As a Goal-Achieving Excellence in Facilities Management', Vision spot publishing, USA.

Jorge Pedraza (2014),'What is Organisational Effectiveness', http://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_organisational_effectiveness_How_an_organisation_could_achieve_it (Accessed: 22/09/2015)