Identifying Facilities Management Goals and Objectives

Facility management has always been critical to overall organizational success because of how it impacts key performance metrics like growth, productivity, and the bottom line. But as the landscape has changed, so has the process of identifying facility management goals and objectives. 

Traditionally, facility managers have acted more as space planners and workspace governors. But the rise of the hybrid office is just one of the many new workplace trends reshaping not only how we work but also where we work. Now, facilities managers need to set strategic goals using data and analytics from workplace management platforms and enterprise asset management solutions. They need to think about how to manage preventive maintenance for better asset management while finding new ways to support productivity by keeping a close eye on the overall employee experience. It’s a juggling act, with demands related to keeping people working and assets and equipment in working order. 

With their collections of always-connected, sometimes competing demands, facility managers need to carefully identify facility management goals and objectives before setting up the processes and procedures that help them get there. 

The Role of Facilities in goal setting

There are three types of facility management goals: those supporting the company, those supporting employees, and those inherent to the facilities themselves. It might be easier to understand these goals in a big upside-down funnel, with broad support at the top and specifics at the bottom. What ties all these goals together is the importance of the facilities, the facility manager, and the need for efficient facility management. 

Take a broad goal, for example, such as growing company revenue from $1M to $2M in 2023. Many different variables go into this objective, each playing a role in its ultimate success — facilities included. Because there are so many factors, the weight of the goal is evenly distributed. Marketing has to market more effectively. Sales have to sell better. Facilities need to support employees. Across departments, a lot of different teams and people play a part. 

With a goal like implementing a digital conference room booking system, there are only a few factors, because the focus is narrower. It’s a facility-specific goal, so it might only mostly involve the IT department. 

But in both examples, and in fact, with all goals, the facilities matter, and it’s up to the facility manager to ensure facility management plays a part in all strategic initiatives, regardless of scale. 

Facility goals that tie into company-wide objectives 

Broad goals are connected to the entire company, including: 

  • Top or bottom-line growth 
  • Branding and culture initiatives 
  • Product or service developments 

These goals touch every segment of the business in some form or another, which means they also involve the facilities. 

When it comes to broad goals, the objectives for facilities management tend to be passive. The workplace serves a supporting role — the foundation for all contributors to the goal. It’s about preventing burnout and promoting comfort at work. Ensuring employees have the right workspaces and amenities to do their best work. Streamlining daily operations to conserve time, money, and effort. Bringing this stability to the workplace provides sound backing for company-wide success.  

For example, that could cover keeping the offices safe with visitor management. Or keeping the employee experience positive with seamless desk booking. And keeping the workspace cool in the summer and warm in the winter with dependable HVAC. 

Facility goals with an employee focus

Because employees directly interact with their workplace, intermediary goals generally involve facilities to a greater degree. One affects the other. Rearranging the stack plan or moving to a new building. Hiring, promoting, or parting with talent. Installing new workplace processes or practices. To see these objectives succeed, facility managers need to draw a line that connects facilities and people in a positive way. For the last few years, though, the line of connection between employees and workplaces has been increasingly challenging to draw.  

Straight lines are out, and there’s a lot of looping back and forth with the increase in remote workers and the rise of the hybrid office. In the past, you had a steady number of people coming into the office five days a week. Now, you might only have surges on certain days, leaving a lot of the space empty when employees work from home. The new trend is for most to stay away Mondays and Fridays, with a build-up that starts Tuesday, peaks Wednesday, and then starts to 必利勁
fall on Thursday. And it’s not people coming in to sit at their desks and work alone. Employees are coming in for face-to-face meetings, driving up demand for larger spaces in the middle of the week.
 

In most cases, facility managers need to consider employee interaction with the workplace and how facilities support employees. How can workplace changes improve productivity? Enable better collaboration? Reduce friction? It can be everything from implementing room booking software to making sure there are extra snacks in the break room mid-week. Changes may be significant, but they’re also purposeful. If you’re rearranging three departments over four floors, the outcome needs to achieve a specific goal that benefits employees in a meaningful way. 

Facility objectives for smaller, more targeted initiatives 

The narrower goals of FM support the facilities themselves. Employees may benefit and reaching these goals might contribute to broader business success, but the driving factor is facility-specific improvement.  

Some of the facility goals are more project-based while others are part of long-term efforts. So, you might have a project to: 

In all these cases, there’s a set start and end date, with a clear objective. If you’re improving an area by adding better blinds so people can see their screens without worrying about the midday sun, you have one specific date for the installation. After that, you can move on to the next project.     

But for long-term, ongoing efforts, you could look at reducing energy expenditures or tracking and improving on maintenance technician goals, for example: 

  • Maintenance backlog times 
  • Number of work orders closed 
  • Equipment costs 
  • Equipment downtime 
  • Preventive maintenance efficiency  

For both project and ongoing goals, you can think of them as facility-focused, mainly or in large part the responsibility of facility managers. Consider them a reinvestment in facilities that support the intermediary and broad goals listed above. Their focus is specific, but the outcome is likely to be far-reaching, even if it’s a bit harder to see. When you have less equipment downtime, even on something as small and simple as the break room coffee machine, employees don’t waste time standing around. They’re fully caffeinated and back on task quickly.    

Always factor in facilities

Facilities have gone from a line item on the balance sheet to a key instrument for goal-setting and objective planning. Facility managers aren’t just masters of space planning and allocation they’re contributors to growth and optimization strategies. These strategies take place at every operational level from mission-critical goals to everyday workplace improvements. Wherever it’s involved and it’s always involved the workplace is a critical part of overall success. 

Article reposted from SpaceIQ.com

About IMS Consulting

For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of Archibus- related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced Archibus-certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of Archibus, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. Archibus is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

Archibus OnSite On-Demand Webinar

Archibus OnSite is a cloud-based SaaS CMMS that provides preventive and reactive maintenance, asset and compliance management.

Join us to learn how Archibus OnSite takes a holistic approach to facilities management, connecting asset, compliance, and maintenance management with an intuitive mobile app for managing work, and floor plans and maps for locating and planning work.

 

About IMS Consulting
For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of ARCHIBUS-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced ARCHIBUS certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of ARCHIBUS, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. ARCHIBUS is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

Archibus OnSite Makes Fielding Work Orders Simpler

Maintaining facilities takes an organized, concerted effort. There are so many facets of property upkeep to consider, each demanding its own approach to maintenance, repair, and improvement. Businesses need a tool on their side that enables not only visibility into these tasks, but also streamlined management of them. It’s why iOFFICE + SpaceIQ created Archibus OnSite.

Archibus OnSite is a new mobile solution that helps organizations efficiently manage preventive and corrective maintenance work orders, assets, and compliance. It’s designed with total facilities in mind, to enable groups and teams charged with keeping them up and running right.

Companies are taking a closer look at overhead

In the era of flex work, companies are paying more attention to the cost of overhead. What they’re finding are opportunities to cut back—not necessarily on space, but on the cost of maintaining that space. It’s all about cost optimization through better workplace efficiency.

Organizations are wasting too much time on administrative overhead: completing work orders in the office and planning work routes ahead of time. Instead, they need to efficiently maintain facilities and assets in a manner that optimizes for availability, uptime, good working order, compliance, and cost. They’re turning to Archibus OnSite to help them take a smarter approach to broad facility upkeep, and reaping the benefits that come with it.

How Archibus OnSite helps maximize overhead ROI

Archibus OnSite is built on a modern, mobile framework that makes facility teams and field workers more efficient. From fielding and sorting work orders, to built-in compliance checklists—Archibus OnSite puts critical resources in the hands of craftspeople charged with vital facilities tasks. Additional core features planned for the app include:

    • Location awareness for easy work planning and routing
    • Push notifications for instant reminders of what’s important
    • Questionnaire framework for regulatory compliance maintenance checklists

 

Unlike other maintenance solutions that focus solely on ticket management, Archibus OnSite takes a holistic approach to facilities management. It connects asset, compliance, and maintenance management with floor plans and maps to optimize the management of tasks—including locating and planning work.

Archibus OnSite optimizes maintenance operations by bringing visibility and flexibility to the actions that enable them. Beyond realizing the need for maintenance, upkeep, or repair, Archibus OnSite helps facility teams execute with purpose, to get the job done more efficiently and at a lower cost to the organization.

Archibus OnSite is part of a full-featured IWMS

Archibus OnSite works seamlessly with other Archibus modules to enable an even more streamlined approach to facility upkeep. The Archibus integrated workplace management system (IWMS) delivers a full profile of relevant data to Archibus OnSite users, giving them even more capabilities in the field, so they can do their job better. Over time, core synergies will include:

    • Connect to assets for a complete asset inventory and maintenance history to inform lifecycle decisions.
    • Extend to compliance and condition assessment solutions for a comprehensive view of assets under management.
    • Connect to space data and GIS to include floor plans, campus plans, and maps for wayfinding, planning, and locating.

 

Archibus OnSite allows facility teams to do more, faster. Robust integrations provide immediate, relevant data for an informed response to any support ticket, no matter where it originates or what the scope of work is.

Archibus OnSite as a comprehensive maintenance solution

As overhead costs loom large over organizations, Archibus OnSite ensures a higher standard of upkeep and quicker responsiveness that reduces asset maintenance costs and maximizes the ROI of the workplace using:

    • Robust and configurable workflows (approvals, estimating, scheduling, checklists, etc.)
    • Labor scheduling and workforce management and coordination tools
    • Part inventory management for simplified inventories and better cost control
    • Asset lists, maintenance history, reference documents, and compliance sheets

 

Archibus OnSite brings a broader level of oversight to facility upkeep and puts organizations more in-control of their response to everyday facilities tasks. No matter where or when maintenance demands arise, Archibus OnSite ensures a well-coordinated response.

The time for smarter asset management is now

Overhead costs may seem like a burden, but it’s vital to remember that real estate is an asset. To maximize asset ROI and more than justify the overhead costs that come with it, companies need to focus on the variables they can control—namely, their response to facilities maintenance.

Archibus OnSite is a ready-to-deploy, easy-to-integrate, versatile app that transforms the way an organization manages its largest asset. With seamless connectivity to other Archibus solutions, availability in seven languages, and the full support of iOFFICE + SpaceIQ behind it, Archibus OnSite will change the way companies think about and approach facility maintenance.

To learn more, check out our webinar or request a demo.

About IMS Consulting
For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of ARCHIBUS-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced ARCHIBUS certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of ARCHIBUS, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. ARCHIBUS is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.

2 Minute Drill – Archibus Maintenance Application v.25

2 Minute Drill – Archibus Maintenance v.25

 

Optimize operations with Archibus Maintenance v.25 and its pro-active tools for automating preventive maintenance. Track and evaluate everything to improve continuously and enhance outcomes across the board.

Generate Detailed Work Orders

Enable occupants, craftspersons, and managers to generate work orders from anywhere.

Automate Preventive Maintenance

With Archibus Maintenance v.25 you can prevent costly breaks before they happen with a preventive maintenance strategy. Generate work orders automatically based on the specific maintenance of needs of different assets with an automated Preventive Maintenance Planner.

Prioritize and Centralize Work Orders

View, approve and manage all work orders from a single console. Drill into each order and advance to view details and advance its status through to completion. Automate alerts for critical orders and bottlenecks that need attention.

Respond Quickly and Effectively

Enable craftspersons to receive requests directly on their mobile phones with relevant details, then update orders with additional details after completion. Track the status of each order to ensure that the job is done, and reschedule missed orders.

Evaluate and Optimize

Evaluate effectiveness with metrics that enable you to track the cost, labor, and performance of operations. Track trends, identify outliers and gain visibility into how effectively your strategy is meeting needs on the ground.

Anticipate Budgetary Needs

Calculate the cost of your preventive maintenance plan for the year ahead to ensure that your budget reflects your priorities.

For more information about these offers contact IMS Consulting: hello@ims.consulting or find us online at http://ims.consulting Connect with us on LinkedIn.

About IMS Consulting

For more than a decade, IMS Consulting has delivered the full scope of ARCHIBUS-related services to both government and commercial clients. As a Virginia Certified Small Business, IMS Consulting provides our clients with personalized attention by experienced ARCHIBUS certified consultants. Our experts work with our clients to thoroughly understand how they do business, identify their unique needs, and pinpoint opportunities to better manage their infrastructure, employ more efficient work processes, and make smarter capital budgeting decisions—both today and over the long term.

IMS Consulting specializes in the implementation of ARCHIBUS, the #1 real estate, infrastructure & facilities management solution in the world. ARCHIBUS is the global leader in streamlining how you manage your real estate, infrastructure, and facilities. Centralize your data, planning, and operations onto one seamless platform backed by 35 years of innovation and the world’s largest support network. Reduce costs, enhance sustainability, and create a better workplace by transforming how you connect with people, places, and processes.