FM Policy & Procedure Development, Implementation, and Review

What is the purpose of having a facility management policy?

The key objective is developing a robust governance framework, not only to identify and address key risks but to ensure a facilities management department has the capacity to meet stakeholder obligations and commitments.

Policies and procedures are necessary to strengthen control as well as empower management and staff to carry out their duties diligently. It will ensure the FM department’s proposed deliverables are carried out as planned and with the parameters prescribed.

Facility Management- Objectives

Facilities Management policies involve a considerable amount of practices to ensure the comfort, functionality, safety, security, and happiness of the occupants in a building that is being managed. These policies secure accomplishing all facilities management objectives that should be met according to the client's obligations and commitments.

How to develop and implement an FM strategy?

Constant Communication with the Stakeholders

Establishing and maintaining a proper communication with all the stakeholders of the building can offer invaluable suggestions to make the environment more comfortable and safe.

For every facility that Realpoint is offering facility management services, our team builds an easy but necessary system for recommendations and opinions received from all the parties involved.

Focusing on a Safe, Secured, and Healthy Environment

Our main concern is to be aware of the potential risks and create strategies to correct and avoid some of these risks so we can keep or implement the expected standards.

Don’t Ignore the Potential Deficiencies

Routine checks can help identify any building deficiencies and avoid bigger issues in the future. So nothing should be left unchecked for a long time because it can ultimately affect the functionality of utilities in a building.

Being Responsible and Improving Energy Efficiency

It’s not just about the environment; making the facilities more energy-efficient can save costs. Checking the expenses of the building utilities such as water, gas, chilled water, and electricity, our specialists can identify how much is being spent and provide proposals on how to minimize consumption. Realpoint’s specialists can provide detailed plans on how your premises can be energy efficient after a thorough investigation and implement such plans to save cost.

Risk Assessment Planning

Some facilities, like hospitals, hotels, schools, and laboratories, depend on fully functioning equipment. For this type of building, it’s necessary a contingency plan that identifies the key assets of a facility and the potential risks that the asset has. With effective evaluation and the right strategy, we can ensure that a business or facility does not stop its operations if the inevitable should occur.

Reviewing and Implementing an FM Strategy

The facility management strategy must be well reviewed and researched before it is executed, and this goes beyond knowing the time frame to identify if the strategy has enough resources to run.

In a few words:

Understand
Analyze
Plan
Act
Measure

Moreover, Realpoint specialists have the right skills, knowledge, and experience to contribute to the development of organizations giving competitive advantages to the facility they are working with.

Re-Structuring of Performance Management

Using our knowledge and experience, we are analysing how facilities managers, maintenance, property, and estate departments can restructure their processes to make them more efficient, effective, and environmentally friendly. .

How can facility managers improve productivity?

As FM Specialists, we consider the decisions we need to make about needed improvements, changes, and technology, and we work with our clients on four straightforward questions that often lead to selecting the right systems:

What are the business goals expected to be achieved?
What are the requirements that the business needs to meet its business goals?
Performance compared to current standards, KPIs and SLAs?
What are the life cycle costs implications?

When it’s the right moment to restructure an FM department?

There are a number of ways we could achieve this, from looking at the supply chain and retendering services (AMCs) to restructuring or reorganising the team, which might include outsourcing services or training and development.

In reality is not a straightforward answer to the above question, especially since there is a mixture of HR, Operations, and Leadership decisional factors, not least of which is the need to keep operational costs to a minimum.

Why should be considered restructuring the Facility Management Department?

To survive, strive, increase turnover, and maintain margins, change and evolution are key to any company’s success. Let’s not forget the fact that lately, public sector organisations are demanding bundled services as a way to be proactive and reduce the cost and the error by contracting multiple service providers. However, this only applies to bundling similar services.

It is safe to say that the real estate and facilities management sector has been and still is fast changing and evolving for property users/occupiers and owners. In order to achieve growth, organisations are in need of an ever-changing and continuously-improving property and facilities department that can evolve with the business.

As the trends show, more companies are looking to outsource facilities management and/or restructure these departments.

How do we achieve a successful transformation?

From experience, we can say that evolution and adaptation are the best way to manage any kind of transformational change within an organization. It’s not an easy process, and it is constantly getting stopped by the old mentality of not “fixing something that it’s not broken”. Another reason why the stakeholders are deciding against the change because of the habit of staying in the same organisation and doing the same comfortable routine for very long periods.

Realpoint has a well-structured process that involves:

Presenting a compelling argument that helps people see the need for change.
Train a selection of staff to guide, coordinate and communicate the change process.
Clarify how the changes will positively impact by sharing forecasts and plans.
Enrolling as much staff in the process
Enabling the action of changing
Tracking and informing the progress
Keeping up the performance by empowering people

And these are just a few aspects used for a successful transformation. Realpoint specialists can take some of the workloads if you want to change and restructure your FM, maintenance, property, or estate department.

How should a strategic facility management plan be implemented?

A business can’t rush into strategic facility management without following a simple but very effective five-stage approach that carefully considers the multiple stakeholders and processes in a workspace/ building. Following the right path can help push the business forward toward its objectives:

Understand
Analyze
Plan
Act
Measure

We are aiming to implement the best leadership practices for Facility Managers

As facilities management leaders, we have the right skills and knowledge to contribute to the development of organisations. With training and years of experience, we can proudly give competitive advantages to a facility that we are working with. Here are some leadership practices that we put to use:

We are looking ahead to implementing and supporting strategies
We create long-term budgetary plans and efficient tools for saving on costs to support the productivity of the organization.
We understand the duties and constraints of different employee positions and come up with ways to work with them.

And very importantly, we work in partnership with other departments by listening to their opinions to improve workplace relations and communication.

The main point of long-term strategic facility management is to aid the business on its journey toward becoming the best that it can be. Long-term planning like this helps future-proof successful transformation and profitable results.

Facility Management