Drive value creation with facilities management

The evolving needs of today's workforce has led to a demand for employee-centric workplaces and well-managed facilities that promote wellness, boost productivity, reduce turnover and improve an organization’s bottom line.

As a result, the role of facilities management (FM) professionals is changing and becoming increasingly strategic. Long gone are the days when they only executed work orders and managed third-party vendors – today, they are now responsible for adding strategic value by managing a workplace experience that helps to attract and retain talent, implementing new technologies to improve employee productivity and engagement, and reducing costs and environmental impact.

The growing emphasis on facilities has integrated the FM function to the larger scope of core business activities.

“We have been able to demonstrate that as a dedicated facilities management provider we are able to bring best practices and value to the table that companies may not be able to generate internally,” says Annie Wang, Regional Director with JLL’s Integrated Facilities Management team.

A better experience and increased productivity

Rapid advances in technology, data and analytics give facility managers tools to prove their strategic value in a progressively data-driven business environment. With companies putting ever greater emphasis on increasing productivity, as well as trying to attract and retain top talent, it is crucial for facilities managers to be able to demonstrate their facilities’ role in enhancing employee experience.

“Maintaining or replacing a facility’s air conditioning or ventilation system might seem like an additional cost to executives,” explains Wang. “But if that system reduces sick days or makes the workplace more pleasant, then we should encourage them to consider the net savings and increase in workers’ productivity. There are lots of examples like this where FM can make a difference.”

Focus more on your business instead of operations

A key benefit of outsourcing FM is that it allows you to focus your team’s efforts on your core business while service providers, such as JLL, keep your facilities in operational mode to support that.

“We have clients where we service their entire regional real estate portfolio. The client has just one member of staff managing the contract and the employees working on site are provided by us,” explains Wang.

FM professionals need to keep pushing themselves to be recognized as high-value resources, which requires awareness of the strategic importance of FM. For example, forward-thinking facility management leaders are proactively recruiting technologically minded millennials to meet the needs of an evolving business environment.

Embrace new strategies to keep the business moving forward

In addition to technical and business skills, facility managers need to develop their soft skills, such as effective relationship management, communication, collaboration and problem-solving to better align their role and the company’s commercial real estate function with its core business model.

Cost reduction, risk management, and ensuring that operations and maintenance are run efficiently may remain at the heart of facilities management for now, but the changing importance of facilities management means FM managers need to embrace their new strategic function and build their team’s skillsets to prevent being left behind.