You are an executive sitting at your desk and have facility management activities within your responsibility in the Panama City Beach, FL area but do not have much experience managing these services with your wide expanse of responsibility. You may not be happy with the way facility or building maintenance is being done in your business, you may be happy with the services of your business but do not know if your current maintenance company is doing a good job keeping up with your quarterly maintenance. You may also feel concerned that there may be some potential liabilities lurking out there that are not being addressed properly.
Here are 5 major reasons why outsourcing facilities management is beneficial to an organization building management programs
(1) Cost Containment and Accountability Equals Savings
These days, cost effectiveness is a major reason why businesses outsource facilities management activities. Once business owners outsource their building management and facilities programs and they set up the right contractual relationship with the service provider they can see reduce costs in several different ways:
- Employee Substitution Equals Savings — Savings relating to substituting your employees with outsourced contractors are extremely less by the time all figures are calculated. You should know just the training alone involved in OSHA regulations are strenuous enough, but to even think about training new maintenance personnel employee can be extremely costly these days.
- Labor Optimization Equals Savings — Achieving the correct balance of a site based multi-skilled employee workforce and outside “per call” general contractor can be a great balance and fit for many structured companies.
- Process Improvement Equals Savings — Reductions in cost relating to improved work processes and procedures. The supervision alone is a daunting task, employing a supervisor for a maintenance department can be significant cost factor per annual year. I have paid close attention to companies outgrow their maintenance obligations and lose control of their facility maintenance.
- Building Optimization Equals Savings — Savings relating to the initiation, management and optimization of the total cost of ownership. This can be tricky, I’ve watched companies do very little maintenance with the attitude that spending less saves them money. Well, this does however sound great, but let me explain this little bit of knowledge gathered through years of personal experience in the facility maintenance business, “It Does Not Work” I have experienced that quarterly commercial maintenance can save you money. Let me explain, by the time all your maintenance issues arise all at once you’re now looking at extensive amounts of cost to correctly address this situation.
These are the major areas where outsourced commercial service providers save its clients’ money. However, for all these areas, it is important to measure cost effectiveness and accessibility of your commercial contractor to monitor efficiency of maintenance progress.
(2) Responsiveness and Timeliness of the Work
Many corporations are unhappy with their facilities department because they do not efficiently respond to (responsiveness) or complete work (timeliness) to the satisfaction of the building owners and leasing occupants. This is usually the result of poor maintenance departments scheduling, priority setting, and flexibility to complete maintenance task when the work is beyond the capacity of the in-house service departments scope of work there able to perform. In many cases, you as the executive in charge, do not know the extent of this unhappiness until the occupants and contractual lease users of your facilities organization make a big issue out of it and then this dissatisfaction hinders the organizations performance. “You do not want this to happen” Your organization in these cases need to design the appropriate cost-effective work order criteria management process using a facilities maintenance CMMS software technology to establish a program to effectively set priorities, properly schedule and complete facilities maintenance and repair work.
(3) Work Quality Assessment
If you are getting constant complaints and scheduling conflicts associated with the existing service company, this is a sign that you may want to make a change. Poor work quality arises from several different reasons. Poor scheduling, inadequate training, using the wrong person or skill set for the service required, last of inspection as the work is done and after completion, poor morale, poor work processes are the major culprits to poor service quality. Sometimes, the accountability of management program used by your organization are not appropriate for your facilities department. In many cases, there is a deficiency in the quality management program. By having an appropriate performance plan, the quality of services will follow the performance plans work order in detail, rework is minimized, and the occupants of the building are happy with the quality of the services they receive. Why CMMS software’s save you money? Well, let’s see, it enables you too track critical aspects of corrective maintenance and repair work order expenditures. This aspect of commercial service is critical for any commercial building owner to stay within an annual budget for the year.
(4) Flexibility and Panning
The ability to be flexible is essential when determining the business and facility’s current needs. If your business has employees that do not have the skill sets, up to date training, work ethic, and will to do the maintenance work orders, it is difficult to execute excellent performance and to continuously improve with change. Knowing that the commercial facility owner can terminate their contract with short notice, facilities management and commercial maintenance vendors are compelled to make personnel changes immediately to continue contract sustainability, stay on top of best practices, and demonstrate cost effectiveness in the services they provide. The commercial owner’s flexibility, though they may not be doing or managing the work orders, should always know which direction the facility maintenance requires currently to extend their expenditure budget for the annual year. Good communications and reporting documents provided by the service provider can assure flexibility and planning.
(5) Risk Mitigation
In this economically challenging world, you, as the owner or executive who is ultimately responsible for your facilities condition, may not understand the inherent risks of the facilities program. Improper management of personnel, lack of documentation and training relating to environmental, human resource and safety requirements, lack of emergency response training and procedures, absence of critical parts replacements, code violations, and regulatory violations relating to the buildings are just some of the areas of concern that require specialized knowledge, management, and documentation. Outsourced service providers provide the knowledge, documentation, and management the customer needs to ensure that facilities related work is being done properly and that the buildings provide a pleasing, and safe environment for the customer.
Let us help you with your commercial maintenance challenges anywhere in the Bay County area of Florida. Call us today in Panama City, FL at 850-890-3835.