What Facilities Management Is

Definition

Facilities management is the integration of processes within an organisation to maintain and develop the services that support and improve the effectiveness of its primary activities. In plain terms: making sure the places where people work are safe, legal, comfortable, functional and affordable, so the organisation can get on with what it actually does.

The function is largely invisible when it works. Nobody notices that the heating is correct, the lifts run, the building is clean, the fire alarm was tested and the water is safe. They notice immediately when any of these fails, which gives the profession a characteristic asymmetry: success is silence.

Hard and soft services

• Hard services — the building and its systems: heating, ventilation and air conditioning, electrical distribution, water and drainage, lifts, fire systems, building fabric, and the building management system. Generally statutory, technical, and non-negotiable.
• Soft services — the services delivered to occupants: cleaning, waste, security, reception, catering, grounds, post, and workplace support. More visible to occupants and frequently the basis on which the whole function is judged.

Both matter. A perfectly maintained plant room in a building that is dirty and poorly secured will be regarded as a failure by everyone who uses it.

The main responsibilities

• Compliance — the statutory obligations attaching to a building and its occupation. This is the non-discretionary core.
• Maintenance — keeping assets serviceable and extending their life.
• Operations — the daily running of the building and its services.
• Space — how much is needed, how it is allocated, and how it changes.
• Projects — refurbishments, moves, replacements and improvements.
• Procurement and contract management — most FM work is delivered by suppliers.
• Budget — operating and capital expenditure for the estate.
• Health, safety and environment — for occupants, visitors and contractors.
• Energy and sustainability.
• Business continuity — keeping the organisation operating when the building cannot.

Strategic, tactical and operational

• Strategic — what estate the organisation needs over several years, where, at what cost, and how it supports the business. Property decisions are long, expensive and difficult to reverse.
• Tactical — annual planning: the maintenance programme, the budget, the projects, the contracts.
• Operational — today: the fault reported this morning, the contractor on site, the room that is too cold.

Functions that operate only at the third level spend their entire time reacting and never reduce the volume of reaction. The discipline is to protect time for the planning that removes future problems.

Demonstrating value

Facilities management is frequently viewed purely as a cost. The arguments that carry weight are the ones expressed in the organisation’s own terms: the cost of unplanned downtime, the productivity effect of poor environmental conditions, the legal and financial exposure of a compliance failure, the cost avoided by planned rather than reactive maintenance, and the lifecycle consequence of deferring investment. Learn to express the function this way rather than as a list of activities performed.