A good facility manager, to be successful, needs to have both soft and hard skills. The difference here will relate to whether the skills possessed are of a more communicative or technical nature.
To find out more about the required qualities of a good facility manager, you can learn more here.
For information on the responsibilities of a good facility manager, read on.
Management of People
A good facility manager has the dual role of managing staff and vendors. This is so that services can be effectively delivered. This requires great knowledge of a subject, which is technical, and the skills to be able to motivate the management team that is being supervised.
To communicate effectively with people, the facility manager will need to be fair but firm. A degree of empathy is required but not to the detriment of a business. Incentives, however, are better for achieving results than sanctions, although nothing should be ruled out by management to ensure efficient operations. It is, after all, what ensures the longevity of a company and its ability to continue to hire staff.
HR Input
The facility manager plays a role in potential staff before they even become employees. They are a key part of the management team that is responsible for hiring key workers. They will oversee higher-level human resources duties that will include hiring procedures and training. They will be pivotal to attracting new talent to a company. Strategically, they will provide analysis that will ultimately improve processes and continue improving quality as well as productivity and efficiency in terms of all areas of a business.
Management of Buildings
A good facility manager will also be responsible for the upkeep of a company’s building. This will include making sure that it adheres to any legal requirements concerning the health and safety of its employees.
In terms of a building, a good facility manager will look after things such as the heating and air conditioning, the electrics, and the plumbing, to make sure that they continue to operate at an efficient level, as well as deciding when maintenance is required. Other maintenance to the building might include the roof. A leaking roof has the potential to damage the equipment or stock inside a building and be in danger of collapse above a company’s valuable asset that is its workforce. Deciding to repair the roof at the right time can avoid having to replace an entire roof sooner than a business might desire to, given the expense.
Coming Up with Strategies
Apart from getting involved in the day-to-day running of the business, facility managers will be strategists who think long-term to ensure the continuing survival of a business. They will look at the long-term picture as well as what is in front of them. This is concerning staff and business associates and the way a company operates for all in terms of its efficiency. They will look for bottlenecks in supply chains, for instance. Where cash flow is a factor, this will need to be considered. Where there is a lack of skills within a company, this will very much need addressing by way of extra training or maybe looking overseas for the skills as well as within local communities. The facility manager will have the ability to communicate and liaise with other departments to achieve the results expected by company bosses that will drive the business forward.
In conclusion, facility managers, or FMs as they are also known, will operate across many different business functions that will involve them working at both operational and strategic levels. The role will involve being something of a multi-tasker and an expert in the processes that run a business in terms of its staff, customers or clients, and its building. There can be no wider role within a business than that expected of facility managers, who need to be highly skilled individuals that can communicate with a range of people inside and outside a company.
