Achieving High Performance in Facilities Management

Achieving High Performance in Facilities Management - Step 4

Once the facility manager has completed a self-assessment of the organization, policies, technology, recruiting and training, and communications, he/she will have identified areas for short-term improvement.  While planning those, it’s also important to begin thinking about short-term spending plans – budgets – for the next two to three years.  This is the focus of this post, the fifth in our series about High Performing Facilities Management Organizations.

Here is the framework, or maturity model, we’ve been using in this series – the topic of this month’s post is highlighted:

It’s no secret that the pressures on facility managers have changed over the last few years. These days, it’s not usual to be challenged with shifting business priorities, sustainability initiatives, and even workforce succession, all in light of shrinking budgets and O&M cost increases!  At the end of the day, it all boils down to making sure that the right facilities are in place for immediate requirements.

To start the process, leadership has to provide guidance about where the business is headed for the next two or three years.  Then, the facility manager can prioritize those efforts where space type and allocation requirements are known, while more emerging initiatives can be subject to more of a contingency planning effort.  Budgets for these short-term efforts are usually predictable and will support the plans, even though other impacts, such as new environmental regulations and new business initiatives, can come into the picture and be disruptive.

In 2010, the National Research Council published Core Competencies for Federal Facilities Asset Management through 2020.  From the title, it’s clear the book was written to benefit public sector facilities managers; however, it includes a useful summary that compared and contrasted public sector objectives with private sector goals.  We’ve included some of the information in the table below for use as a guideline in planning for the short-term:

By referring to these essential concepts, the facility manager can balance the objectives from senior management with his/her own goals for achieving a high-performing organization.  Clearly, these should form the baseline for the short-term – two to three years – but they will also lay a solid foundation for longer-term success.

The long-term perspective will be the focus of our next post in the series.  We’ll cover the “re-baselining” process that should take place so that the facilities organization stays in sync with where the enterprise is headed. We’ll also look at how to justify a request for additional resources, if that is needed in order to ensure success.

Thanks for reading – we hope you’ll join us for next month’s post!