Focus on best practices for facility managers

Some argue that benchmarking and best practices are essentially two sides of the same coin. The search may lead to companies in similar industries exchanging FM information, or a company discovering best practices through extensive research.

Many measures of success

After looking at all the semantics and definitions, what exactly are some of the daily functions that facilities professionals should be measuring? The International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) lists items that are typically compared, such as square footage per occupant; building efficiency ratios (the ratio of usable space to profitable space); workstation utilization rates; maintenance costs; administrative costs; utility costs; environmental costs (the costs of providing satisfactory air and water quality, waste disposal, and regulatory compliance); security costs; project costs (improvements or reconfigurations of existing space); total cost of operations; and occupancy cost. Other items evaluated include equipment downtime; the percentage of preventive maintenance vs. Repair and Maintenance; and overtime costs.

But benchmarking can be extended to other, more nebulous FM tasks, such as “supplier sourcing” and the “planning process.” Customer-driven benchmarks include response time, cycle time, satisfaction, and downtime. The customer has to be happy and the culture in different companies is based on the vision of top management. Consider what your customer thinks is important. You (the FM) may have an attendance issue in your department that is being evaluated, but your client may not know or care.

look in the mirror

Where should FMs look when collecting data? While instinct might tell an FM department to immediately look abroad and compare with other companies, FMs may want to review their own practices first. For example, a manufacturer might compare the operations of its Toledo plant facility with its Seattle plant.

Another benefit of internally focused benchmarking is that companies can focus on the operations that are truly vital. You have to know what is important for your own business. It cannot be said that one reference point is critical for everyone. Take “computer downtime” for example. This benchmark would obviously have a different level of importance depending on the company in question. In a business that strives for 24-hour equipment operation, downtime statistics are much more revealing than for a facility where only some equipment is used part of the time.

Things get complicated when FMs start comparing their department’s methods to those of outside companies. If they get too hung up on numbers, FMs can get distracted trying to keep up with the Joneses. Critical benchmarks can vary by industry or market sector, and may even vary within an industry, depending on local conditions, company culture, geographic location, and facility age. As a result, the main focus of benchmarking should be on the process, not the numbers. If you know exactly what you do, then you can look at other companies’ numbers and see how they got there.

Measuring cost alone is a losing approach. The payoff isn’t in the cost, it’s in the process. The facility profession is hanging in square footage. The only people who should care about square footage are realtors. The best measure for FMs and senior management is ‘cost per head’ or ‘cost per seat’. When you move up the chain of complexity, that’s where the benchmarking data starts to fall apart.

Best-in-class for facility operations is a difficult concept. For example, allocating the least amount of office space may be the best in terms of efficient use of space, but it can have a detrimental effect on employee morale and productivity.

What’s in there for me?

The original impetus for benchmarking was the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement, in which tangible measures and hard data were often the criteria used. But now people are doing it for more experimental reasons. They benchmark for the same reason they attend conferences: to learn.

Additionally, facility professionals, who may not be particularly adept at corporate politics, can’t be shy about announcing their benchmarking efforts. Today’s facilities management professional must be able to promote and market their contributions to the organization.

List of customer-facing marketing initiatives that facilities departments can undertake:

• Involve facility departments in employee orientation;
• Publish FM department newsletters for clients and management;
• Offer presentations and tours of the facilities;
• Use surveys, report cards, customer interviews, and focus groups to assess the performance of the facilities department.

The good news is that senior management may be willing to invest in benchmarking and best practices. They are incorporating it into their budgets. It’s hard for top management to say ‘we don’t want to compare ourselves to our competitors’.

Benchmarking is only half the job. After identifying best-in-class practices, the organization must be ready to implement them. Too often, new FMs stop the process after comparing their performance to others and knowing they are ahead.

Perhaps not quite perfect, but benchmarking and adopting best practices can help facilities departments better manage operations and customer service.