Tips for in-house
facility managers tasked with making tough choices
It’s that time of year again—the
time when you’re tasked with creating a budget that will take your facility
through the next several months, or even the next year. There are many factors
to juggle when setting up the budget, including allocating costs for hiring,
supplies, equipment, special projects, and emergencies, in addition to demands
for higher quality work.
To meet and exceed the standards
set by your client (if you’re an outside contractor servicing a building) or
your supervisor (if you’re an in-house facility manager), you may have to
collaborate with outside contractors, make tough decisions regarding your
employees, and work with shrinking operational costs. When you decide upon your
budget, you must ensure that the
According to those in the
cleaning industry, the biggest challenge faced by in-house facility managers is
contending with lower budgets, while still maintaining standards. In fact,
according to Cleaning and Maintenance Management’s 2015 In-House/Facility
Management Benchmarking Survey, 90 percent of
respondents said reducing overall cleaning and maintenance costs was important
to their facility or organization in some capacity.
“There continues to be a
cost-cutting focus in this industry,” said Anthony F. Maione, vice president of
Core Management Services. “There is a tremendous amount of pressure when
budgeting, which puts in-house facility managers in a financial squeeze. They
are constantly tasked with figuring out how to continue to produce successful
outcomes for stagnant or decreasing budgets.”
Sharon L. Cowan, a certified
building service executive (CBSE) and owner of Cleaning Business Consulting
Group, stressed a similar point. “They must increase productivity in employees,
while often times not increasing wages,” she said. “They must keep on top of
every trend and new process in the industry to keep their crews efficient and
productive, while staying motivated.”
If you’re an in-house facility
manager and having a difficult time coming up with your budget, or want to know
how to make the budgeting process better, the following advice from cleaning
industry experts may help.
Look at Your
History
Whether you’re looking to create
your general budget, or trying to figure out how much money to set aside for special projects, you should study your facility’s history.
Mike Koenig, vice president of
sales and marketing at TMA Systems, LLC, said management software can help
in-house facility managers more accurately predict costs. “You can trend your
unexpected costs from prior years. You have the ability to see what your future
capital planning needs will be moving forward in order to maintain your
facilities at a certain level.”
Some maintenance management
systems can allow in-house facility managers to plug in all their past and
present information, and then predict funding for the next one, two, five, or
even 10 years.
By investing in management
software, an in-house facility manager may be able to make intelligent
decisions and back up a budget with solid data; this can also help building
service contractors (BSC) provide data to clients if they request the
information to help with budgeting.
Reevaluate Your
Cleaning Procedures
After you’ve recorded your
history and processes into your computer, you can start to reevaluate how you
perform duties and arrive at your numbers.
“The first step for obtaining the
right number is to do an inventory of the space you're responsible for
maintaining,” said Jim Peduto, Esq., CBSE, co-founder of the American Institute
for Cleaning Sciences (AICS). “You want to look at all the particulars that
relate to that space, including flooring, square footage, and types of rooms,”
he said. “Step two is to develop a list of tasks for that space and frequencies
of the tasks [associated with the space]. Then, apply production rates for each
of the listed tasks. The fourth step is to arrive at labor hours required to do
the work, and the fifth step is to compare labor hours to the budget you have.”
If you use software, it should
calculate the labor estimates needed for any type of situation. For example,
Koenig said, if you’re an in-house facility manager at a university and your
boss wants you to increase the cleanliness from a two to a three, you can see
how that would affect the bottom line. “Once our system is populated with
cleaning matrices, you can go in and determine exactly what your impact will be
for the labor to support those levels.”
Cut Down on
Employee Expenses
Fortunately, and unfortunately,
as a facility manager, you also have the role of hiring and firing employees.
It is your job to determine employee hours, and how many you will need during
the next several months.
When it comes to budgeting,
Peduto said, employee expenses are going to be one area where you’re able to
cut back. “In any operation, labor is going to be far and away the largest
budgetary component where in-house facility managers can save money. Supplies,
equipment, and other areas pale in comparison to labor.”
Deciding upon the number of labor
hours needed to maintain a facility is a key starting point for your operation.
“Many [in-house facility managers] face the fact that it’s been a long time
since they reengineered or looked at the number of labor hours that go into
task assignments,” Peduto said.
To do this, Maione suggested
using a workloading tool “to determine how to achieve adequate work levels with
[fewer] people. [That way], you will have the option of not replacing some
positions when they become vacant. You’re still meeting cleaning needs because
you’ve re-designed your task and frequency in anticipation of having [fewer]
custodians in the future.”
Maintain Your
Equipment
Equipment is another big cost. It
can run you thousands of dollars, and, if it breaks down, you’re going to need
to quickly find the funds to replace parts.
“Equipment is becoming more crucial
to the industry,” Maione said. “Wide-area equipment, utilizing better
technology, can cover more ground and help cleaners perform their duties more
efficiently.”
In order to prevent machinery
from breaking down, Maione said, in-house facility managers need to be
proactive and keep detailed equipment logs. By instructing their employees to
do preventative maintenance, they can avoid budgetary problems down the line.
Research
Outsourcing Options
Outsourcing some or all duties
can lead to your operation running smoother.
“By choosing to outsource, you
can mitigate budget surprises by making it more predictable,” Maione said. “If
you’ve done a good job drafting your contract [with the cleaning service
contractor], you can effectively shift the risk associated with cost
uncertainty to a contractor willing to operate under a firm fixed fee.”
If you’re an in-house facility
manager and having budgetary issues, you may want to consider outsourcing some
tasks. If you’re a BSC servicing a facility, explain to your client about the
benefits of outsourcing some tasks and how it could help the operation run more
smoothly. If you’re the client, you could let your team know that you’re toying
with the idea of outsourcing some services.
Outsourcing only works, however, if
both the in-house facility manager and the outsourced contractor are on the
same page. They must know their roles, and work hand-in-hand to reach the same
goal.
“For the in-house managers, much
of their time is spent managing the employees, handling coverage when someone
is out, getting the work completed, engaging with human resources issues,
making certain of safety compliance, training, discipline, termination, [and]
supervision of the work,” Cowan said. “For the outsourcing managers, much of
the above mentioned processes are removed from their job descriptions. They
deal only with the representative of the building service contractor. The BSC
takes on supervision, staffing, training, deficiency issues, quality checks
[of] equipment and supplies, and responses to immediate concerns. This allows
the facility manager the ability to oversee the janitorial program, make
recommendations, and focus on streamlining the operation.”
Construct Your
Budget
This year, you’re probably going
to be faced with more demands than ever. But by utilizing helpful tools,
factoring in the correct costs, and taking the building’s history into account,
you can set up a budget for success.
Comments
Post a Comment