If you’re a facilities manager, you understand how important it is to stay aware of the ever-changing needs of your building and the people in it. Whether it’s maintenance tasks or contributing to worker happiness, there is a huge range of tasks to stay on top of. As such, we thought we would help out with our essential facilities manager checklist. If you’re not a facilities manager, it’s still worth a read! You might learn something about productivity or health and safety to name a few.
Large buildings can use a lot of energy. From lighting the workplace to boiling the kettle, or keeping computers running. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a small or large business, you should always consider your company’s effect on the environment. To try and cut down on energy use, encourage people to switch off their computers at the end of the day, or install motion sensor lights so that they are not on unnecessarily. Additionally, another great way of saving energy is to install Billi water systems. Billi units consume less energy than a kettle and create a far smaller environmental impact than bottled water. To work out how much you could be saving by switching to Billi, try our Green Calculator.
To keep employees happy, motivated and productive, their workspace needs to be inviting. Having areas that encourage collaboration and co-working can lead to higher levels of motivation as employees have somewhere to share their ideas. Similarly, it’s important that there is space between desks and flexible seating arrangements. If people are working on an individual project, they need to be able to work without interruption. For the managerial or high-level employees, it has been said that prohibiting individual offices leads to a less hierarchical workplace. Keeping your employees equal and content is important for effective work output. The key to happy employees is to create a workplace they feel equal in, have comfortable and inviting spaces to work either alone or with others, and have home-like elements in terms of decor and design.
If you are in charge of a building, then you’re also in charge of making sure that new health and safety regulations are enforced. If you don’t enforce them, you could be subject to huge fines. Besides that, you also want to make sure your workplace is a safe environment for all employees. Employee injuries or accidents could lead to huge problems. Make sure that you have enough staff health and safety trained, and that are regulations and rules are met within your building. As a facilities manager, you have a duty of care to make sure employees and visitors remain safe.
Keeping your building well protected against theft or damage is essential. To do so effectively, you need to make sure all security systems are running properly. Make sure CCTV and building locks work and also educate staff on locking away their valuables. If you don’t already – make sure all visitors are accompanied by a member of staff at all times to minimise the risk of theft or breakages.
Obviously, there are other essential jobs that facilities managers undertake, these are just a few of them. Here at Billi we can help with energy saving, and keeping your employees happy. We do that with our unique water systems that keep your employees hydrated and motivated, while also preventing damage to the environment. To learn more, get in touch with us today.