Encompass Insights

When it comes time to pick a facility maintenance vendor, there are a lot of things to consider. In addition to the traditional vetting process, you want to find a vendor that creates value for your organization.

But how can you go about finding a partner that makes it a priority to create value for their customers? 

Here are some questions you should ask yourself before seeking out a facility maintenance vendor.

Management often tosses out or discontinues good facility programs because they believe it didn’t achieve the desired outcome.

But don’t give up so easily. Tossing out the entire initiative and simply dismissing it because it “doesn't work” deprives you of the opportunity to learn more about your organization. Instead, you need to look deeper to understand what went wrong and how you can remedy it.

Here's how you can dissect your initiative to figure out why your facility program didn’t work and how you can get back on track. 

Since the majority of service employees aren’t on salary, how can you incentivize them to be more productive when their pay depends on the amount of hours worked?

First and foremost, it’s important that you take a different approach when motivating salaried vs. hourly employees. While employees on salary can more easily be motivated to be more productive in order to reduce the time spent at work, hourly team members respond best to completely different factors, because of the nature of the pay structure.

Inventory management and tracking can be a headache. 

However, there are some solutions you can implement in order to make it less of one.

Let’s take a look at some common inventory issues and how you can streamline the process.

When it comes to implementing new initiatives at your facility, your motto should often be: 50% is better than none.

Now, for those of us who tend to be perfectionists, that sounds like a slap in the face. How could I think of standing up a program I know isn’t the best?

Many organizations are reluctant to implement new initiatives because of hurdles in adoption or uncertainty in the outcome. However, when something is critical, you're better off moving forward and getting those that are "convertible" on board than working tirelessly to slowly move the difficult ones in your direction. 

With so many tasks tugging at you every day, being strategic is not always an easy feat for managers. Prioritizing daily activities may seem pretty self-evident, but prioritizing long-term changes across your organization, well, that's a different story.

Here are four questions you should answer to evaluate the soundness of that new process or project you’ve been wanting to get off the ground for a while. 

According to the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), organizations move, remodel, or relocate approximately 30 percent of their facilities each year (based on square footage).

In order to successfully move an organization’s primary facility operations from one location to another, facility managers will need to engage in complex planning, coordination and execution.

Here are a few move management tips you should keep in mind the next time you need to relocate your facility!

Staffing is one of the most important aspects of any facility. After all, it is the people that make any facility run. What’s more, these people ultimately become the face of the organization. That’s why you should take the staffing of your facility seriously.

So what are some facility staffing best practices you should keep in mind? Here are three that we think are the most important.

Is culture something you either have or don't have, or is it something that you can actively build?

Both.

For many individuals, corporate culture sounds like a very abstract, fluffy thing you use in Marketing and that's it. But truly successful companies make culture an integral part of their operations. If you’re interested in improving the company culture at your facility, it’s something that can be done; you just need to know how to go about it.

We often tout the benefits of going green at your facility here on the Insights blog. However, in this piece we’d like to underline the biggest benefit it can offer your organization: A positive impact on your bottom line.

Here are some ways you can go green and the facility energy savings you can enjoy!