Top 5 ways a facility management company can automate work

Every organization has a facility team that looks after their maintenance work, cleaning, security, parking and the safety of employees and the building. They take care of all the background work required to keep an organization running smoothly. Right from looking after the maintenance work to providing temporary ID’s to new joiners they make things efficient for everyone in the organization. To ensure smooth functioning of the work managed by the integrated facilities management team, they must have an automated work system. Below are a few ways a facility management company can automate work in their daily activities.

A Centralised Web Portal

A facility management team receives requests from various teams such as – operations, HR, training, and vendors. It is quite overwhelming to go through each request through emails and phone calls. If each team sends them a request through one web portal, it will be much easier for them to be organised and manage every request more efficiently.

Also through the web portal, the requestor will know the status of their request. There will be transparency, and it will avoid any clashes between different departments and avoid the chances of redundant requests.

Authorising Requests

The workflow management system is a centralized web portal for all employees in the organization. If the facility team needs to undertake a project for the better functioning of the organization the portal should give the ability to put up the project details in the portal. The authorities who authorize the project work should have access to look into the complete details of the project. The portal should have the functionality to authorize or reject the project. In case if a project work and the cost are approved by higher authorities, they can start the work right away without any delays. There are times; they have to keep waiting for approvals. However, with an efficient portal, they can send the details of the project, cost and the reason for the project, and all the details of the project can be documented in the portal. The senior management can access the portal to find complete details of the project and authorize after considering factors required for authorizing the project.

Providing Security and Access

Today, most organizations issue ID cards or badges to everyone who enters their office building. Without an ID card, no one is authorized to enter the building. Issuing or printing an ID card should be an automated process.

The work of a facility officer becomes challenging when there is a new training batch and issuing ID cards are not automated. There are times when there are around 18 to 25 employees joining at a time.

For the smooth flow of the issue of ID card to new hires, there should be a system through which the HR team could send the communication to the facility team. The communication should include the number of employees, name of employees, and the trainer’s name. If the facility officer is made aware of the new joiners well in advance, they can create the badges well in advance and keep it ready before the new joiners arrive.

Vendors and Contractors

Providing a clearance pass for vendors is another task of facility officers. A vendor should send a communication beforehand so that the facility officer can get the clearance pass and ID card ready for the vendor. The vendor should be provided with the portal link where they can send the request. This will make work easy for both parties.

Reporting Safety Incidents

There should be a form through which any supervisor can report any incident that occurs in the facility. The form should be easily available through the portal, kiosk or mobile device. The reported incidents should be visible in the workflow management tool. This will help them to take action quickly and also generate reports on the incidents that occur on the premises. Additionally, this will also help them to periodically conduct maintenance work and pay extra attention to where accidents occur.

An automated system will give better visibility and help in smooth functioning of the systems in the building. The automated system will make work more efficient, and the facility team can minimize negligence.