With the business landscape becoming increasingly competitive in recent years, businesses are striving to capitalise on any opportunity they get to optimise their processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
In most circumstances, this involves transforming internal processes such as finance, marketing, and operations to align with the new needs of the business. But, many leaders fail to consider the role their corporate facility plays on their brand image.
While skipping over the cleaning and maintenance needs of your facilities may not seem like an oversight in the short term, in reality, how your business facilities look, feel, and function can have a major impact on your team’s performance and how your customers perceive your business. This means it must be maintained consistently.
It’s also easy to perceive facilities management as purely a cost driver and reduce costs by employing ad-hoc staff to take care of your facilities management needs, but research has proven this to be a wrong approach.
Studies have concluded that the benefits of working with corporate facilities management companies far outweigh its costs.
If you’re still unsure about whether you should invest in corporate facility management services, here are five signs that mean you need the support of a professional facilities management team.
It’s likely that you invested thousands of dollars to procure assets that can support the work of your teams. But, you may not always have a full view of the assets in your facilities. In fact, according to studies, 81% of small and medium businesses don’t have an accurate view of their assets.
The unfortunate reality is that unless you have a thorough understanding of where and how your assets are deployed within your facilities, you won’t have a clear understanding of your finances. This is where an asset register can inform your decisions.
An asset register can give you detailed insights about all your business assets including location, condition, use case, procurement date, price, depreciation, and the current value of each asset.
When you don’t have an asset register, it often leads to the mismanagement of existing equipment.
You may not be aware of the status of your assets, which can cause you to miss repairs and services, impacting the lifecycle of that asset. This can add an unnecessary financial burden when equipment eventually falls into disrepair.
Oversights can even lead to you replacing an asset that still has functioning capacity, which you may be unaware of because you don’t maintain an asset register. This can have a negative impact on your business performance in the long term.
Thankfully, you can avoid this by partnering with a corporate facility management services provider who can help you maintain a detailed asset register.
If you neglect your cleaning and maintenance needs, it can lead to major repairs in your facilities, which can disrupt your business operations.
For instance, if the air conditioning goes out or the toilet gets clogged, you may need to shut down your operations until these repairs are taken care of.
So, while some repairs are unavoidable, it’s important that you conduct routine maintenance and cleaning to avoid major repairs and disruptions to your processes—and corporate facility management services providers can support you in this regard.
They can help you create and implement a cleaning and maintenance schedule that covers all areas of your business facility. By doing this, you can ensure that all repairs and maintenance needs are handled as soon as possible.
If your teams are unable to do their work because of extensive repair or maintenance operations, it will have an impact on organisational productivity.
Studies have shown a positive relationship between workplace cleanliness and employee productivity. This means that your teams perform better when they are presented with a clean and clutter-free environment.
A new study by Florida State University has even found that unhygienic working environments can have long-term cognitive effects.
If you’re noticing any unexplained dips in productivity, this may mean your in-house cleaning and maintenance workflows are not up to standard and you need some professional support.
In addition to affecting the productivity of your teams, cleanliness can also have an impact on the health of your employees, which can lead to an increase in absenteeism and financial loss.
A report by PwC found that businesses lose around $35 billion due to sickness-related absences.
Corporate facility management service providers can help you maintain a healthy and hygienic workplace at all times through regular sanitisation and cleaning.
While it may not be perceived as such, facilities management is crucial to reaching your full potential.
If you notice any of the signs outlined above, it may be an indication that your business needs the support of a professional team—don’t hesitate to reach out to a facility management company in your area.