At Malace, we provide every aspect of what a company needs in order to keep their business and building in good working order. When it comes to facilities management staffing, the most important factor is having the right leadership. A team is only as strong as its leaders.
With this in mind, it’s important to make sure proper leadership is in place, firstly, and that that leadership is conscious of the energy and issues going on with its workers/team. Facilities management becomes a disaster when leaders are not fostering a healthy environment. A house divided cannot stand.
So in order to ensure quality control of your facility, a staff check-up is always in order. A staff check-up is when a facility manager stops putting all their focus on key performance indicators (KPI) and starts paying attention to the environmental health of the actual workers. Being familiar with your facilities management staff is crucial to understanding turnover, performance in your facility, efficiency, and symptoms that can erode the facility’s key objectives.
A facility must have a leader that can slow down and periodically check and be aware of his or her team’s issues and concerns. When a leader does that, there’s definitely going to be things that are brought to the forefront that that leader must be able to effectively address.
Let’s consider some of the issues a facilities leader might come across, and what they can do to resolve it.
Certain Staff Members Are More Withdrawn and Are Not Participating or Sharing Ideas
Silence can speak louder than words. As a leader, your first goal should never be to react negatively to a team member that doesn’t seem to be a team player. Instead, you want to pull that team member aside, without an audience, and truly listen. Oftentimes, a team member is seeing issues within the facility or department that you as a leader may not see, which has caused that employee to give up and shut down. When you take the time to listen to this employee, you may learn things that need to be addressed on a higher level.
Also, a communication breakdown indicates a lack of unity within the facility, which can lead to disaster. A good leader will address this problem before serious misunderstandings occur. It’s important for all facility managers to consider the ideas of everyone and encourage proper communication and input from the lowest levels to the highest. Everyone has something to bring to the table.
Staff Doesn’t Seem Eager or Interested in the Goals of the Facility
When work becomes mundane, it’s easy for a staff to become complacent and disinterested in their work and the goals of a facility. To counteract this, a facility leader should strive to bring interest back into the team by introducing reward systems. The type of reward system will depend on what the leadership feels is the most motivating, but overall reward systems are a smart way to recognize and show appreciation to their team.
You Notice Good Workers Quitting
Perhaps one of the most noticeable symptoms of a problem within a facility is high turnover. When a leader notices workers (especially good ones) suddenly quitting their job, it’s time to do a serious inventory of what’s going on. This is the time to sit down with each individual worker and hear their honest thoughts on their coworkers, their pay, the demands of the job, and the facility itself. This must be done with a clear understanding to the worker that there will be no repercussions for their honesty.
Ultimately, these few small but important steps when dealing with facility management staffing can ensure the health of your facility for years to come.
