Agreat facility manager is the ultimate organiser, responsible for the management of teams, services, and processes that support the core business of an organisation.

The area of Facilities Management is a diverse field which entails a range of responsibilities, involving both strategic planning and day-today operations, to achieve both short term and long-term goals.

The consistent end goal for any FM service provider is to ensure that their client has safe, reliable working environment for its employees, which in turn boosts productivity and service quality.

Skilled facilities managers are critical for the successful implementing to understand and appreciate several distinct functions, and technical competencies.

The professional, interpersonal, and even emotional demands on facility managers are significant and dynamic, and vary on each facility depending on the size and nature of the premises.

The essential five traits that every good facility manager should possess include:

• A comprehensive understanding of a client’s mission, vision, and business objectives: A successful facilities manager needs to have in-depth appreciation of the client’s needs and their corporate culture. The role also requires an understanding of the client’s typical customers, their expectations and demands, which influence customer satisfaction. These could include response times to inquiries, a safe environment or fair price assurance. By gaining a profound understanding of their needs, preferences and requirements, clients can be empowered to establish a positive connection with their customers and gain business.
• A keen eye for detail and ability to process vast data quickly: Quality control is a large part of a facilities manager’s job. Ensuring thorough cleaning, timely maintenance, and high safety standards are maintained, and operational inefficiencies are discovered to delivering value added services to clients.
• Open, constant, and transparent two-way communication with clients to nurture strong client partner relationships: The art of FM lies in the way clients are served.. A facility manager’s ability to connect with the client, engage them, and inspire their teams makes an emphatic difference in performance and service excellence. The ability to get key messages across to site staff, superiors and, most importantly, the client’s customers, is an essential skill that is put to the test each day. Good facilities manager much be familiar with the several channels of modern communication, and be experts in written, verbal and body language techniques, to effectively establish a rapport with each audience.
• Commitment to deliverance, prudence, and sustainability: One of the crucial aspects of the facility manager’s responsibility is to manage operational costs, ensure sustainability and deliver excellence in service. As a regular practice, they must discover novel ways to cut costs while adequately maintaining the business premises. It is the responsibility of a facility manager to ensure that operational budgeting is effective and leads to profitability.

Fiscal discipline through budgetary control and inventory management, are ultimate barometers of any company’s ability to meet its top line and bottom line targets. Sustainability continues to be trend that is fast gaining corporate value across the world, specifically in the facilities sector.

A sustainable building is an efficient resource for any company; managers must make sustainability a goal and take proactive steps toward it to ensure consistent processes and procedures, results are monitored and compliance audits performed. Facilities managers must also identify potential in their teams and guide them on the path to improve both technical and soft skills through mentoring and guidance, to retain promising human resources and building successful teams.

Zero compromise on health and safety, service excellence, profitability, and teamwork: Leading an organisation to greatness requires an individual to have impeccable integrity, zero compromise on service excellence, profitability, commitment to health and safety, and teamwork. A successful facilities manager knows the importance of building a strong team and developing positive relationships among team members.

Additionally, they must possess an innate ability to drive organisations to higher trajectory growth by providing quality and efficient services that are aligned with the organisation’s vision and objective.

The writer is executive director and chief operating officer, efs facilities service (india) pvt ltd