Facility Maintenance and Operations: Navigating Today and Planning for Tomorrow

By Danielle Moore
Director, Channel Marketing at iOFFICE + SpaceIQ
SpaceIQ

Transitionary periods are never easy. As businesses move from routine and certain practices to unproven and uncertain situations, there’s a level of trepidation involved. Thankfully, there are ways to ease this anxiety—namely, by shedding light on the gap in old vs. new practices. At a time when many workplaces are either in the middle of transition or running up against it, investment in visibility is imperative.

Nowhere is visibility more important than facility planning. From real property to office operations, facility managers need oversight as they begin to adapt assets and workflows in the near-term and for the future.

Navigating a period of sweeping change

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shift to flex work have up-ended commercial real estate and its outlook as an asset. Many companies are asking themselves if they need a centralized workplace, and those choosing to maintain offices are reevaluating how to carry that overhead effectively. For the latter, it comes down to adapting maintenance and operations around the new parameters governing a flex work norm.

In the immediate, it’s about establishing processes and standards for bringing people back to the office safely and with confidence. Already, there are key best practices emerging as part of an effective return-to-office:

• Reservable and hotel-able desks and workspaces
• Channels for reporting workplace problems
• Auto-scheduling cleaning and maintenance tasks

These practices and others only work if they effectively ease employee tensions and fears about coming back to the workplace. Moreover, they need to mesh with a new outlook on asset management—one that maximizes asset ROI by reframing expectations. Businesses need to navigate the balance between cost-driven adaptation and employee-minded changes.

One of the simplest ways to move forward with confidence is to bring transparency to workplace adaptation. Employee surveys and consistent communication bring visibility to changes, to get everyone on the same page about what to expect and how to progress forward. The future may still be a little uncertain, but it’s more certain when everyone has the same information to work from.

Planning for the facility needs of tomorrow

Transitionary periods as such that a company moves toward something: a culmination. For companies during the pandemic era, it’s about charting a course to a new and stable future. That means planning for that future while navigating the transition. You need to know where you’re going if you’re ever going to get there.

For many companies, the first priority is reframing assets and understanding what their role is in the future—and how to maintain them for that role. It doesn’t matter whether you’re shrinking your CRE footprint, changing floor plans, or exploring new desking concepts: assets need to adapt to expectations. It boils down to key objectives:

• Reassess the maintenance needs under a different level of demand
• Create and maintain more proactive asset maintenance schedules
• Implement data collection and analysis for asset use and maintenance
• Generate new costing and budgeting models for enterprise asset management

Establishing asset strategies for the future also means addressing present needs, to establish a foundation for the future. Now’s the time to tackle deferred maintenance and establish digital twins that’ll serve as a backbone for a more refined level of future asset management. The sooner facility professionals embrace change in asset management, the more proactive they can be in recognizing the new standard for efficient utilization.

SpaceIQ bridges the gap in transition

Bringing visibility to the many changes occurring in the workplace comes down to having data. SpaceIQ software provides that data. SiQ provides the floor plan and management tools needed to facilitate operational changes. Serraview offers the resources to manage employee sentiment and create transparency through communication. Archibus is the gold standard for asset maintenance. Together, the entire suite of solutions casts light on the many obfuscated areas of the transitioning CRE landscape.

Even beyond stewarding a change to new operation and asset management strategies, SpaceIQ is poised to help businesses succeed beyond. With sustainability tools, data de-siloing, holistic views, and mind for experience, facility managers have the tools they need to create the new normal that’s best for their company, its assets, and its employees.

For more information about SpaceIQ solutions for the future of facility maintenance and operations, request a demo.