Last week I described my issues with how the most important roles and responsibilities of the facilities manager are not being addressed or supported by organizations.  This week I look at these roles and responsibilities in more detail and offer my thoughts on how to ensure that your organization integrates them into its operation.

To illustrate the problem, let’s look at the hiring process.  It is a common experience to be hired into a company and find that the job description does not resemble the actual job duties.  In fact, I have seen positions where the job description did not exist.  Organizations that do not formalize these important roles and responsibilities through documentation risk hiring someone for the role who may not understand the true role, responsibilities, or priorities of their position.  On the other hand, candidates who understand their roles and responsibilities correctly will encounter frustration if the organization doesn’t share their focus.

The most effective means an organization has to communicate its expectations to the facilities manager is, of course, via the job description.  A well-defined job description clearly communicates the criteria the FM must meet in order to be successful in the position.  Discussing the organization’s philosophy and intentions creates an understanding of the hierarchy of decision-making and action that the organization expects.  This discussion should be directed to the specific attitudes and actions around these areas:  safety, risk mitigation, organizational culture, communication, personnel development, and continuous improvement.   Once again, these responsibilities are common to every mission critical environment facilities manager regardless of the specific nature of the operation.

Safety

Safety is the activity of risk mitigation to site personnel, and it is the first and foremost priority and responsibility of the facilities manager.  Whether your facilities staff is working with 13,200 volts, 1500 psi, or confined spaces, your facilities manager’s primary responsibility is to ensure the safety of all personnel in all of their activities.  This requires the facilities manager to know the practical methods and legal requirements of working with these hazards, and this responsibility extends to visitors, contractors, and others in spaces controlled by the facilities team.

In the facilities manager’s job description, safety ought to be listed as the top priority.  There needs to be written expectations around this – goals, measurements, standards, et cetera.  It should be assessed in potential candidates to see where it is on their personal value system.  If safety is not first and foremost in the candidate’s mind, then I would go to the next candidate.  In critical environments, people’s lives can and do literally depend on the decisions of the facilities manager; safety can never be anything but the highest priority.

Risk Mitigation

Risk mitigation is the reason that mission critical facilities organizations exist.  Risk mitigation is one of the key differences in the operational philosophy of these organizations.  Each person within the organization needs to understand their place and how they and their actions support this operational imperative and philosophy.  The facilities manager is vital to this activity as they implement the processes that mitigate the risks.  They enforce the policies and set the expectations of behavior in their team.

After safety, the next thought of the facilities manager should be “How can I mitigate risk to our operations in this situation?”  Whether they are giving tours to guests or clients, approving procedures, or monitoring maintenance, the facilities manager’s thoughts should always be on risk mitigation.  In the job description, risk mitigation is often stated as “uptime,” “continuous production,” or “7×24 operations.”  However it is communicated, it is the reason that the critical facilities exists and should be appropriately described in the job description with goals and expectations.  Potential candidates should be queried as to their perspectives and personal methods of mitigating risk to the operations.  It is the reason for their position.  Is it the reason they are applying?

Organizational Culture

In the movie, Remember the Titans, the leader of the defensive squad complains that the stated attitude of a player he is talking to is one of the worst that he has ever heard, to which the player responds by saying “Attitude reflects leadership.”  This realization by the leader allows him to change his behavior and thereby influence the other squad members for the greater good of the entire team.  The facilities manager, by virtue of their position, can and will greatly influence the organizational culture of their staff and peers.  In short, they must be the example and never the exception; they must define the expectations and hold everyone accountable to those expectations; and they must always find the time to appreciate efforts that go above and beyond the call of duty.  If your facilities team is exceptional, it’s a reflection of their leadership.

It doesn’t matter if you work for Google, Westinghouse, or Tesla Motors; each of these companies has its own unique organizational culture.  Yet it is the leader of each team of people within those organizations that really sets the culture for the team.  Even within Google, known worldwide as the quintessential casual work culture, there is required strict rigor, formality, and procedural compliance when working in or around energized electrical components.  The person that sets this culture and mindset is the facilities manager.

The facilities manager is totally responsible for the organizational culture of his staff.  Therefore, the job description needs to spell out the facilities manager’s responsibility and role in setting the organizational culture of their team.  In interviews and assessments, are your processes/questions designed to identify if the candidate’s personal culture matches what you need in the position of the facilities manager?

Communication

Just as people need oxygen to live, mission critical facilities organizations need communication to operate effectively.  The facilities manager is the keystone to the communications that must go up and down the organization.  They are the focal point for all communications related to facility operations and emergency response.  They are the translators of technical jargon into actionable information for use by upper level management.  Facilities managers interpret policies and regulations into standardized behaviors for their staff.  In times of emergency, the facilities manager will most likely be the person in charge and may be called upon to make actual life-or-death decisions based upon the communications available to them.

Most people that apply for facilities manager positions have developed their communications skills.  However, in my experience, the position requires some very particular communication skills that may need further development.  In any event, there are three areas of communication that the facilities manager must excel at:

• Technical Communication – the ability to communicate in the language used by engineers and technicians.

• Financial Communication – the ability to translate a broken chiller into cost and capital expenditure; the ability to discuss budgets in terms of expenses, capital, and total cost of ownership.

• Interpersonal Communication – the ability to communicate the values, policies, and expected behaviors into examples that are understood by their team members.  Additionally, it is the ability to translate technical or financial topics so that they are understood by management, finance, HR, prospective clients, or staff.

While it would be nice to find candidates who naturally possess all these communication skills, the reality is that it usually falls upon the hiring organization to help individuals develop the skill set.  Here again it is valuable to include the three types of communication skills in the job description.  Recognize that an effective training program may need to be implemented to help facilities managers develop any skills they lack.

Personnel Development

The facilities manager is responsible for the personnel development of their staff.  This goes beyond training in the traditional sense to include, in a holistic sense, elements of career development and in some instances personal development.  Not only must technical skills and knowledge be addressed by the facilities manager, but also the mentorship of future supervisors and managers.  Project management skills, procedure development/writing, policy interpretation, relationship building/management, and training/assessment techniques are also areas of personnel development.

About 20 percent of the job descriptions describe the facilities manager’s role in training or personnel development, but this is another item that should be listed in the facilities manager’s job description as a primary role and responsibility.  The type, style, or direction of the personnel development will depend on the specific situation.  In addition to being in the job description, the organization’s support functions need to be built around helping the team become successful and grow in their fields of choice (management, technical, communication, et cetera).  If your organization does not provide these personnel development paths, how can you expect your team to be successful or grow and evolve?

Continuous Improvement

It should be the responsibility of every facilities manager, not just those in mission critical environments, to find ways to continuously improve their operations and services.  In this fast-paced world we live in, it has been said that if you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind.  This is true for mission critical facilities organizations too.  Facilities managers need to create and maintain environments where continuous improvement is an expected behavior that is acknowledged and appreciated.

This is one role and responsibility that I am seeing more and more in today’s job descriptions for management.  “Continuous improvement” is a catch phrase that is often used, but it is rarely supported by the processes, policies, organizational culture, and reward structure of the team.  Many companies have “suggestion programs” or “idea programs.”  But when you look at participation, you can quickly tell if the program is effective or not.  In my book, 5 percent participation is not a very successful program.  Continuous improvement requires 100 percent participation.

We hire people with great educations, experiences, and enthusiasm.  Before they “freeze in place,” those attributes need to be focused into a program that encourages people to come up with ideas.  Then those ideas need to be properly vetted and tried.  This process needs to be driven at the facilities manager’s level and therefore it, too, must be included in the FM’s job description.  It is leadership’s responsibility to put the methods of review, limitations, rewards, and framework in place – as well as to modify the process as needed to maximize participation.  After all, a brain not engaged in this activity is a brain wasted.   (But hey, you’re still paying for it!)  Don’t let this extremely valuable resource go to waste.

The facilities manager in mission critical environments is vital to the success of the entire organization.  The role can define the team’s culture and set the standards for site performance.  Training and mentoring of facilities managers must address the six areas that I have outlined above.  The position of facilities manager is not just about technical skills and knowledge; they are leaders of an organization, an organization that has tremendous responsibilities within your company.  If you believe, as I do, that these roles and responsibilities are critical to the success of your mission critical organization, can you afford to leave them out of the FM’s job description?