A facility manager rarely has a typical day.
There are space requests to answer, work orders to prioritize, reports to prepare,
floor plans to update, employees who are too hot or too cold, and leadership asking
what the organization's space needs will look like six months from now.
Somewhere in between all of that, you are supposed to find time for strategic planning.
The right Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) should make that easier.
But simply having facilities software is not enough. The software needs to fit the
way your organization actually works, keep your information accessible and accurate,
and reduce the amount of manual work required from your team.
Here are five and a half of the most common challenges facility managers face and
what to look for in the tools designed to solve them.
1. Keeping Facilities Data Accurate
Facility information has a habit of spreading.
Employee information may live in HR. Floor plans are stored somewhere else.
Asset information is maintained by IT. Lease information is in another system.
Then there are the spreadsheets your facilities team maintains because they contain
information that doesn't quite fit anywhere else.
The problem isn't necessarily that these systems exist. It's keeping all of them
synchronized.
And there is a simple rule we have learned after years of working with facilities
teams:
If a system isn't easy to update, it probably isn't up to date.
A good IWMS should reduce duplicate data entry by connecting with the systems your
organization already uses. HR, IT, financial systems, floor plans, asset databases,
and other business data can feed information into your facilities environment instead
of requiring someone to continually update it by hand.
That gives your team something far more valuable than another database:
a reliable source of information when decisions need to be made.
2. Getting Knowledge Out of People's Heads
Every facilities department has institutional knowledge.
Someone knows which department actually occupies that corner of the third floor.
Someone remembers why those workstations were configured differently. Someone knows
which data jack connects where, which conference room always causes trouble, and how
a particular move needs to happen.
That works until that person is on vacation, changes jobs, or simply isn't available
when someone needs an answer.
Your facilities software should help turn institutional knowledge into
organizational knowledge.
Processes, floor plans, assets, moves, work orders, and other important information
should be accessible to the people who need it without requiring them to track down
the one person who knows how everything works.
The same principle applies to workflows. When a process exists within the system
rather than only in someone's head, another team member can understand where something
stands, what needs to happen next, and who is responsible for it.
3. Avoiding the CAD Trap
CAD is an incredibly powerful tool.
It also shouldn't require every facility manager to become a CAD expert.
Many traditional facilities management systems were built around the idea of a
"visual database," requiring users to work directly within CAD drawings whenever
space information needed to change.
That can create what we call the CAD trap.
Instead of using CAD for what it does best, maintaining accurate drawings and
spatial geometry, facility managers end up spending time relearning commands or
relying on the one person in the department who knows how to make the necessary
changes.
Modern IWMS software should separate managing facilities information
from editing architectural drawings.
Your team should be able to manage occupants, departments, space assignments,
moves, and other everyday information through familiar forms, workflows, and floor
plan interfaces without needing a CAD refresher course every time something
changes.
4. Forecasting What Comes Next
Leadership doesn't just need to know how space is being used today.
They need to know what happens next.
How many people is a department expecting to hire? Does the organization have
enough space to accommodate them? Could another team consolidate? When will
additional space actually be needed?
Unfortunately, forecasting often turns into a combination of spreadsheets, emails,
updated drawings, meetings with department leaders, and educated guesses.
The problem isn't necessarily the forecast itself. It's gathering the information
required to create it.
A strong IWMS incorporates forecasting into the normal facilities workflow.
Instead of rebuilding the picture every time leadership asks for an update, the
underlying information is already there.
That allows facilities teams to spend less time assembling data and more time
evaluating options.
5. Turning Facilities Data Into Useful Answers
Facility managers have no shortage of data.
The challenge is turning that data into information someone else can understand.
Executives may not need the same level of detail that a facility manager needs.
They want answers:
- How much space are we using?
- Where do we have capacity?
- What is changing?
- What is it costing us?
- What should we plan for next?
Your IWMS should make those answers easier to provide.
Reports and dashboards should be configurable for the people using them, with the
ability to move from a high-level view into the details when necessary. And producing
those reports shouldn't require exporting information into several other applications
just to make it presentable.
The goal isn't simply to generate more reports.
It's to make facilities information useful to the people making
decisions.
5½. Surviving the Interruptions
And then there is the half challenge.
The phone rings.
Someone is too hot. Someone is too cold. A work order suddenly became urgent.
Someone needs to know whether a conference room is available. Another person needs
to move.
And the report you planned to finish this morning is still sitting on your screen.
Interruptions will always be part of facilities management. The goal isn't to
eliminate them. It's to keep every interruption from becoming a manual process.
Self-service requests, automated workflows, work-order routing, notifications,
and clearly defined processes allow routine requests to begin moving without requiring
a facility manager to personally coordinate every step.
That leaves more time for the work that actually requires your expertise.
Choosing the Right IWMS for Your Organization
Solving these challenges doesn't mean finding the software with the longest
feature list.
It means finding software that fits the way your organization needs to work.
Before evaluating an IWMS, map the processes you want to improve. Look at how
information enters the process, who needs to interact with it, what decisions need
to be made, and what happens next.
Then ask software providers to show you your process, not just
their standard demo.
- Can the system adapt to the way your organization works?
- Can it connect with the systems you already rely on?
- Can your team change a workflow as your needs evolve?
- Can everyday users accomplish their work without specialized technical knowledge?
- Does the software remove work from your team, or simply give them another system to maintain?
Software shouldn't force your organization into someone else's idea of how
facilities management should work.
The right IWMS gives you the tools to build better processes around the way your
organization actually operates.
Your Software Should Work the Way You Work
At Collectiveview, we believe facilities technology should be flexible enough to
adapt to your organization rather than requiring your organization to adapt to the
software.
Whether you're managing space, moves, work orders, assets, reporting, or the
everyday requests that keep your facilities team busy, the goal is the same:
Give your team better information, simpler processes, and more time to
focus on what comes next.