Creating a productive workplace: Practical steps for facilities managers
Rarely seen but always busy in the background, facilities managers are essential to the smooth running of any workplace. You ensure the safety and wellbeing of staff, from new starts to senior management, while working away from home. More than that, workplace conditions and how you communicate with employees can directly impact productivity, supporting or stalling company progress. Let’s explore the practical steps you can take to keep everyone performing well.
- Maintaining building infrastructure
Sound infrastructure is the foundation for operational efficiency. Ensuring accessibility with wide corridors and features like lifts as alternatives to stairs allows all staff to move around with ease, while effective security systems establish a sense of safety from the moment employees and visitors enter.
Basics like maintaining toilets and regularly servicing and improving your commercial heating system are vital in creating an optimal working environment. You should conduct scheduled reviews of the physical space to see what you could do to support staff beyond the basics, identifying small but significant irritations like flickering lights and broken plug sockets which could be easily fixed. Consider suggesting building upgrades where relevant, too – perks like showers can contribute to staff satisfaction and associated productivity.
- Improving indoor environment
Our surroundings are an important influence on how we work. Sustaining a suitable atmosphere promotes focus and reduces stress, supporting employees in working well for prolonged periods. This includes setting a stable temperature that meets or exceeds the legal minimum for the workplace and having a layered lighting scheme that ensures excellent visibility in all areas without being overly harsh.
Thanks to smart technology, it’s easier than ever to maintain a supportive indoor environment. Sensors automatically monitor temperature, raising and lowering the heating as necessary and learning typical patterns to run more efficiently. You can install sensor-activated lighting that works in the same way. Create zones within the office so as not to be wasteful with energy, giving you separate options for communal spaces verses areas like meeting rooms.
- Ensuring cleanliness & comfort
Clean and comfortable workplaces support both wellbeing and professionalism, which are key to boosting output. Feeling cared for by the company makes employees feel valued, increasing employee loyalty and driving a desire to pay the business back in kind with hard work. Preserving mental health is as important as focusing on physical wellbeing when it comes to nurturing productivity.
Focus on keeping communal areas tidy during the day, making them attractive spaces where colleagues can collaborate and strengthen social bonds within the business, and hire evening cleaners for kitchens, bathrooms and other high-traffic areas, so staff can start the next day in an inviting space.
Comfort also extends beyond hygiene. Ergonomic furniture supports longer focus for desk jobs, minimising common complaints such as back pain and eye strain, while PPE including warm gloves and sturdy boots is essential for outdoor workers. Across all types of workplaces, having relaxation spaces where staff can pause and find a moment of quiet after busy periods helps keep people recharged and motivated for more.
- Streamlining management services
Facilities management is made much easier by digital software and services.
Special programmes and platforms provide a direct avenue of communication between you and other employees, alerting you quickly to any urgent issues and providing valuable insights into widespread staff satisfaction. The digital tools can scan through data in seconds to identify common concerns, directing your priorities in line with what would make employees more productive. You can set up separate channels for staff and suppliers and break these down further for seamless project and ad hoc task management.
Digital platforms also give employees autonomy over the workspace, improving their in-work experience and saving everyone – including you – precious time, so the focus remains on the most important demands. Through apps linked to the company IT system, staff can book meeting rooms and request special services with ease.
