As dynamic as this job may be, the facility manager’s role can be broken down into about five major categories which include the following;
Occupant/tenant comfort
Energy management
Supervision of capital projects
Fire and human safety management
Sustainability
The comfort of the occupants could take a big part of the day from any facilities manager. A facility manager must balance the treatment of these daily and urgent needs, commonly known as ‘putting out fires’ and the long-term aspects of their work. The comfort of the occupants covers everything in the internal built environment i.e. providing adequate light, ensuring air conditioning in the appropriate parameters, maintaining healthy ergonomic levels in the workstation, maximizing the acoustic performance of the space, etc. In many companies, the facility manager also oversees the quality of ancillary services such as indoor cafeterias or exercise areas.
This is the most common way that building tenants interact with the facility manager and his team, but there is a lot more to manage behind-the-scenes facilities. Monitoring capital projects is a significant component of the facility management service which includes everything from supervising tenant estimates to replacing building systems such as the roof, HVAC system, or other mechanical systems. In addition to the installation, the facilities management department performs the maintenance of these systems.
The idea of continuous maintenance and supervision of a building’s systems is involved in two other aspects of the role of facility management i.e. energy management and sustainability. Each year that passes, facility managers have more and more tools at their disposal to help the activity to understand and control one of their most important expenses, the energy. In the past, there were days where the water tap could be left open freely or the lights were left on all day. As the world’s companies tighten their belts, operating budgets are often slashed, forcing the facility managers to look for ways to make businesses run as efficiently as possible. The strategies include installation of occupancy sensors in the lighting system, use of plumbing fixtures that consume less water and space conditioning only when occupied rather than conditioned 24/7. It is said that the energy efficiency is the first and the most abundant source of potential energy, and that it is at the discretion of the facility manager to evaluate the buildings to provide solutions to areas where energy is wasted. This may include installing sub-meters to control how exactly the energy is used in a facility or the retro commissioning of the building to make sure everything is working as it should. To hire the first-rate FM companies in Dubai.
