What are five habits of great facility managers?

The best facilities managers have developed habits of being proactive, seeking automation, studying data regularly, working efficiently with outside vendors, and prioritizing their workloads.

One: Be Proactive

When you’re in charge of maintenance, you know that part of your job will always be dealing with emergency repairs. However, the best facilities managers make it habit to focus on preventive and predictive maintenance as much as possible. The more you can move away from reactive maintenance, the more efficient your facility will become, saving you time and money in the long run.

Two: Seek Automation

One key component of moving away from reactive maintenance is to seek automation. Facility managers who make it a habit of always keeping an eye open for the best automation tools available will be first to take advantage of these technologies. This doesn’t always mean switching to the latest releases, but it does mean keeping automation at the forefront of your mind. For example, technology such as sensors are dropping rapidly in price and can easily improve asset monitoring for many facilities.

Three: Study Data

Having reliable data in your CMMS and analyzing it regularly is another habit of awesome facilities managers. After all, the point of collecting maintenance data is to help you make smarter, better decisions. If you can see when and why critical assets are breaking down or which machines benefit most from preventive maintenance tasks, you can determine the best course of action more quickly. Line these up with your KPIs so you can see your progress.

Four: Work Well With Vendors

No one person can do everything well alone so the fourth great habit for successful facility managers is being able to work effectively with third-party vendors. This means managing relationships and keeping data and workloads streamlined and integrated with your internal team.

Five: Prioritize

Understanding your own strengths and prioritizing what you can do best is critical to being a great facilities manager. Know when to delegate. Focus on those decisions that will make the biggest long-term impact for your organization.