Responsibilities Of Facilities Manager Information Technology Essay

We are explaining in this project about facilities manager and the relationship between business needs and space planning. We are also discussed in these assignments about health and safety and environment issues which impact on role as facilities manager. In this assignment we are included ethics which play an important part in the management of facilities.

Facilities management:-

Facilities management is an interdisciplinary field to the co-ordination of space, infrastructure, people, organization often associated with business services functions such as office, arenas, schools, shopping complex, hospitals, hotels etc. Facilities management facilities the business on a much wider ranges of activities than business services. Facilities management is one of the fastest growing professions in the UK.

According to the international facility management association, facility management is:

“A profession that encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionally of the built environment by integrating people, place, processes and technology.”

Facilities management is a vital strategic discipline because it translates the high level, strategic change required by senior decision makers into day-to -day reality for people in their work living space.

Facilities manager:-

Facilities managers are responsible for many of the buildings and services which support businesses and other types of organization. Facilities manager are employed in all sectors and industries and diversity of the work may be reflected in different job titles such as operators, estates, technical services, and asset or property manager.

Role as the facilities manager:-

Facilities managers are responsible for the management of services and processes that support the core business of an organization. Duties vary with the nature of the organization, but facilities managers generally focus on using best business practice to improve efficiency, by reducing operating costs while increasing productivity. This is a wide field with a diverse range of responsibilities, which are dependent on the structure and size of the organization. Facilities managers are involved in both strategic planning and day-to-day operations, particularly in relation to buildings and premises.

Facilities manager responsibilities include:-

Procurement and contract management

Building and grounds maintenance

Cleaning

Health and safety

Security

Utilities and communications infrastructure

Space management

Responsibilities for facilities managers often cover several departments, as well as central services that link to all the terms in the organization.

According to the Bureau of labour statistics: occupational outlook handbook, 2010, “the facility manager plans, designs and manages building, ground, equipment and supplies.” The facility manager acts as the liaison between the building occupants and the organization, contractors and regulators. Facilities manager work at a large organization or a small firm. In addition to maintenance, facilities manager also manages space allocation, security and safety.

Ensuring business activities meet with and integrate with organizational requirements for quality management, health and safety, legal stipulations, environmental policies and general duty of care.

Planning, developing and implementing a strategy for human resource management and development, including health and safety training and development of a safety culture within business.

Ensuring that there are proper assessments of risks to health and safety and implementation of measures and arrangements identified as necessary from the assessments.

Providing training on emergency procedures, first aid facilities, safety signs, relevant protective clothing and equipment and incident reporting the relevant authorities.

Preventing and taking precautions against staff exposure to hazardous substances and danger from flammable, explosive, electrical, noise, radiation and manual handling risks.

Recruiting and selecting health and safety direct- reporting staff.

As a director, they will have legal accountability and responsibility on behalf of the business to ensure health and safety policies, procedures and systems are followed correctly.

Relationship between businesses needs and space planning:-

Space planning is the professional discipline that incorporates the planning and management of workforce features in many business operations as diverse as product manufacturing, process engineering, retailing and warehousing. The facilities manager can embark upon the process of addressing the workspace needs of the business in the full realization that space planning is much more than simply interior decoration and the supply of furniture. It is the conscious planning and design of the work environment to facilitate the delivery of products and services.

Constraints & problems:-

Some typical problems that can occur at work include:-

Time constraints:-

Conflicting deadlines

Resource problems

Time constraints: – one of the most common problems in all organizations is lack of time and too much to do. This is time management skills such as work planning and prioritisation are so vital in order to get the most out of time. We should apply time management skills to our work every day in order to complete for any time constraints.

Conflicting deadlines:-

Another problem that are very likely to experience at work is conflicting deadlines, when two or more colleagues need to complete work for them at the same time. As we seen, these types of problems are best resolved by negotiation between all the parties concerned. Sometimes, colleagues will happily agree to their work taking second place to another deadline once they see that it is more important than theirs or has drastic consequences for the business if it is not met.

Resource problems:-

Resource problems arise when two or more colleagues need the use of resources such as meeting rooms, laptops or projectors at the same time and there are not enough of these resources for everyone to have their own. This type of problem can be quite easily remedied by using a booking system, maintained by member of the administrative team. For example, they would keep a booking diary for each of the resources and staff would be required to book these resources ahead of time to secure their use. This type of system is a good solution to most resourcing problems because it places the allocation of the resources under the responsibility of an unbiased third party, who will deal with any conflicting needs in an objective and business focused manner.

The constraints and problems face in room allocation:-

Room Suitability and equipments also other problem because time is waste in finding availability of equipments for room which suit the need of a course will appear and disturb the learning process. Problems also affected the quality of students in college not only affected learning process. Space allocation as a process of allocating rooms or areas of space for specific functionality. Space allocation in higher education environments such as academic office, teaching and learning space, staff allocation, financial and budgeting, etc. Resource allocation models relate the inputs of the educational process to the resources required. ). In higher education environment, facilities play a major part especially on teaching and learning process. There by, a good management of the resources has to be established and focusing to the students. Mainly teaching and learning space allocation is a common problems found in colleges. Strength of college student increase, programme and departments in the college are the factors create to the problem.

The health and safety and environment issues which impact on role as facilities manager:-

Health and safety:-

Health, safety and security procedures need to be followed in order to prevent unauthorised access to the building. The event organizations must be aware of the emergency procedures that are used by the site where the events are being held. They will need to talk to the facilities manager to find out what happens in an emergency, where the nearest fire exits are and what kind of sound indicates that there is an emergency.

Under the health and safety at work Act 1974, it is the organiser’s responsibility to ensure that their employees are looked after. The facilities manager has a duty of care to any other people who might be attending the event. Many different aspects need to be considered, including arrangements for the first aid, insurance and food hygiene.

Security and confidentiality:-

The key purpose of the security is to protect the buildings, employees, equipment and information. Security relates not only to the physical security of the building and its contents, but also to the intellectual property of the organization. Intellectual property consists of all the organizations ideas, original products and services and the brand name of the business, as well as any other copyright material that it owns. There must be organizational security procedures in place to protect these things. The procedures also need to be monitored and overseen by employees within the organization, and any security alters or breaches must be treated with urgency. Confidentiality means that means the protection of certain sanative information so that it is only seen by those authorised to do so.

Maintenance:-

Many accidents at work are caused by faulty or poorly maintained work equipment. Employers have a duty to ensure equipment is maintained and in good working conditions. They must make sure that maintenance logs are kept up to date showing when machinery and equipment was last serviced and inspected.

Total quality management –

This methods looks at the quality and performance of the products produced; it is not just looking at the overall quality of the institute services instead looking at involving all the employees at all stages and levels of the production process to add quality to the services so that at the end it meets the customer satisfaction or demand. Total quality management looks at the overall quality measures which used by a factory including managing quality design and development, quality control and maintains quality improvement and quality assurance.

Risk assessment:-

The main aim of the regulations is to reduce harm by requiring the assessment of all potential risks and the creation of action plans for emergencies. Employers must complete and review risk assessments at set times and make modifications to safety standards if there are any significant changes in working practices or equipment. These risk assessments must form part of a systematic safety record. A risk assessment should:

Identify hazards in the workplace

Identify those workers who might be harmed and how

Evaluate the seriousness of the risk of harm from identified hazards

Record the significant findings in a record that can be stored and used again

A good risk assessment of the workplace should identify these hazards, assess who is at risk from them and identify control measures that can be put in place to reduce risk.

Ethics:-

An organization works to achieve corporate aims. Operational activities refer to anything a business does in order to achieve its aims. Ethical behaviour within a particular business is different from an ethical business. An ethical business sets out from the beginning to work ethically and ethics form a part of its strategic aims. Ethics deals with inner values which are a part of corporate culture and shapes decisions concerning social responsibility with esteem to the outside environments. An ethical matter is present in a state when the performance of a person or organization may damage or benefit others. Thomas M. Jones, “ethical decision making by individuals in Organizations: an issue-contingent model,” academy of management review 16(1991), 366-395.The formal definition social responsibility is management’s obligation to make choices and take actions that will contribute to the welfare and interests of society as well as the Organization. (Eugene W.Szwajkowski, (1986); and Keith Davis, William C. Frederick, and Robert L.Blostrom, (1979).

Importance of ethics:-

Satisfying essential human needs: – honesty, fair and ethical are one basic human needs. Each workers wish to be such himself and to work for a company that is fair and ethical in its practices.

Creating honesty: – a company that is understood to be driven by moral values is respect in the society even by those who may have no information about the working and the businesses or an organization.

Good leadership skills: – in the organization driven by values is respected by its workers. They are ordinary thread which brings the workers and the decision makers on a common stage. This goes an extended way in aligning behaviours within the organization towards achievement of one common objective or mission.

Improve in the decision building: – decisions are determined by values. For example an organization that does not value competition will be fierce in its operations aiming to clean out its rival and set up a monopoly in the market.

Secure the society: – ethics succeeds law in protection the society. The law equipment is often found acting as a silent observer, not capable to safe the society and the atmosphere. Technology, for example is rising at such a quick pace that by the time law comes up with an instruction we have a newer technology with new fear replacing the older one. Lawyers and public interest litigations may not assist a great deal but ethics can.

Ethics always tries to make a sense of good and bad in the when the laws organizations and fails. Ethics can stop company from harming the society or atmosphere.

Corporate social responsibility:-

CSR as the voluntary actions that business can take over and above compliance with minimum legal requirements, to address both its own competitive interests and the interests of wider society. Corporate social responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.

Conclusion:-

All organizations work in different ways and have different systems and procedures which they expect their staff to carry out in the course of their day to day duties. The operation of administration procedures is important since the organization’s activities must be coordinated and planned. If inadequate administration procedures are in operation, the organization may suffer from a lack of efficiency and effectiveness since it does not have access to all relevant information. Administration procedures obviously play a vital role. They are the means by which the organization is able to operate as a whole. Any organization can have good ideas and well motivated employees, but without procedures to ensure that functions are carried out, these may be unsuccessful.