A building manager is someone who handles the overall operations of a building, making sure the building is running smoothly at all times. A building manager also ensures the occupants or tenants of the building are safe as well as satisfied with the quality of service. They convey regular maintenance strategies, building repairs, building improvements and monitor all running systems such as the HVAC, plumbing, electrical, safety and much more.
All these tasks and segments involved in building functionality are managed by just one person; the building manager. It is safe to say then, that being a building manager is no walk in the park. Trying to hit KPIs while managing the multiple services of a building on the daily would be quite the challenge even if you are a highly skilled individual and an efficient multitasker. So what exactly are the parts that make being a building manager such a difficult task, here are some of the biggest challenges they face at the job.
The 4 common challenges faced by building manager:
Controlling Costs and Managing Time
One of the extreme pain points for building managers is staying within allocated budget while maintaining the image, safety, security and services of the establishment. The managers could be closely following a daily work schedule until an unexpected problem arises from the occupants or the machinery of the building itself. As an example, the management could be incurring higher costs through inefficient energy usage like an increase in utility bills caused due to forgotten overrides in the HVAC system. In majority of cases, these unplanned situations easily disrupt a carefully laid out budgeting strategy resulting in a lot of back and forth between the higher management. Thus why, task prioritisation, time management through scheduling and proper cost planning becomes the core of the building manager’s role.
Why does it matter? Controlling both cost and time will:
- Aid in tracking work progress and KPIs (key performance indicators) and take corrective action if costs rise too high.
- Retain expected profit margins.
- Set clear expectations and prevent scope creep.
- Attain transparency and clarity with management, stakeholders, and clients.
- Generate useful metrics for handling upcoming projects.
Keeping Accurate and Organized Building Records
Various kinds of building records pile up from day to day such as rental payments, maintenance records, occupants reports and complains or paperwork needed for submitting or responding to claims. Building managers need to be meticulous in organizing by putting them into different files and labels to distinguish the different types of records.
Not only that, the building records needs to be protected very well. The records need to be carefully taken care of from heat, water or air damage. Getting the physical records damaged will cause the information on it to be unreadable; worst, wiped out. Besides, valuable records has the potential to be stolen. Therefore, it needs to be kept safe in a locker. The more amount of physical records are needed to be kept, the more physical spaces are needed. Hence why some building managers prefer to keep their documents online as it is more safer and is well protected from physical damages. Cost saving is added as a bonus.
Reducing Downtime and Extend Asset Lifespan
Doing preventative maintenance is usually very recommended by many since it is one of the best way to maintain the asset performance at a peak condition but there are some downsides to it. It is not budget control friendly to building managers since it requires a lot of manpower. The cost could become higher resulting from over maintenance. On the brighter side, preventative maintenance can make the assets go on a longer run for a long time.
Lacking Right Software Tools
The inability to understand and less knowing on how the building system works can make matters worse. Building managers should have sufficient knowledge about building management so that they would recognize the software tools they need to use to make them to work productively as well as reducing work time, enhancing productivity.
As an example, HAUZ app allows to plan or schedule shifts and tasks beforehand, real time overview live updates on team activities which includes equipment tracking, scheduling daily inspections and shifts, task management and workforce analytics. Other than that, it can generate reports which help to observe things that need improvements. There is no manually inputting, submitting, and recording data which is quite an inefficient way of completing your work management duties.
Meanwhile, the HAUZ dashboard can help building managers to:
- keep track all operational activities, task completion and real time updates of the team
- monitor and maintain assets lifespan
- assign or plan schedule shifts (e.g., regular maintenance schedule)
- maintain clear communication with the team
Having all of these features is a great start for building manager to ensure that work order is organized and receive information faster. Thus, challenges that building managers face can be overcome by investing to hire qualified skilled workers and also use the right software tools.
Reference:
4 Biggest Building Maintenance Challenges and Solutions | Buildings