The facets of facility management are ever-evolving. From small-scale maintenance to facility heads who oversee large building portfolios, the goalposts are constantly changing. Today, FM providers must enhance occupant experience at the premises in addition to providing technical services, soft services, and compliance. But why is enhancing employee experience crucial to a business’s success?
Enhancing occupant experience increases employee productivity, reduces costs, creates a secure environment at the facility, and ensures efficient time utilization. The premise becomes a healthier place for the occupant and a happy occupant means a successful business. So, how do you, as a facility head, collaborate with your FM partner to ensure the complete satisfaction of occupants at the premises?
Promoting Wellness And Safety At The Workplace
With the advent of the global pandemic, safety is the priority. The facility management services at your premises must ensure the implementation of health and hygiene practices. Promoting a safe work culture will provide the occupants with a sense of security and is critical in ensuring the continuity of your business.
How people feel at a facility is fundamental to the businesses’ growth, stability, strength and sustainability. The pandemic has had a substantial impact on the morale of employees. Empathy towards the employees is essential. Employee wellness is crucial to the business’s success. Different types of employee well-being include:
Physical well-being: Physical well-being includes taking appropriate measures to ensure employee fitness and prevention of illness at the workplace. Promote a healthy environment at work, create checklists at project management sites and adhere to them, and provide your employees health insurance to secure their well-being.
Mental well-being:Mental well-being takes into account stress, burnout or any other feeling that’s bothering the employee. Promoting a workplace culture where mental health is not stigmatised and talked about openly will encourage employee well-being. Introduction of remedies that can provide the employees the means to take care of their psychological soundness will benefit the organization in the long run.
Financial well-being: Financial stability is a crucial factor when it comes to employee well-being. It is no secret that being financially secure increases overall performance and boosts productivity.
Top-quality hygiene soft services are the need of the hour. Cleaning and disinfecting services, especially, are in the spotlight. Whether it be creating a cleanliness SOP, moving away from acidic cleaning agents, or increasing the cleaning frequency altogether, FM providers must ensure hygiene at the facility is given paramount importance.
Additionally, your organization must keep track of the occupants and visitors in the facility and be on the lookout for any symptoms to ensure a secure environment. Implementing and following the safety guidelines at the facility is crucial to enhancing the occupant experience.
Improving Indoor Air Quality To Enhance Occupant Experience
With the advent of the pandemic, the need for the indoor air quality to be near pristine is absolutely crucial. Let’s find out why.
As per Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), SARS-CoV-2 viral particles spread faster indoors than they do outdoors. An effective ventilation system will ensure the reduced concentration of the viral particles in the air. The lower the concentration, the less likely viral particles will be inhaled into the lungs; contact with eyes, nose, and mouth; or fall from the air to concentrate on surfaces. With an efficient ventilation system at the building, you can ensure overall concentration and the viral dose received by the occupants is minimized.
To achieve high quality ventilation at the facility, organisations need to rethink the make of their facility management operations. New additions are the need of the hour which include:
- Increasing the flow of outdoor air inside the building. It reduces the concentration of viruses in the air and can be achieved in two ways:
- Opening outdoor air dampers beyond their minimum settings reduces HVAC air circulation depending on the weather.
- Opening of doors and windows to increase outdoor air flow. However, be mindful of the weather outside and ensure that it does not have adverse effects on the occupants.
- The apt use of fans at the building in combination with open windows. Placement of a fan at the window ensures the flow of outdoor air inside and the filtration of indoor air out via other windows. Avoid placement of fans at a space in the facility that could cause the flow of contaminated air from one person to another.
- Adjust the HVAC systems to increase airflow inside the building.
- Move away from Demand Control Ventilation (DCV) that reduces air supply based on occupancy at the building.
- Enhance central air filtration without disrupting the design airflow. Ensure the air filters are of appropriate size and in good working condition. Additionally, perform inspection of filter housing and racks to ensure air flows through the filter rather than around it.
- Use HEPA filtration systems to enhance air cleaning.
- Use Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) to inactivate SARS-CoV-2 particles in the air especially when ventilation options are limited.
Effective Space Utilisation
As a facility head, you want to reduce your investments and utilize resources at your disposal to the maximum. Bear in mind, with the advent of the pandemic, the number of people present at the premises at a given time has decreased on average. This means there’s additional space available at the facility to utilize, and space not used is a resource wasted. So, how do you achieve effective space utilization?
In partnership with your FMS provider, you must combine the elements of design and functionality so that they work in perfect harmony. The idea is to ensure that your space utilization tactic fits well with the occupants of the building.
Space utilization metrics you need to know
- Daily peak utilization by space: The maximum number of people entering a space at any given point in time.
- Total square footage: The size of a facility in square footage which usually includes usable space.
- Average peak usage: Data that includes all the occupants of the building to calculate the highest space-use periods at a given point in time.
- Total visitor traffic: The number of people that enter and exit your facility daily.
- High traffic areas: The high-traffic refers to a space in the facility that gets the maximum number of visitors on average in a day.
- Point in time occupancy: The total time of occupancy divided by the time for which the space is available to occupants during the week.
- Density: The number of occupants multiplied by the average square footage allocated to each employee. This data is then measured against the overall occupancy of the space.
Why is effective space utilization crucial to enhancing occupant experience at the facility?
Effective space utilization creates a more comfortable and productive environment for the residents. In the wake of the pandemic, occupants need reassurance when it comes to residing at the premises. The occupants want to reside at a premise where they can navigate with ease and carry on their work without worrying about the implementation of safety measures in place. With effective space utilisation tactics, companies can boost productivity of the employees and enhance the overall experience of the occupant at the facility.
Automation
Although automation is something that, as a facility head, you’ll only be able to implement in phases, the earlier you make the shift, the better. Whether it be an employee or an occupant, automation of facility management services helps enhance the resident experience at the premises.
Maintenance is easier than ever.
With automation, you can manage all your technical services through a mobile application that tracks and monitors the assets on a digital platform. You can see the past and predicted performance of all your assets on a single screen. With the technology available at your disposal, your workforce can utilize its time more effectively than ever and make accurate decisions to improve theirs and the organization’s overall performance drastically.
Automation helps create an optimum residence environment.
Contrary to what you might think, automation to enhance the resident experience is not just limited to maintenance. With the aid of technology, organizations can improve the resident experience at the building by implementing the following concepts:
- Smart Building. Say you want to increase occupant health, wellness, and productivity at your facility. What do you do? You implement the smart building concept. You can control the air . quality, temperature, humidity, and lighting via a mobile application in a smart building. You’re in charge of providing the best possible resident conditions at the facility for your occupants.
- Smart Parking. Under the smart parking model, human innovation and technology combine to use as few resources as possible to achieve faster, easier and denser parking of vehicles when they are idle. In ground smart parking sensors are installed at parking spots to determine whether they are free or occupied. The whole process takes place with the help of real time data collection. This real time data is then transferred to a mobile app or website which notifies the user of the availability of the parking space. Features of smart parking include electric vehicle charging, determining whether the location of parking is on street, off street, covered or uncovered, and so on.
- App-based smart access control: The advent of digitisation means the process of identification is shifting away from face to face interaction and documentation to app-based technology that can recognise digital identity accurately. Employees can now use their smartphone or tablet to access doors, gates, networks, and more via an app. App-based smart access control eliminates the need for carrying access cards at all times and allows the usage of the go to mobile device to gain access. Additionally, the app-based smart access control model ensures access through a highly secure and reliable cloud platform that is backed by a service level agreement.
- App-based ticketing system: With an app-based ticketing system, you can handle all the issues from one interface thus saving time and ensuring business continuity. Once a ticket is raised on an app, the concerned team gets notified of the issue and acts on it immediately. App-based ticketing systems make internal collaboration easier thus ensuring no task gets delayed or missed out. Once the issue is resolved swiftly, you have the opportunity to analyse a detailed report of the ticket to fine tune the areas that are facing issues resulting in a strong facility management process.
Smart-dining at food court:
Smart dining helps you find seats in a congested food court with the help of an automated seat allocation system. When at the food court, you can register for seats with the smart-dining app. Once a seat is available, you will be notified of the same via the app. Additionally, other subsystems of smart dining help improve the individual’s dining process. The features that fall under the umbrella of smart dining include self-service ordering and payments, wait-list management software and incorporation of technology at the food court such as wifi and phone charging stations.
Certified Operations Are The Way To Go
To enhance the occupant experience at your facility, partner with an FM provider with its operations certified under an integrated management system. Two certifications, in particular, are occupant centric:
ISO 9001: Under the ISO 9001 certification, the FM provider must meet the standards of quality management that include a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, a process-based approach, and continual improvement. The ISO 9001 is a key certification that an FM provider must possess when enhancing the occupant experience.
ISO 45001: Under the umbrella of the OHSAS 18001 certification scheme, FM providers have to ensure that Occupational Health and Safety standards are met. To fulfill the OH&S standards, companies focus on risk control factors by identifying and analyzing the likelihood and severity of hazards in the premises.
Say Yes To An Fm Provider With Self-delivery Of Services
When you choose an FM provider that does not outsource its services, you get faster resolution of defects, quicker turnaround time of the assets, avoidance of logistical issues, and a leaner management structure. This, in turn, leads to optimized efficiency, reduced costs, and increased employee satisfaction at the workplace.
A satisfied occupant is at the core of your business's success. Partnering with a suitable FM provider helps you achieve that, and we at VAR only deliver the best. To know more about us.
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