Modern technology has revolutionized the way building service companies operate. One of the most important improvements facility managers and building service contractors can take advantage of is the ability to collect better data on their team’s performance. Digital transformation in building services operations management is giving companies the ability to not only improve the services they offer but also improve their bottom line.
Historically, building services and facility management team performance has been difficult to track. With distributed teams and limited ability to track work electronically, a lot of useful information was lost or tracked in less reliable manual logs and reports.
While many building service contractors and facility managers are still stuck in the old ways, there is so much to be gained in terms of tracking team performance by embracing modern technology. Keeping up with digital transformation is a surefire way for firms to get ahead by offering better services and becoming more efficient with their operations.
Modern technology enables these 7 crucial metrics for building services firms to track for better team performance:
1. Work Order Response Times
Before mobile and desktop applications were widely used, the time it took to find, report, and fix an issue in a facility was usually a rough estimate or not tracked at all. For crucial issues that are vital to a building’s health, it is important to make sure that response times are tracked so that the data can be used to improve future responses.
Facility management can record the average work order response times by each facility, date, severity, and even track which vendors respond faster if they are being used. This will enable them to refine their decision making for future responses to make sure the most efficient and reliable methods are used to quickly resolve crucial issues.
The same case can be made for building service contractor operations management to also track work order response times. Response times can be tracked using similar metrics such as facility/customer, date, severity, which employee took the call and more to ensure that the most efficient and effective response is being deployed to resolve work orders.
This metric gives companies the ability to review and refine their work order response process over time and can make a company faster, better, and deliver much higher customer satisfaction.
2. Planned vs Reactive Maintenance
For facility management in particular, it is important to understand how much of their performed maintenance is reacting to a failure or issue or planned in advance to prevent issues before they happen. This is tracked as a percentage of on-demand versus planned maintenance out of total maintenance. This metric can be based on total work orders, time or cost, but it is usually tracked as total cost for planned vs reactive maintenance as that is the metric most facilities managers are concerned with.
The typical goal for facility management is to have more planned maintenance and less reactive maintenance, meaning that they are taking such good care of their facility that reactive, on-demand issues are uncommon. If the percent of reactive maintenance reaches greater than 50%, then they know something is going wrong and it is time to make a change. They can set goals for teams to hit a certain percentage, encouraging them to take better care and have more ownership over their facility and responsibilities.
While it doesn’t require modern technology to track this metric, operations management software makes reporting on it and sharing it much easier. In an instant you should be able to pull up a report with charts and graphs for planned vs reactive maintenance and be able to view it by team or facility. This makes it easier for management to track the percentage as well as for team members to be aware of their performance.
3. Average Time Between Failures
For both facility managers and building service contractors, tracking the success of systems and equipment is key. The time between failures for entire systems or individual pieces of equipment is a valuable insight for tracking performance and efficiency as well as knowing when to replace the unit.
As the time interval between repairs decreases, it gives insight into the need for an overhaul, upgrade, or replacement of the entire system or unit. It also gives insight into what types of equipment or what brand of equipment functions better than others, which can be useful for future purchases or recommendations.
Operations management software allows for the time between failures to be easily tracked, searched for, and reported on, giving facility managers and building service contractors the data they need to make informed decisions on their systems and equipment.
4. Average Cost Per Repair Or Work Order
Understanding the average cost per work order helps both facility management and building service contractors get a grip on their overall spending in a given time period. This metric can be a bit tricky as one large work order can incur a major cost, or many small work orders can reflect a lower cost per work order.
However, it is still important to track as the number of work orders will always vary per given time period, so it is the best way to know your average cost. It can also be separated as average cost per work order for different services such as maintenance, landscaping, floor services, etc, to get a feel for the efficiency for each department within a facility or building service contractor organization.
Operations management software enables companies to quickly view and report on this metric and see costs not just as a total for a quarter, month, or any given time period, but also as per work order and repair. This can be used to identify whether or not teams are eating up costs per project and ensure overall efficiency.
5. Backlog of Deferred Work Orders And Maintenance
While it is great for building service contractors to have a solid pipeline of new projects and for facility management to be busy maintaining things, it is not good to let the backlog of deferred work orders and maintenance grow too large.
For building service contractors, having a large backlog means customers that are not being served quickly are at risk for switching to a different contractor. While for facility managers, it means incurred costs such as increased energy for faulty systems or risk of total failure for systems that are not properly maintained.
Modern operations management software helps companies sort their backlog of deferred work by whether they are critical or non-critical projects, and can ensure that the most critical projects are dealt with first.
6. Average Time for Routine Planned Maintenance
Scheduling routine planned maintenance should be easy but often routine tasks get bumped up against unplanned or on-demand critical tasks, causing the routine maintenance to get delayed and costing you long-term. An easy to track metric that can help with scheduling routine planned maintenance is to simply track the average time for each task and also for each technician.
Once you have this data at your fingertips you can more easily account for how long these tasks will take. It is going to help you more easily schedule planned maintenance based on technician availability and around on-demand reactive maintenance calls.
Modern operations management software makes it easy to track the time for each task, calculate the average for different planned maintenance tasks, and easily create reports so you can schedule accordingly.
7. Improved Overall Equipment Tracking
Your team is comprised not just of the workers you hire but also the equipment that they use. If the equipment fails, so does your team. It is essential to track the performance of your equipment to ensure that your team is enabled to succeed and satisfy your work orders and repairs quickly.
Tracking metrics such as average repair time for equipment after a failure, the percentage of overall availability (available time/failure time) and which pieces of equipment incur the greatest cost of maintenance will help your team better understand and utilize equipment. As your second most useful resource after your team members, knowing how your equipment is performing will empower you to make better decisions to help your team best utilize these resources.
Modern operations management software should help you track assets and equipment on a per unit and overall level to track many different metrics that give you valuable insight into how your equipment is performing.
Route Software Enables BSCs and Facility Managers to Easily Track Team Performance
Route was built to easily track crucial metrics for better building services and facility team management with a simple swipe. Throughout their working day, service technicians are able to update each task as they complete them with a quick swipe which automatically tracks task completion time.
These task completion times can be easily viewed and reported by giving you the ability to better understand how your technicians are doing on various tasks and helping you better schedule in the future.
In addition to task tracking, shift management, and scheduling, other tools within Route that enable better team performance are technician profiles with gamified rewards for completion of various tasks and health and fitness tracking for steps taken and calories burned. This encourages your team to not only do a great job but also stay in great shape which makes work more fun.
Better team performance tracking for a more efficient and empowered workforce is at your fingertips. Get started with Route Software to see how your team can benefit.