From Hours To Output: How Facility Management Monitors Worker's Effectiveness?

Importance of worker effectiveness:
A facility’s success depends on the quality of service it delivers to its clients and the quality of experience it delivers to the people who visit the facility. This involves running the machinery, operating the equipment, cleaning all spaces, ensuring accessibility, comfort, and safety, and several other functions. The effectiveness of the workforce plays an essential role in this endeavour.

Current scenario:
The Facilities Management industry has always been manpower intensive and has relied on people’s willingness to join this industry. Now, IFM companies are moving to the ‘Outcome-Based’ IFM service model because of its direct alignment with the client’s business goals and the ease of process control.

In this approach, IFMs and clients sign a Service Level Agreement which outlines the services and the performance levels. Executing a SLA requires IFMs to focus on increasing the technology to human ratio. This reduces the dependency on human capital and standardises operations. Incorporating technology into daily operations also enables us to measure critical service delivery parameters like business downtime, customer complaints, attrition, incidents, and other aspects that cast a direct impact on a client’s business outcome.

Obstacles for worker effective:
The biggest challenge the IFM industry grapples with is attracting the right talent, upskilling them, and retaining them. Higher retention of employees is key to managing an outcome based model. Previously, being employed in services like housekeeping and security was looked down upon, and was considered a last resort job. By leveraging technologies and growing business demand for IFMs, providers changed the scenario for the better by offering increased salaries and improved working conditions. Thereby, making impactful strides in improving worker effectiveness.

Overcoming obstacles: 
At PSIPL, we focus on employee upskilling by having customised, role-focused training programs. Facility Manager Development Program (FMDP), Workplace Coach (WPC), Operations Manager Development Program (OMDP) are a few of the programs we have been running successfully for more than two years. 
FMDP is a program for our site leads, where they go through a rigorous curriculum and learn all aspects of facility management.  WPC, on the other hand, is an upskilling program for my front line employees which coaches them on increasing the value they produce at the workplace. We offer a defined career growth path to front line employees. It has produced numerous success stories wherein employees have leveled up to taking higher responsibilities, with some going on to take up site lead positions as well.

We have a Rewards and Recognition program, where we have monthly townhalls to appreciate the good work done by the individuals and teams. This helps in motivating the employees to take ownership of their output and excel at it. 
One of our initiatives called ‘Kaushal Jagriti’ celebrates innovative ideas and proactive initiatives implemented or suggested by employees. Each year we receive more than 100 entries of initiatives implemented by the site teams; so far, these ideas have been related to improving cost efficiency, aligning to the clients ESG goals, and improving safety protocols. This drive is a true example of empowering people to be their best.

Managing process and people: 
We couple these programs with the complimenting performance-measuring technology to track the service delivery parameters and take corrective action. As a result, we have enhanced our output, employee performance, and client satisfaction. This has led us to build a retention rate of 95%, which is quite high in the IFM industry.

At PSIPL, we use ‘Facility Quality Index’ to measure the effectiveness of the contract. It is a direct indicator of the health of the contract and also provides direction to the delivery team’s actions. We have implemented FQI for more than 85% of our contracts, which has helped us in carving out the action plan for our on-site teams. We also have a digital service delivery platform to monitor the service delivery at sites e.g. checklists, asset tracking, ticket resolution.

Another service we have used for managing worker effectiveness in contracts involving large spaces is Robots as a Service (RAAS), wherein robots perform manual tasks like cleaning and monitoring. This has streamlined operations, increased uptime, improved efficiency, reduced dependency on manual labour, and freed up employees’ time to focus on creative tasks.

Driving success: 
Through a combination of technology, employee engagement, operational efficiency, and strategic planning, we have been able to deliver quality output consistently, pleasing all stakeholders. As a result, our Net Promoter Score, which is like a client satisfaction score which helps identify strengths and areas of improvement, have also been increasing every year. And, this has translated to a favourable client retention rate as well.

Going forward

Worker effectiveness is not solely the employee’s responsibility, there are several external factors involved. As an organisation, we strive to empower our people to continually improve and become better versions of themselves. 
 

(The article above has been written exclusively for BW People publication by Tapan Gupta, CHRO, Property Solutions India (Pvt) (Ltd), PSIPL )