The Vital Role of a Facilities Manager in a Modern Company

Any company that needs to maintain a building is going to need a facilities manager. The responsibilities of a facilities manager are broad and complicated but without someone to take that generalised overview, it can be almost impossible to keep things running smoothly.

In this article we’d like to explore how to become a facilities manager, why they remain so important in modern companies, and why we believe that facilities manager mentoring could transform the entire role.

What Does it Mean to be a Facilities Manager?

In practice, the role is exactly what it says on the tin: you manage a facility. To expand on that answer, a facilities manager is responsible for ensuring that a building is well run and maintained. This can include everything from hiring and managing janitorial staff to ensuring that environmental factors (such as temperature and humidity) are both comfortable and habitable for staff.

Essentially, the job is something of a catch-all role for those tasks that are important but don’t easily fit under any specific, predefined skill set. Of course, that’s not to say there’s no skill set required for being a facilities manager – quite the contrary in fact, as we’ll discuss in more detail later on.

Why Facilities Managers are Crucial to Running a Modern Company

In years gone by, companies often relied on staff to pick up the slack with duties that weren’t technically part of their job. This still happens, of course, but expectations have changed and as job roles have become increasingly specialised, many employees simply don’t have the time to dedicate towards these kinds of tasks.

While small companies can certainly get by without a dedicated employee to take on a facilities manager’s responsibilities, any company maintaining a building of twenty or more people will need one sooner or later. In fact, trying to continue without one just leads to the kinds of inefficiencies that can ultimately be even more expensive in the long run.

Developing Soft & Hard Skills

So what are the benefits of working as a facilities manager? And what can you do with the skills you’ll learn along the way?

Working as a facilities manager can be incredibly valuable for your CV because it demonstrates a variety of both soft and hard skills. Not only do facilities managers develop a lot of specific knowledge about the practical rules and regulations for a building but they also learn a lot about managing and working with people.

A good facilities manager is someone who:

• Can manage the needs of both employees and employers
• Can make practical decisions, often while working under limitations
• Is able to communicate across various departments
• Knows how to manage people
• Has the ability to effectively utilise the resources at their disposal.

Or, to put it simply, a good facilities manager is a highly skilled employee who would be well placed to transfer into any number of management/senior roles both in their company and at other companies.

All told, learning how to be a facilities manager can take a long time so it’s good that the skills you learn are highly transferable. That being said, changing fields is far from the only path to development. A good facilities manager can absolutely work their way up through a company or they can put their skills to use as a facilities manager mentor.

The Transformative Effect of Facilities Manager Mentoring

We’ve talked a lot about the value of a facilities manager with a broad skill set, allowing them to wear many hats within a company, but there’s one crucial floor with that system. In many respects, a facilities manager’s job can change from day to day, meaning that they have to be able to keep up with and regularly develop solutions to new and challenging problems.

This is one of those skills that can only really be learned on the job but that a good mentor could help you develop much faster. A good mentor knows the challenges of the job and can help coach their mentee through those challenges both before and after they take on the role.

Here at Career Navig8r, we believe that this is a role that could be absolutely transformed by mentoring. Instead of having to train and learn on the job, employees could learn the ins and outs of the role before they even reach their first interview.

If you have experience working as a facilities manager, then you have the potential to make a serious difference to someone else’s career. Find out more about how you could double your income streams through mentoring by signing up with Career Navig8r!