COVER STORY
• Improve service levels • Demonstrate value for money • Achieve non-detrimental cost reductions • Ascertain whether contracts should be extended or reprocured
• Determine if services should be outsourced or insourced
• Verify compliance • Improve sustainability
Sitemark has benchmarked more than 10,000 commercial buildings across the UK and, whilst this allows for like for like comparisons on similar commercial estates and between similar organisations, the key benefit of such a wide scope of sites is that it allows different sectors to learn from each other. So, for example, there may well be more advanced practices in the retail sector that could be adopted in healthcare, etc.
On average, Sitemark commercial customers have witnessed increased service effectiveness scores from 84.4% to 97.4%, by virtue of its ongoing benchmark reviews; similarly, in the retail sector, increases from 73.9% to 92.6% following the Sitemark procurement process and subsequent benchmarking support; and in the education sector, a rise from 75.6% to 95.1%. These figures evidence conclusively to customers the true benefits of benchmarking and the representative improvement opportunities that exist within their current operation.
General observations Organisational ‘silos’ are often seen within FM service delivery, where a failure to recognise a more holistic approach can result in a loss of overall operational efficiency. We expect this to drive more bundled and TFM service delivery contracts. Do you encourage interaction between departments, where ideas and innovations may be initiated? Are your cleaning staff trained to report security issues, for example? Are your security officers able to communicate maintenance issues to your M&E team? Do maintenance staff engage with their counterparts within the recycling and waste department?
The micro-management of FM costs is another key area where silo thinking reduces overall efficiency. The
traditional approach of measuring ‘wage to charge’ ratios is often no longer the best indication of best value. Simply measuring the number of hours you get misses the opportunity to understand how much value you get from each of those hours. By doubling the spend on equipment, training and supervision, an improvement in operative productivity has been seen to produce an overall net saving of over 20% of FM costs.
The recent metamorphosis of building usage has been dramatic. Not just a short-term transformation, it is the onset of a new ‘hybrid’ style of operation, demanding flexible and agile working. Consequently, more dynamic usage demands more dynamic services, generating inevitable ramifications in specifications and operational delivery. For example, an input-based cleaning specification may dictate the repetition of tasks, irrespective of need, such as, daily vacuuming of floors, weekly polishing of desks, monthly high-level dusting, etc.
However, not all areas may now be used on a daily basis and this revision in service delivery may determine that an output-based specification is better suited: ‘at the start of each day, this is what the area needs to look like’. Whilst, historically, it was the visual standard of cleaning that was important, it is now the hygiene levels that are of equal priority. Given that you can’t visually see the presence of bacteria or viruses, the cleaning of touch points needs to remain based on frequencies meaning that a hybrid approach is now typically best.
The future of FM benchmarking Whilst one-off benchmarking will identify the easy quick wins, it is the ongoing process of incremental improvements that truly represents ‘best practice’. Given the innovative nature of the FM sector, the increasing use of data driven service levels and the adoption of the latest robotic options in the market, each benchmark review identifies new opportunities to improve efficiency. Such processes are equally beneficial for end-users, to manage an in-house team or contracted services; or for service providers to demonstrate best practice delivery to their clients.
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TOMORROW’S FM | 29
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