RES 22 – Facilities Management – Lecture 7 – Facilities Management Service

Providers
Human Resource “Management of people and its purpose is to get the best
Management effort from the labour resource of an organization. This
includes getting and retaining the best people for the job,
and providing and maintaining an environment that will
assist people to give their best”
Management theorist are People are efficient machines
grouped in four main
 This approach is commonly called work study nowadays.
streams
 By examining the pattern of repetitive work, the time
taken for many tasks could be reduced by developing
more efficient systems of work (Ergonomic Theories).

 If managers were to be efficient, they need to

understand and learn these basic management
practices and functions.

 Today, facilities managers use these functional

descriptions in describing their managerial roles.

People work better in a structured environment

 Promotion of an efficient organization through:

 The coordination of the activities of the workforce.

 Clear lines of communication.

People need to take control of their own tasks

 Managers should decide, in collaboration with the

workforce of an organization, on the best approach for the
individual or team to achieve the best output

 Any decision making or policy formulation would then be

done through a system of communication between the
various levels of the organization and not by managers
alone.

 This would give the workers a feeling of control over their

task and their working environment.

 When workers are given freedom to control their own

 working conditions and tasks, efficiency increases.

People need basic comforts to perform efficiently

 The most basic level a person requires is their

physiological needs, such as hunger and thirst, be met.

 Furthermore, they require a safe environment, and then

the satisfaction of social needs such as friendship, social
interaction and a sense of belonging.

 Next is self-esteem, confidence, self-respect and

recognition.

 Lastly is self-actualisation or the realization of one’s full

potential.

 Human resource managers can use the hierarchy to assist

with the way in which their organisations provide for their
employees’ needs, how they motivate their staff, and
what kind of environment they provide.
Human Resource There are eleven basic Functions in the Human Resource
Management process:

1. Human Resource Planning

2. Recruitment

3. Selection

4. Orientation

5. Training

6. Development

7. Performance

8. Rewards

9. External Mobility

10. Employee Relations

11. Workplace Environment

Human Resource Planning  Human resource managers are responsible for the
 overall strategic planning for the employees.

 For the facilities manager, a key planning consideration

is assessing what work will be handled internally and
what ought to be outsourced.

 This impacts on the work of the human resource

manager, who needs to work closely with the facilities
manager when designing staffing projections.

 Outsourcing saves on depreciation of equipment and

labour overheads on the basis that the outside
contractor, by fully deploying their resources, has lower
unit cost.

 Another option that facilities manager should consider is

multitasking of existing employees if this will defer the
needs of new staff.

 Again, the facilities manager needs to work alongside the

human resource manager to discuss multitasking and
training issues when undertaking planning exercises.

 Most building services systems within the facilities

manager’s remit run throughout the premises, need to
be maintained to legislated standards, are fundamental
to the operation of the business, and require specialist
skills for maintenance.

 The human resource manager must be aware of the

likelihood of members of staff leaving the organization
and plan for the impact that this might have-if unusually
high numbers of staff in a particular area leave in a short
period of time, this is obviously of concern and needs to
be investigated.

 In addition to this, human resource planning requires an

analysis of future needs so that the organization is in a
strong position to react to any changes in market
conditions (such as shortages of skills in specific areas
i.e. IT or Engineering)
Recruitment  Many of the skills needed in the FM area are technical
and these are the areas in which there is a high demand
for staff due to a shortage of trained personnel.

 Filling these places is therefore a challenge and word-of-

mouth and headhunting are fairly commonly used
methods of recruitment in these areas.

 Many companies find that they need to use different

strategies depending on a range of factors which as
whether the job requires skills which can be found in-
house, whether there are people in other companies who
are mobile, what the current market conditions are for
recruiting certain skills, and what level of skill is
required.

 Part of the recruitment process also involves analysis of

the type of job and writing a job specification so that
potential candidates can be adequately screened.

 There are various ways in which companies can recruit,

with a popular mode being the use of internet
advertising companies.

 Recruitment strategies also vary depending on the size

of the company:
Larger companies may make regular recruitment rounds
to universities and select a certain number of candidates
each year, whereas smaller companies will generally
recruit when a staff member leaves or when there is an
increase workload due to company growth.

 As with most management recruitment, wen recruiting

facilities manager, human resource managers will
usually use a combination of approaches in order to
secure the best possible candidate.
Selection  Most companies will pre-screen candidates through an
application form.

 For example, in recruiting a facilities manager, a

requirement might be education to degree level in
 certain disciplines;
If candidates do not have this qualification then they
may be rejected at application level.

 Once candidates pass the pre-screening stage, referees

nominated by the candidates may be asked to provide
references.

 In this case, a selection panel may be looking for some

indication of the ability of the candidate to do a job, plus
some indication of their personal characteristics.

 Candidates who are short-listed at this level will usually

move onto the next stage of selection:
Telephone or tele-conference interviews or face-to-face
interviews.

 Some companies may ask for a presentation of work or

request to see previous evidence of the applicant’s work,
while other may use this in combination with various
tests as a means of selection.

 Interviews, either informal with key members of the

company, or formal with a panel of people, still appear to
be the most popular mode of selection and often provide
the interview panel with the greatest amount of
information on the candidate.

 The selection of the most suitable candidate will be

made using some combination of methods and will often
involve a rating of candidates from acceptable or
appointable to not acceptable, for whatever reasons.

 The most suitable candidate will then be offered the

employment or be asked to negotiate for the position.

 If applicable, the HR manager will form part of the

negotiation team.

 Acceptance of the candidates for the position may be

conditional, depending on satisfaction of some specified
requirements.
  It is the role of the HR manager to have an
understanding of the types of employment benefits that
may be acceptable to various candidates.

 The HR manager needs to be aware of the factors that

motivate people when accepting employment and also
be able to match these with the company’s ability to
offer any or all of the factors.

 Certain benefits are more important to different

individuals-pension scheme, company car, workplace
facilities (such as health and fitness club memberships)<
childcare, and so on, can be used by the HR manager as
enticement for a preferred candidate so that the
company get the best candidate for the job.
Orientation  Once a candidate has been selected, they will need to
undergo some form of initiation or orientation into the
company.

 For small companies this may consist of meeting the

team that the selected candidate will be working with,
and meeting any of the clients that the candidate will
have immediate communication with, finding out about
company processes and procedures, and basically
become familiar with the working environment and what
is offered in terms of space and technology.

 In larger organisations, a series of orientation events

may be used, such as weekend team-building exercises
for new graduates, a team dinner informal lunches or
centralized orientation days that provide information
about administrative and other procedures.

 For facilities staff, orientation should include a tour

around the facility to be managed, an exposition of the
in-house safety procedures and systems (on which the
inductee will sign-off for record purposes), instruction on
where manuals and key documentation are kept and
instruction in setting up the orientation events and
making sure that the new employee attends the most
appropriate events.
Training  Part of the facilities manager’s human resource role is to
be responsible for assessing and meeting the training
requirements of employees.

 Training requirements for engineers that can be

generically applied to facilities managers.

 There are six ways in which an engineer can keep up to

date with their profession and latest developments: -

o On-the-job training

o Formalised graduate education

o Professional registration

o Non-credit short courses and workshops

o Professional society activity

o Reading

 The HR manager must be able to look at each

employee’s requirements and decide the best option,
within budget constraints, for each individual and then
assess whether the training undertaken by the employee
is meeting the requirements of the company.
Development  Development is defined as activities designed to develop
the person’s longer-term potential in an organization,
including development for positions beyond the present
job.

 Once an employee is part of an organization one of the

roles of the human resource manager is to ensure that
they are adequately catered for in terms of professional
and personal development.

 This includes making sure the employee is satisfied with

his/her job.

 This can be done in a variety of ways including

interviews, informal feedback or questionnaires that
gather information about job satisfaction.
  To this end the human resource manager must be able
to identify, with the employee, a potential career
structure and then provide the advice required for the
person to be able to advance along the defined career
path.

 Advancing employees has a roll-on effect and the

organization must ensure that staff promotions do not
leave voids elsewhere.
Performance  In order for an employee to stay employed, there must
be some form of evaluation, whereby the employee and
the employer fully understand the requirements and
ambitions of the individual and are sure that the
employee is doing the work to the required standard and
beyond.

 Promotion is directly related to promotion and demotion.

 The most common way for promotion appears to be

based on merit that is assessed through an annual
review.

 The review may recognize the employee’s contribution

to the company and make adjustments to the salary of
the individual or may redeploy the individual to other
work of a higher status, or may provide the individual
with more responsibility.

 Promotion needs to be seen to be fair and equitable for

all employees and, therefore part of the human resource
manager’s role is to assist with devising promotion
criteria that are applicable to the employees.
Rewards  At the most basic level reward for employment is in the
form of a salary.

 When an employee has exceeded their requirements or

produce extra benefits to the company then they may be
rewarded for their achievements.

 The human resource manager has to be able to provide

incentives for employees to achieve and ensure that
 rewards are fairly disturbed.

 Rewards can vary from extra salary payments through to

bonus payments through to internal recognition using
certificates, prizes and promotion or additional bonuses
such as company car, hotel vouchers, and similar
incentives.
External Mobility  One of the areas that concern HR manager is the
mobility of the workforce in a company.

 These include issues such as dismissal redundancy,

transfer, retirement and resignation.

 Where an employee fails to perform adequately or has

acted in a capacity that contravenes their employment
contract, they may be warned to improve their
performance of face dismissal.

 Subsequent warnings and failure to conform may result

in dismissal.

 The HR manager needs to be careful to act fairly and

guide the process in these cases, since their failure could
lead to unfair dismissal claims in the court.

 Where a company faces loss of profits and is struggling

to maintain their position in the marketplace, or is
undergoing a process of restructuring, or the company
may look to downsize the workforce by natural attrition
(i.e. people leaving and not by being replaced).

 Occasionally employees are transferred from one part of

employment or location to another.

 There are many reasons why an employee may be

transferred, such promotion, work more common in
another location (as is often the case with construction
projects), or the person’s skills are required elsewhere.

 For the HR manager, transfers can cause problems due

to the employee being unwilling to move, usually
because of external factors such as family and mortgage
 commitments.

 Retirement of individuals has to be managed in order for

the HR manager to plan adequately for a replacement
staff.

 Finally, the HR manager must keep track of the

resignation situation of staff.

 In particular, they need to find out why a person is

leaving the organization.

 One way of doing this is through an exit interview, where

the HR and other managers discuss with the person why
they are leaving and, if applicable, use the information
gathered to improve the current status of employees.
Employee Relations  Employer/ employee relations are one of the
cornerstones of human resource management.

 Contracts need to be managed and negotiated;

Conditions of employment need to be regularly updated
as individuals are transferred or promoted.

 In order to do this a thorough understanding of

employment law is required.

 The human resource manager would usually work in

conjunction with an employment lawyer to draft and
refine contracts.

 Finally, the human resource manager may have to

negotiate with trade unions for conditions of
employment and salary increases.

 Trade unions may be collectively representing the

employees or may be called in to assist with the
mediation of grievances that an employee may bring
against the company.
Environment  Human resource managers need to be aware of the
environment in which employees work.

 This has the potential to impact on the efficiency of an

organization and to affect profits.
 Concern for the work environment is the area where the
role of the facilities and human resource managers
become interwoven.

 The work environment is of concern to the human

resource manager since there is a perceived link
between productivity and the workplace.

 This assumed relationship becomes increasingly

important as in many service sector industries salaries
and wages constitute some 80% of the cost of doing
business.

 If the workplace is restricting productivity, then this

translate into significant inefficiency.

 Inefficient premises lead to inefficient organizational

performance.

 It is the role of the facilities manager, in conjunction with

the HR manager to ascertain whether the employees’ job
satisfaction and productivity are being affected by
external factors to do with the environment.

 One tool that is available for relating workplace factors

with productivity is the Dillon and Visher (1987) User
Satisfaction Survey Instrument.

 This survey links user satisfaction and (self-assessed)

productivity to the environmental factors of thermal
comfort, acoustic privacy and other issues.

 This survey was expanded by Crosby (1996) to include

building health elements.

 The questions are analysed in groups, producing a score

in 11 areas:

1. Temperature comfort

2. Ventilation comfort

3. Spatial comfort

4. Privacy
5. Lighting

6. External noise

7. Neuro-specific health symptoms

8. Allergic reaction symptoms

9. Overall satisfaction with the workplace

10. Ability to do one’s work (self-assessed)