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Avoid Rush Jobs By Building Bridges to Other Departments
September 28, 2009
In many organizations, facility executives are the last to know about important changes that will require changes to the physical environment. In some cases, those changes involve equipment, as when new servers for the data center show up with no warning on the loading dock. In other cases, the changes involve people – for example, the addition of new staff whose workstations will have to be set up. The result is a rush job – and a lot of hassle for the facility department. Grumbling about the problem after the fact won’t help prevent it from happening again. A better route is to let the other department know what’s in it for them to notify the facility department of impending changes. Advance word might enable servers to be up sooner or might spare the other department the stress of a last-minute rush to get workstations set up. An even better strategy is to develop a good relationship with other departments so that you can get the information you need in advance. Ideally, the relationship will evolve to include regular two-way communication about matters of importance to the other department. But in the beginning, it may be a matter of periodically checking in with the other departments to find out what they have coming.