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How Smart Facility Management Outsourcing Can Propel Your Business Forward
By: Jonathan Peck, SVP of Operations
A welcoming, smooth-running facility can deliver dividends for your property. With pristine and sparkling spaces, clean air, and well-maintained, cost-efficient equipment and resources, you’re likely to attract and retain more tenants, delight staff and visitors, and boost revenue. However, achieving this is no easy feat, particularly for in-house facility teams that are often stretched thin and overloaded. That’s why more than 50% of organizations outsource their facilities management.
The challenge is how to ensure your organization gets the results you need from outsourcing—because, unfortunately, service providers don’t always deliver what property managers and facility executives expect. When this happens, the impact can be devastating to business, and rectifying ingrained problems once a provider is entrenched in your operations may consume more time, energy, and money than your organization can afford.
Success depends on the type of partner you choose, how you manage them, and whether your goals and cultures are aligned.
- Transactional vs. Strategic Partnerships
The right FM partner isn’t just another vendor; they’re a strategic ally. However, many relationships aren’t set up this way. Sometimes, facility managers end up adopting transactional models, outsourcing FM tasks based on cost and convenience. They hire providers who complete assigned tasks, then new tasks pop up and the cycle repeats. This approach may seem efficient at first, but in reality, it often results in reactive maintenance, service gaps, and a lack of alignment with your long-term property and business goals, not to mention more work for you in the long run.
A solution-based strategic relationship, on the other hand, transforms your FM provider from a task-doer into a proactive partner. They’re a true extension of your team, working toward your success. Instead of checking boxes, they take the time to understand your needs, operational challenges, and future plans. Instead of adding work to your plate, they reduce your burden and increase your peace of mind.
A strategic FM partner anticipates issues before they become expensive problems, leveraging data and technology to optimize performance. They tailor solutions to support your objectives, whether they’re sustainability targets, compliance, or enhancing tenant experience. Instead of short-term fixes, they focus on asset longevity, energy efficiency, and streamlined operations that reduce overall expenses.
Look for a solution-based integrated facilities management partner whose expertise spans multiple disciplines such as janitorial, operations and maintenance, workplace solutions, landscaping, and sustainability. This will enable you to not only reduce the number of potential providers you need to manage, but also gain efficiency, cost, and operational advantages.
- Culture of Excellence
For solutions-based partnerships to succeed, they have to be built on trust. Trust is what allows organizations to confidently rely on their FM partners to deliver promised results. It’s what turns a service provider into a true collaborator, driving outcomes that consistently exceed expectations.
How can you tell if an FM outsourcer will be a trusted partner? Look for one who embodies a culture of excellence. One who fosters an environment where teams work together, stay proactive, and never settle for “good enough.”
- Accountability – A reliable FM partner sets clear goals based on key performance indicators (KPIs) agreed-upon with you, and ensures those goals are communicated across their staff. Not only do they measure how their team and individual members are performing against KPIs on a continual basis, they make this information visible—whether through digital dashboards or updates at key facility touchpoints like employee check-in stations. Just as important, they take responsibility for the outcomes they deliver.
- Transparency – The right partner keeps you informed about what’s working, what needs improvement, and how they plan to address challenges. Find out how they would keep you abreast of exactly what they’re doing, what technologies they use to enhance communications, and whether all levels of their leadership team will be active in your engagement and available to your organization.
- Proactivity – A true partner is always looking ahead to elevate services and outcomes and never rests on their laurels. Rather than waiting for issues to arise, they bring recommendations to the table that enhance service quality and operational efficiency.
- Training and Retention
A culture of excellence is difficult to ensure if there is too much staff turnover with the FM provider. Unfortunately, the FM industry, which generally suffers from high turnover, is set to lose even more veteran workers. More HVAC, electrical, and plumbing technicians are set to retire than enter into the skilled trades (by 2025 53% of open HVAC technician jobs may be unfilled). As we all know, turnover places a heavy burden on existing employees.
Exacerbating this is that unsatisfied employees are four times more likely to leave their jobs than happy ones. And teams that aren’t passionate about their jobs or engaged with their companies experience 81% more absenteeism than those who are. Short-staffed teams are overstressed, less able to be responsive, and more likely to deliver poor-quality services.
All of these point to the need to understand the employee development and retention history and practices of potential facility services providers.
- Employee development: Outsourcers should demonstrate their ability and commitment to training and developing highly skilled employees who are empowered to do their best work and passionate about service excellence. Make sure they offer their employees formal and robust opportunities to grow skills, build knowledge, and become subject matter experts, as well as tailored personal development programs that help ensure employees can fulfill their own career goals without leaving their company.
- Mentorship: This practice is critical for learning and sharing knowledge, but often overlooked. Ask if the FM provider has mentor programs where the flow of information is two-way; not just from experienced veteran employees to new ones, but also from younger generations teaching more seasoned employees new approaches, technology, and ways of thinking and problem-solving.
- Labor relations: Providers should have a strong history in labor relations. After all, an engaged, productive workforce doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of informed and proactive measures that delight employees and customers and minimize the risk of labor problems.
- Technology Acumen
Advanced automation and data-driven technologies can help make facility services more proactive and preventative, while driving the efficiencies needed to contain and reduce costs. Keeping on top of these changes and knowing how to implement them is critical.
For instance, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is something all FM organizations should be utilizing. If implemented correctly, AI can have game-changing impacts on everything from predictive maintenance, resource allocation, and emergency response to maintenance workflows, tenant engagement, and more.
FM outsourcers focused on reducing costs could integrate AI with your energy management systems to optimize HVAC loads and performance based on real-time occupancy and weather patterns. Organizations could use preventative maintenance tools that leverage AI to analyze equipment performance and recommend procedures for extending lifecycles.
AI combined with skills assessment tools can also help determine each employee's relative strengths and weaknesses and suggest appropriate training. Self-service work order systems enhanced with AI can accelerate and improve FM team responses to tenant inquiries, keeping building occupants and visitors happy.
Look for providers who are at the forefront of technology. Who are proactive in recommending and providing you with the latest and greatest solutions. And who not only dedicate staff to researching and piloting the newest advances but also have the foresight and talent to develop their own technologies as needed to help clients ensure facility services excellence.
Choosing an FM outsourcing partner is one of the most important decisions an organization can make. The services they provide can help transform your facilities and accelerate your success. Make sure to carefully evaluate potential providers to ensure they can deliver solutions and results that exceed your expectations.
Jonathan Peck
Senior Vice President of Operations
Jonathan is an executive-level leader with more than 30 years of experience in the integrated facilities services space. Jonathan demonstrates an ability to deliver exceptional performance and results based on strong customer focus, interpersonal relationships, a collaborative style, and a willingness to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for all parties. Jonathan is a respected industry leader with proven expertise in executive leadership, customer relationships, strategy development, people development, labor relations, contract negotiations, P&L management, and client retention. Jonathan has a Bachelor of Arts degree from North Adams State College and continued learning certifications at Northeastern University and Harvard Business School.
