remaking the facilities organization · 2017-07-04 · going to put a new emphasis on customer...

Remaking the Facilities Organization

2016 Thought Leader Series

Thought Leader Series

What is Thought Leader Series?

Thought Leaders Series is dedicated to conduct discussions on the future of higher education and the impact of that future on educational facilities. The annual Thought Leaders symposium convenes representatives of colleges and universities from across the United States and Canada alongside association leaders, industry consultants, and education experts.


What is Thought Leader Series?We engage in an annual discussion and do a deep drive on an issue that impacts the future of higher education with particular attention to its built environment.”


Identify driving forces & trends Identify critical facilities issues Enhance institutional dialogue Connect goals of the facilities operations with educational

outcomes Positively impact the future state of educational facilities


So what does all that mean?

Centrally focused on one issue, with concentration and emphasis on the organization/industry (HE), with leaders inside and outside of Facilities from across the country.


The Thought Leaders team, works for 2 days and is singularly focused on the topic & creates a 30+ page document that we call the monograph.


Issues on your campus• Space Utilization and Management• Work Force Demographics• Rising Costs and Competition• Energy


The Thought Leader Series has talked about those issues in depth and if you visit the Thought Leaders website, there is excellent content (aka the Monograph) on a variety of topics.


Peter Drucker said, “The best way to change the future is to invent it.”

And that’s what one of the things Thought Leaders tries to do is help with change, start the conversation, show that as part of the Facilities leadership team, you are an imperative part of the conversation.


How does that help you? Credibility of the FM profession Credibility of the Facilities Professional Competence Leadership Skills Visibility with Institutional Leaders A “Seat” at the Decision Making Table


How do I use the Monograph Inform yourself Inform your peers Engage your staff Inform your leadership and engage in a campus discussion


Informing your self Understand the Driving Forces Know the Terms and Issues Evaluate your own position Evaluate the Status of Your Facilities Organization Begin Long Term Planning


Talk with Leadership Opportunity with The Boss Become A Valuable Resource Demonstrate An Understanding “Above Your Pay Grade” Provide an Executive Summary Summary Evaluation of Institutional Position Suggested Strategies


“As Soon As the Monograph Comes Out, I Mark It Up and Take It In to Share with My Boss”

Adm. Mike Johnson U. of Arkansas


Sponsorship Jacob’s began with the company's founding by Joseph J. Jacobs in 1947. Since then, they have gradually evolved from a one-man engineering consultant to the publicly traded Fortune 500 company. They area a professional services company, with a variety services from buildings, telecommunication, power & utilities and much more.

2016 Thought Leaders Summit


2016 Thought Leaders Summit

36 pages in 20 minutes


This immediately raises two questions: Why should the organization be remade? What should it look like at the end of its transformation?


Let’s accept the following conditions and move on There are challenges of rising costs declining state support soaring student debt sinking budgets


Less understood is another challenge: The culture in which many staff and administrators operate lacks focus.

Staff go about their jobs, with many performing their work well, but as a unit they are not striving together toward a single goal.


The result? Missed opportunities to create exceptional experiences for students, parents, faculty, and other customers of the institution. Missed opportunities to drive excellent delivery of service consistently and with disciplined execution.


An exceptional experience for higher education customers means that every time individuals step on campus or interact with a member of the staff, they are made to feel welcome, respected, treated with consideration, and leave believing they were heard and that their needs were given top priority. When customers have these sorts of experiences, their sense of appreciation and loyalty soars, thereby, becoming advocates for the institution— devoted alumni, dedicated community promoters, and enthusiastic donors.


To answer the second question, the remade facilities management organization should possess a culture dedicated to the mission of the institution and committed to creating exceptional customer experiences, driven to effectively deliver excellence consistently over time.


Here are two terms I’d like you take away

Customer Centric Customer Experience


Quick quiz… Not more than 30 seconds on the following two topics

Best Facilities Customer ExperienceWorst Facilities Customer Experience


Below campus, the transit authority was putting in a new light-rail line. They were digging a tunnel, and that meant they were disturbing things, and that brought up some rodents. One day, a professor walks into a classroom where he is about to do a lecture, and there’s a large dead rat on the floor. So he calls the facilities department. A guy shows up in a hazmat suit. He carefully puts hazard tape around the dead rat, and then he leaves. Just leaves it there.

– A 2016 APPA Thought Leaders symposium participant


The pressure on higher education to provide an exceptional experience is greater now than ever before. The competition between colleges and universities is too fierce for institutions to ignore how they treat students and their families. Similarly, the competition between academic programs for top-notch teachers and researchers is too keen for institutions to ignore how they treat faculty. Scrutiny from government agencies has never been more intense, and today’s students approach colleges and universities with a consumer mind-set.


Granted, The challenge to each institution depends on multiple factors: public versus private, large versus small, urban versus rural. A small private institution with a historic campus confronts issues quite different from those faced by a large land-grant university or urban community college. But while the specifics of the challenge are unique to each campus, overall trends hold across the industry.


“I cringe when I hear an organization say this year they’re going to put a new emphasis on customer service,” Robert Spector, author of The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: The Handbook for Becoming the “Nordstrom” of Your Industry,” told APPA. “That’s like being in a relationship and saying, ‘This year I’m going to put a new emphasis on loving my partner.’”


Customer service shouldn’t be the next new managementfad, the “flavor of the month,” Spector insisted. “Customer service is not a strategy. It’s a way of life,”


Is being customer centric in your Facilities organization a way of life?As part of creating the monograph we had participants identify the drivers behind customer service excellence—to pull back the curtain and see what goes on behind the scenes at an exceptional customer-centric organization.


Let’s look at a few areas….


Do you effectively communicate with your customers? How do you communicate with customers? Who is responsible for customer communications? How do you assess the effectiveness of your

communications?


Do you have rigid & inflexible policies? Do your employees understand the purpose of yourpolicies? How much do you empower your employees to interpret

your policies to solve customer problems?


Is there a lack of a customer centric culture? Are there processes in your organization that you know

need fixing? What is getting in the way of acting to improve those

processes?


Participants identified three main characteristics of excellent customer service organizations:1. The organization’s culture and leadership prioritize the customer experience.2. Policies and processes promote the customer experience.3. Employees demonstrate key traits behind customer service, such as empathy, compassion, initiative, & flexibility.


If you are the senior facilities officer, how often do you interact with staff at all levels of the organization?

Do members of the organization at all levels have a sense that the senior facilities officer is engaged and involved in the department and is dedicated to encouraging staff to provide a great customer experience?

Have you included customer centric traits in your repository of interview questions?


What are the keys to excellence Know your brand/ what it represents Know who customer are/ what they need Know your services Know how those services are actually delivered Know if/ how those services are great Know how to organize to achieve that end


The final substantive section of the report examines in detail how a customer-centric focus can be applied to the four major responsibilities of educational facilities organizations:1) general administration and management2) operations and maintenance3) energy and utilities4) facilities planning, design, and construction


Take aways:Does your Facilities organization have a customer centric attitude?Have you empowered employees?How is the alignment between the mission of the facilities organization and the mission of the institution, and improved stewardship of campus systems and resources?


See past Monographs at www.appa.org See the APPA Web Site in September for the 2016

Monograph on:

Re-Making the Facilities Organization See the Facilities Manager Magazine in Sept/Oct and

Nov/Dec issues for a full version of the monograph

http://www.appa.org/


Dan Gearan, New England College and ERAPPA liaison for Information & Research Committee to APPA


The Center for Facilities Research (CFaR) was established in 2002 by APPA to organize and consolidate research in educational facilities management. APPA promotes leadership in educational facilities for professionals seeking to build their careers, transform their institutions, and evaluate the value and recognition of facilities in education. APPA provides its members the opportunity to explore trends, issues, and best practices in educational facilities through research, publications, professional development, and credentialing.


The mission of CFaR is to advance the body of knowledge of facilities management through research, discovery, and innovation. To accomplish this mission, CFaR has been established by APPA to function through its Directors and project-specific Peer Review Panels. Adding to the information and body of knowledge related to educational facilities occurs at many levels. The development of information and knowledge may occur from simple inquiries between members to preparation for a presentation to specific, well-defined research projects.

http://www.appa.org/Research/CFaR/index.cfm#inline2


Potential Larger Scale Research Topics ( Sponsored)a. Customer feedback in the information age.b. Using facilities analytics of big data to deliver cutting edge customer service.c. Case studies for Facilities organizations that have changed their culture.d. Using a customer centric culture to provide a framework for driving innovative change in facilities management.e. Building the New Team – Hiring, Development, & Retention


Potential Research Topics (minor in scope)a. Principles of success to achieve excellent customer service.b. Common traits of Organizations that exemplify exceptional customer service.c. Best Practices from Different Industries that could be applied to Higher Education Facilities Mgmt.d. Characteristics of organizations that exemplify exceptional customer service.e. Employee empowerment: The key to building an organizational culture.f. Why transform your organization? Why now?g. Mobile technology solutions to FM challenges: Increasing productivity and customer services by empowering staff.h. Best practices for communications with your campus in the IoT age.i. Customer expectations and needs…… Boomers vs Millennials.j. Organizational structures and service delivery systems for the new age of Higher Education.


Potential Articles or Publications

a. The need for Innovative Changeb. Changing the Culture in the Facilities Organization.c. Establishing a Culture of Exceptional Customer Serviced. Customer service is not a strategy. It’s a way of Life!e. The Five traits of bad customer service.f. If your maintenance management system is on a Rolodex..

You……………be a facilities dinosaur!


Questions, feedback

remaking the facilities organization · 2017-07-04 · going to put a new emphasis on customer...

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