There are tasks that are not included in the core of a business, but are essential for it to continue. To understand what we are talking about, you first need to know what facilities are.
Facilities are activities linked to the company's internal demand, such as security and maintenance, carried out by third parties.
However, it is not enough to know what this term means and forget how to manage it correctly. Therefore, in this text, we are going to talk about this subject!
What are facilities?
We have already gone over the meaning of the term, but it is not yet possible to get a complete idea of what facilities are. This expression emerged in the United States during the 60s, being related to the business infrastructure.
So, you hire an outsourced company to perform structural functions, such as cleaning, sometimes it is used to optimizing the service of your employees so that they can concentrate on the essential tasks of your business.
Facilities are divided into two types:
- Hard service: services linked to the company's physical infrastructure, ensuring the building's security, and it must be maintained continuously. Some examples are electrical and hydraulic maintenance;
- Soft service: services that can be stopped as needed by the organization, such as fumigation.
In fact, there are several activities related to facilities, such as document flow, transport services, electrical and plumbing maintenance, landscaping, security and much more.
It is worth remembering that cleaning services, for instance, help to increase the productivity, besides, physical and mental health of employees. For this reason, the workplace must always be clean.
Maintenance services, on the other hand, are able to deal with failures related to the company's machines and equipment. So, when there is an electrical failure or a computer stops working, these facilities professionals can be called.
Answering the question “what are facilities” has gained a new face with technological advances. This is because many companies believe that facilities also cover technologies that are not directly related to main business, such as the Help Desk System.
What are the benefits of facilities?
In addition to understanding what facilities are, it is important to know why to adopt them, that is, what are their main advantages.
One of the biggest benefits is the cost reduction, as both resources and employees can be reallocated to essential company activities, while support activities are carried out by a specialized company.
In fact, with facilities, your company's focus becomes only the products or services offered. Therefore, you don't need to worry excessively about secondary tasks, so your time becomes optimized, focusing on the main activity.
We cannot forget that outsourced companies generally have highly qualified employees to perform these functions. Often they manage to offer a great job.
It is worth noticing that one of the department that benefits most from facilities is the support area, especially if the outsourced company offers a cloud service.
In this case, it is possible to have remote access to the attendance systems that are in the clouds. And not only it, there are other features, such as viewing calls in the Kanban model, help via chat and hours contract.
On the other hand, even though facilities have come to literally make your life easier, that does not mean that managing them should be left out. It is important that you know how to manage them, so, that the internal demand is properly met.
How to manage facilities?
It is essential that you be able to coordinate the facilities well, allowing them to perform their tasks in an aligned and optimized way. As it is a service in constant growth, there are even businesses that count as facilities manager.
Remember that good management will enable the benefits generated by this service, increasing employee productivity and saving fixed costs. Therefore, it is necessary that the facilities act in synergy.
In this case, a good alternative is to use technology, enabling the creation of systematized processes, as well as performance monitoring.
It is possible to use corporate mobile applications that allow the monitoring of tasks performed by the facilities, checking the level of efficiency. Doing this, you can ensure that the tasks are being carried out and even streamline them.
The application also allows checking the entry and exit of each outsourced employee. In fact, it is the platform itself that dispatches activities to the facilities; assisting you in communication.
In general, facilities applications are able to automate infrastructure-related processes, being accessed at any time by both supervisors and employees who must perform such functions.
Through it is possible to stay updated on the company's demands, as well as guiding daily activities.
There are several benefits of using applications for facilities management and one of them is greater productivity.
After all, with the monitoring of tasks, there is not so much idle time between activities, as communication becomes more efficient. In addition to promoting better performance, this also reduces costs.
Another benefit is the possibility to see where the facilities' employees are. That way, if you want to relocate a team to another location, this can be done easily, as well as scheduling this move to another time.
Furthermore, there is a rationalization of daily tasks. This is because, with the improvement in the organization of the routine, the high maintenance costs are reduced.
Consequently, the “rationalization + automation” combo helps in the proper administration of finances, as well as the time needed for the services to be performed.
The apps also make it possible to send faster responses to business demands through real-time access to data and information sharing.
In conclusion, investing in mobile applications for facilities management is a great strategy to ensure the functioning of activities on a daily basis.
Once you understand what facilities are, you have certainly realized how technology has become critical for organizations. So, we recommend that you read our article on digital transformation in companies to take a closer look at this issue!
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