• Facility Manager

Facility Manager

Every organisation will need a facility manager of some sort keeping things ticking over on a daily basis.

But what does a facility manager do?  Well, it’s in the name. They manage or organise a facility, a place or organisation.  Pretty straight forward when you think about it!

Ever wondered who looks after the general housekeeping of an office? Well it’s the facilities department!  Good start... It’s not easy keeping things running smoothly, from the smallest office to the largest buildings it all takes a lot of work and is full of daily surprises.

Let’s say you work for the Glasgow Land Services like our friend David Halliday – we all know he has the passion, but it takes even more than that!  Glasgow Land Services are in charge of a huge chunk of the City Council’s work – primarily it is their job to keep things clean, looking good, and working efficiently.  This means they oversee all sorts of projects that are taking place across the city. As facility manager, you’d be keeping tabs on all sorts of important areas like dealing with lots of different suppliers...you would have to be on the ball!

Remember, it’s the world of business they are dealing with; things don’t always go as planned!  Make no presumptions that things are running on time, or even running at all!  The facility manager has the responsibility of checking out the vital things that everyone else forgets about.

Let’s take another example...when the heating breaks down on a winter’s morning, you need to know who to call!  I remember in school that just used to mean we’d all get sent home for the day woohoo! But it’s quite a different story when there is demand on your organisation to get things done, something as simple as a broken boiler can really mess things up!

So if you think about it, facility manager almost equals Superman/woman. No joke, I’d argue it’s really true!  Everyone wants to get on with their day, meet goals, make achievements when some blasted unexplainable force to be reckoned with (something like the central heating) decides to cause trouble...thankfully there is someone who’s calling it is to help, the office superhero – the facility manager!

Ok, I may not have convinced you with my superhero argument, but it certainly can be a very exciting job none the less.  Think events...because it’s not just big businesses and organisations like the City Council that need this sort of person around.  Every time a fancy event takes place, like a catwalk, or a concert, or even the Olympics...facility superhero’s are there standing by ready to save the day should anything go wrong.  I bet Pink was grateful for that when she had to be rushed to hospital after a faulty harness led her crashing into a barricade at a recent concert in Germany!