If you’re a senior level director or facility manager, you understand that the executive staffs of our companies often view our departments as a liability. Our departments don’t generate an income. In fact, our departments really only generate cost. This often causes the executive staff to see the facilities department as a burdensome drain on capital and operating funds, which can then lead to the idea that the department needs to be overseen by someone with a numbers background.
When finance or accounting staff are assigned to run a facility department, well, they have no concept of the technical side. And while those of us who’ve come through the ranks from the technical side mechanics, electricians, and techs have a better understanding of the workings of the plant, we often either don’t know enough about the financial aspects or need to improve our effectiveness in presenting what we do know about the financial aspect to executive staff.
So your executive staff might just decide someone with a numbers background can best run the facilities department and then hire or promote an accountant or finance type to straighten out and oversee the department via the books. Suddenly, you have someone with no technical background making decisions that can actually end up being much more costly. This only worsens the facility department’s appearance as the never-ending black hole. If this sounds like your company or something that could potentially happen at your company, then it’s time to change your executive staff’s perception. Plus, if you want to stay competitive in your trade, you need to learn and know both sides of this business the technical and the financial.
Prove Your Worth
Let’s say you’re a technician who has worked your way up from a first stage tech to the only one who’ll come in to deal with an emergency in the middle of the night. And you know just how much to tweak the rubber band in order to keep any number of units running, without generating a cost. You’ve proven the value of your knowledge, flexibility and work ethic. Think of how to prove your value more by showing how you help the department control costs. During an afterhours emergency, do you know how to get by without calling in a contractor who’ll charge on a discretionary scale of how important the piece of equipment is to the production line, and how important it is to get it back up and running during those afterhours? In what other ways do you contribute to cost control?
Work to Improve Your Department’s Image
When I arrived at my current place of employment, the general opinion of the facilities department was poor, and it took two years to change that perception. The eStaff had been consistently misled and money had been going out in droves with no one ensuring the work that had been paid for was even getting done. I spent many hours at work fixing and repairing and overseeing contractors, holding them to tasks.
At one point, we had just paid a $10,000 bill for some boiler repairs and I had a state inspection coming up the following month. When I saw the boiler, I called the contractor to see what he was going to do to take care of the boiler and when he was planning to do it. To my surprise, he said it had already been done. Well, good thing I had photos with dates to document that the opposite was indeed true. After hiring another contractor to do the work and getting the boiler back up to inspection readiness, we ended up recouping $12,000 in funds that had been paid without the work being done. This is just one example that leaps out of my memory but there are many more. For this reason, document everything.
By getting back to the basics and getting into the trenches and working hard, we were able to get the facilities department to a place where it should be: A valued partner in the bottom line. If you are not knowledgeable and passionate, you will not be credible. It is up to us to change our executive staffs’ perceptions not only of our departments but of us as facilities professionals. By honing our expertise and promoting our contributions, we can show that we are their partners in the quest for profits. If you can show that you can effectively control and even lessen your facility’s operating costs without sacrificing production schedules and profits, you prove yourself invaluable.
Be Able to Present Your Case
With the skilled labor work force dwindling and cost savings becoming the top goal at almost every company, more and more executive staff feel compelled to move away from a smart, preventative maintenance model, and move toward a “minimal maintenance” model that saves money in the short term but causes stress and worry that a catastrophic failure will send the budget into the abyss.
As facility professionals, we know that parts availability can turn equipment failure from hours into weeks. For reasons very obvious to you and me, critical equipment like chillers, cooling towers and the like should have the long lead items already sitting on the shelf in the storage room. However, when you go to your executive staff with requests for extra motors, breakers and compressors to sit on the shelf, you’ve got to have the knowledge and the conviction to explain why. If you are not knowledgeable you will lose credibility.
Let’s say that the lead time on a new motor for your chiller is four weeks, and your chiller runs the chilled water loop for your production floor. Your production floor is working one 8-hour shift a day, billing at a rate of $60,000 an hour or $480,000 a day. If you have a failed motor, and you can’t get it for four weeks, do the math. You’ve lost six days a week for a month, and that means the down time is going to cost your company $11,520,000. Doesn’t that make the cost of a $6,000 spare motor seem like a drop in the bucket? Ask management to look at it as an insurance policy.
We need to be well educated on both the technical and the fi nancial sides and able to present the case for preventive maintenance and preparedness. We need to be seen as a team player for the success of the company and not a drain on the company’s resources. Another way to do this is to help executive staff look past the funds needed to run PM schedules and see the cost savings as ROI. When considering repairs/replacement or installation of large equipment, ask these questions: Do we use a life-cycle-costing option for new equipment? Or do we get creative with all of the energy savings money that’s out there? The answer should be “yes” to both. With a high emphasis on “green” and energy savings, many states have energy money to assist you along your green path. Use it along with lifecycle costing. If you do your homework and can show executive staff that, in the long run, a significant amount of dollars can be saved by spending “X” amount today, you will soon have their attention. And over time you will gain some well-deserved praise for being part of the overall success of the company.
To be Your Best, Find What Motivates You
What makes you get up and go to work every day? Is it the technical side? Is it the ability to make your facility a better place for your building’s staff to spend their day? What motivates you? Find the aspects of your job you can be passionate about and give everything you’ve got. Sitting back and waiting for it to happen for you is a waste of your time. Plus, if you don’t show your executive staff that you’re the right person for the job, someone else will, and you will be walking out the door.
There are many ways to prove your worth, but you have to show that you have the company’s best interest in everything you do during the workday. Show that you are capable of taking the facilities through the next 20 years and that you are the best person for the job. If you continuously hone your technical knowledge and find your passion for the profession, it will show. And at the end of the day, you will know you’ve done a good job, and so will everyone else.
Gauge Your Performance, Promote Yourself With AFE
With AFE, we have the tools and the support to raise the awareness, understanding and appreciation of our profession! With all of the training, webinars and professional certifications CPE, CPMM and CPS why not be the best facilities professional you can be?
Don’t go to work and bury your head in the sand be a voice in your company! Engage others; help raise the bar for our industry and our profession. Assist the younger generation to look at our profession as a possible career path. If you can’t speak about it with passion, you are in the wrong job.
How do you gauge your performance? How do you know when your tasks are first rate? This is AFE’s strength! Go to your local chapter meetings. Participate and learn from your peers. Pick each others’ brains. There will be more technical knowledge in that room than in any place at your work location. We’re all in the same boat and deal with many of the same issues. You can’t expect to establish a true, first-rate facilities department without continuing education or engaging with your peers. Get involved with AFE and you will see positive results in your career! FEJ
