The Changing of the Guard is Coming - Are you Future-Ready?

For years, the media, economists and labor experts have warned that our aging population – coupled with fewer young people entering the workforce – has the potential to cripple organizations across the globe. And although nearly every industry is likely to feel the pain of Baby Boomers entering retirement, facilities management is poised for significant labor shortages. According to the International Facilities Management Association, 40% of existing facilities managers are expected to retire by 20261 and it’s safe to say that those remaining aren’t too far behind – the average age of facilities management professionals is 49 years.2 Experts predict that by the end of the decade, the facilities management industry will have 150,000 open jobs.

Organizations increasingly turn to outsourcing as a solution to this problem – McKinsey & Company estimates that 50% of all facilities management is outsourced – with spending expected to reach a whopping $1.8 Billion this year.3 While outsourcing is a great option for companies seeking to quickly fill resource gaps, it’s ultimately a short-term solution that does not protect against the “institutional knowledge bleed” and scalability is lost as seasoned professionals exit the workforce. To be truly future-ready, organizations need to focus on building an infrastructure that can meet resource needs, preserve knowledge and ensure scalability across a “green” workforce.

For many businesses, developing this infrastructure starts with leveraging either a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) or an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solution. It’s important to point out that just having a CMMS/EAM solution in place might not be enough to achieve your objectives … you need to have the right software. CMMS/EAM solutions capable of mitigating the risks of an aging workforce include advanced features and capabilities that help balance resource deficits, maintain institutional knowledge, and ensure business continuity. Importantly, the right CMMS/EAM solution enables your organization to do more with less and make the most of the staff you do have – instead of feeling the pain of resource gaps.

Managing & mitigating resource deficits

There’s no getting around resource deficits these days – it’s inevitable. Not only is the average age of a facilities manager 49 years old2 , but the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 7% job growth between 2021 and 2031, a number that may not sound high but equates to approximately 32,000 open jobs each year.5 Unfortunately, younger workers can’t be counted on to fill gaps; in a recent survey of new college graduates, less than 1% reported planning a career in facilities management and less than half even knew the profession exists.

CMMS & EAM: What’s the difference?

CMMS

A component of EAM focusing on the automation of maintenance operations and strategies to improve asset performance and health. Typically used only by maintenance and operations teams, key capabilities of CMMS are dedicated to predictive, reactive, and preventative maintenance management.

EAM

Focuses on optimizing overall asset performance/use via asset lifecycle management. Includes a wide range of capabilities for facilities personnel and business leaders, like capital planning, asset procurement, workflow layouts, asset maintenance, compliance management, and asset risk management.

Top-tier CMMS/EAM solutions can help alleviate these challenges by streamlining processes and roles – ensuring that your organization is fully optimizing its resources. There are two notable ways a select group of software platforms accomplish this:

Automation

Under the skilled management of your facilities management staff, an advanced CMMS/EAM solution can automate several manual tasks that may seem small – like ordering parts and MRO inventory, scheduling, and aggregating information – but can add up when you’re tight on resources. By offloading tedious work onto a software platform, employees are available to work on higher value tasks that require time and focus. It’s also worth mentioning that when resources are thin, people tend to be overworked – and more prone to mistakes. Automating reduces – and can even eliminate – human error. On a macro level, automation functionalities within CMMS/EAM tools provide device and endpoint monitoring, alerting personnel when maintenance is required; ultimately this optimizes maintenance processes and reduces the time needed to keep the facility functioning in pristine condition.

Management

When optimized and well-implemented, CMMS/EAM solutions can serve as a single source of truth for facilities management; they can easily integrate with other platforms, like procurement software, for various maintenance, repair and overhaul needs. Importantly, CMMS/EAM solutions improve connectivity among internal and external field workforces across the enterprise, making personnel management – including things like scheduling and allocating tasks to the right people – easy to conduct from anywhere. By improving visibility into data and activities, less manual and person-to-person oversight is required to make sure operations run smoothly – ultimately improving efficiency and overall resource optimization.

Knowledge documentation and transfer

Even with a labor crisis looming, the majority of facility management employers don’t believe that they’re doing enough to adequately train their teams and future-proof knowledge transfer.5 In fact, 86% of facility managers admit to gaps between the skills their teams possess and what they actually need to succeed.5 With retirement on the horizon for the most seasoned folks in the industry, this knowledge bleed is likely to get worse unless organizations take necessary steps to invest in their people.

Implementing mentorship programs have proven successful in overcoming similar challenges in other professions, but – ultimately – they’re not enough. Companies need to prepare by storing institutional knowledge in centralized, easily accessible software platforms to ensure that historical information and data is available to future workers. Best-in-class CMMS/EAM solutions are deployed with this objective in mind, serving as a centralized database for everything from regulatory compliance to market knowledge to internal processes and proprietary information.

There are several ways that businesses can use a well-implemented CMMS/EAM solution to preserve knowledge for the next generation of workers, including:

Onboarding and training

Facility managers increasingly use their software tools for more than just asset management – the top tier platforms serve as repositories for documentation, repair manuals, and internal policies and procedures. This 360-degree view into day-to-day operations and management provides new employees with a wealth of knowledge that they can access at any time. Whether your organization has a formal onboarding process or not, pointing new workers toward your CMMS/EAM solution to access institutional knowledge fosters education and hands-on learning critical to long-term success.

Business Intelligence preservation

In addition to providing the current state data for your facility’s assets and IoT devices, advanced CMMS/EAM solutions store a wealth of historical business intelligence that can help newer employers better understand how assets have operated for years. For example, it’s not uncommon for an employee to possess knowledge of the quirky nuances of a piece of equipment – and unless they pass this along to multiple stakeholders, the information will eventually get lost as people leave the organization; maintaining information in a centralized database reduces the dependence on other people to pass along critical information.

Business continuity, visibility and planning

To truly be “future ready” – beyond establishing mechanisms for knowledge transfer and training – organizations must implement technology-driven, “dynamic” facilities management strategies and processes. The introduction of smart technology – like IoT, AI and automation – further complicates facility operations and increases the risks of siloing systems. Unfortunately, many businesses aren’t equipped for this digital transformation: 40% of firms implementing smart tech admit that they lack the dedicated, knowledgeable staff critical to operating it.

But what if you could augment technical skills and resource gaps with software that could drive digital transformation and business continuity efforts? The leading CMMS/EAM vendors provide this “umbrella” over all aspects of facilities operations and serve as a “single source of truth” that ensures business continuity and transparency as management changes hands. The right platform will have many ways to accomplish this via advanced capabilities, with business outcomes including:

Ongoing worker accountability and resource assessment

Requiring that all staff use the same platform to pull information and log activities makes it easier not only to ensure that operations run smoothly, but also to quickly identify when critical tasks are falling through the cracks. Managers can then assess if these issues are due to resource constraints, skills gaps or both, and pivot by improving training programs, increasing resources, and/or outsourcing work.

Optimize day-to-day operations

Today’s most innovative CMMS/EAM solutions empower organizations to shift from preventative and reactive maintenance models to a predictive one. In doing so, facilities managers can better identify data trends, patterns and maintenance schedules for improved resource planning that ensures enough workers are assigned to projects during “push” periods. Leveraging the predictive maintenance capabilities of a cutting-edge CMMS/EAM platform automates most day-to-day asset monitoring, requiring fewer people on the floor to observe assets.

Conclusion

If current trends continue – and we have no reason to expect they won’t – facilities management is in danger of losing most of its most knowledgeable professionals with no real succession plan. Rather than scramble just to get bodies in the room, organizations are best served by taking a step back and evaluating how they might be able to optimize the people they do have by implementing a best-in-class CMMS/EAM solution that enables documentation management and process automation. Reputable CMMS/EAM vendors will be able to assist with implementation and ongoing support to ensure your organization is leveraging the platform to achieve the best outcomes.

For true future readiness, businesses need to work smarter, not harder – and positioning a software platform at the center of operations is the first step to scaling to meet ongoing needs.