Owning an apartment building is a difficult task. Unless you live there 24 hours a day, you will require a manager to run things when you are not around. This employee is known as a facilities manager, and here is what buy-to-lease landlords need to know about how they operate.
Landlords have a duty to provide their tenants with a safe, structurally sound building with access to hot and cold running water. When you are out of town, off on holiday, or even just asleep, problems are still happening. You could spend all day fixing the plumbing only for the elevators to break down in the afternoon. It is your job to fix these things, but you can hire in some help to make your life far easier.
But it’s not just landlords who hold the monopoly on these types of managers. Facilities can mean anything workplace related.
What does a Facilities Manager Do?
Facilities management covers managing buildings on behalf of your employer between specified hours. Normally this term refers to those in the manufacturing, industry, and service sectors. Hotels might use a facilities manager for the midnight shift. Recreation centres could run with an overall facilities manager, and different departments in charge of smaller sectors. You might find facilities managers in garages, staying overnight as security to patrol the perimeter.
2 methods of facilities management
Whatever you use them for, there are two types service sector facilities manager jobs, the Hard FM or the Soft FM. Hard FM deals with the bones of a building, the plumbing, heat, electricity, and sanitation systems. Soft FM is the other side of building maintenance. This deals with visitors, trades people, food deliveries, and security measures. You could also specialise in virtual facility management since tech is the future of business. Your new
The Different Types of Facilities Managers
There are facilities managers in more than one industry. Here are examples of the types of business which might need to employ someone to fulfil this role. The following sectors have facilities managers on hand for extra support:
- Maintenance and cleaning companies provide out of hours services where they temporarily manage others upon your property.
- The catering industry requires facilities managers to be in the restaurant completing the daily paperwork or forgotten tasks while the day managers or owners are sleeping.
- Health and safety law often requires certain machinery or products should be handled with care. Factories producing toxic, hazardous, or detrimental products must not leave those items unattended. Facilities managers could manage laboratories or research facilities.
- You may work in security, providing safety for the client each night.
- Procurement departments, contract managers, communications and IT services have facilities managers. So to do recreation centres, breweries, and football grounds.
Whichever type of facilities manager your sector of industry needs, the pathways into the role as a rewarding career remain similar. There are two main ways you can get into the industry. One is experienced based and the other involves going to college or university.
How do you find a job as a Facilities Manager?
Fortunately for all of us, finding a job in facilities management is far simpler than our previous article on finding a job on an oilfield is. At least the experience is simpler to get. How do you find a job as a facilities manager? First you need the skills and knowledge, then you need the experience on the job, preferably in the same sector that your potential employers work in.
Qualifications you may need include:
- A general business degree will do.
- Specialisations will help hone your skills, choose courses related to your sector.
- If you choose online or business facilities management, a basic computing degree with specialist core subjects will also work.
- You can also take modular courses such as the Level 3 in facilities management.
- A top tip is to try and get a part time job in your chosen industry while you study. This will give you a head start on the experience side when you graduate.
Why Become a Facilities Manager?
Offline facilities management remains one of the few jobs where it’s possible to start at the bottom and work your way up. You could enter a hotel on the lowest level, gain a qualification through your workplace and learn about food hygiene and safe preparation. You could run the kitchen, then manage the kitchen, then manage the building. You could become a night time facilities manager over the whole complex, where you are in charge of the smooth running of the whole holiday complex out of hours.
Why become a facilities manager? Accessibility. It is a realistic, achievable goal.
