Articles
How to Manage a Facility in Times of Crisis
by Lisa Watson Facility Management ExpertThe Covid-19 outbreak has taught all of us important lessons of survival. While you are asleep today, any type of emergency can affect you and our facilities are not exempt from this too. At any given time, any kind of crisis can affect your facility. While a crisis can be anything and can vary in degree greatly, chances are that it will affect the normal functioning of the building that you manage as a facility manager. It can range from anything like a flash flood in your state to extreme weather conditions to local access being shut down temporarily due to any kind of disruption or a viral outbreak like the one that we are currently experiencing at this moment. As a facility manager, no matter what kind of emergency it is, you must always be prepared.
It is true that you can shut down your facility and limit the number of access to the facility which would result in less need of facility maintenance, however it is not possible to totally shut down a facility as some kind of maintenance work like regular security, fire and safety protocols and preventive routines will still be required. Emergency situations are also often synonymous to cost management strategies.
Let us there take a look at few ways in which as a facility manager, you can deal with this kind of situations:
- Adjust the communication channels: how well you are able to deal with emergencies depend on how well you are able to communicate with your team and others. You will need to regroup your staff and communicate with them your actions plan and also respond to emergency maintenance requests in your facility, some of which might be a direct result of some crisis. A lot depends on how well you communicate; therefore, you should not leave room for any broken communication channel or lack of other alternatives. Always remember that different kind of emergency situations result in different limitations in how you are able to communicate and in facility management, you need to be prepared for all of that. Establishing a command centre that can act as the main point of focus for your staff and customers is necessary. This command centre need not be a physical point within your facility. It needs to be a reference where anyone can turn to when they look for answers. It can be a facility management app as well that provides access to important building information under one roof, while you are on the go. You must prepare your team before the crisis hits and everyone needs to be aware of the main channels of communication.
- A repository of information: in this reference, you can use a dark site, which is generally premade, a non-listed website that has all the emergency information and can go live when any emergency occurs. This information ranges from anything like staff logistics to matters involving the national security or even information about the public health. All of this depends on how serious the crisis is. This site is created with the help of prewritten information and has templates that you can fill out with all the information if your people are not able to access your usual website. It is true that concepts of dark site are not discussed as an everyday facility management solution, yet these have been successfully used in the past to inform the public about situation similar to the Covid-19 outbreak.
- Be prepared: it is true that the best way to test your potential is during an emergency. But this does not entail that you cannot plan and make action plans with your team in advance. This will keep everyone ready and well prepared if and when the situation arrives. In order to be able to do this in the best possible way, you need to perform mock crisis tests. You can perform these as exercises throughout the year in order to replicate your action plan of how to respond to an emergency situation. Do not take these exercises lightly and your entire team must be informed of what is expected of them. At the end of these mock exercises, everyone in your team must be aware of the basic operational guidelines and what steps are to be followed when there is an emergency situation.
Well, regardless of the type of crisis that you are facing, it all depends on how well you have planned for it and what are the resources that you have at your disposal to deal with the crisis. A facility management app can be an important resource for you to help you in crisis management. It is important for you to keep in mind that no matter how big a challenge is, every crisis will come to an end and you will need to have your facility up and running when it is time to open the doors once again.
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About Lisa Watson 
Facility Management Expert
1 connections, 0 recommendations, 14 honor points.Joined APSense since, May 5th, 2020, From San Ramon, United States.
Created on May 13th 2020 13:50. Viewed 518 times.
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