I’m always amazed how many facility managers don’t use Facility satisfaction surveys as an important information tool to make decisions, find areas for improvement, and even provide them with information and data that they can use with their senior management to support initiatives.
I think there are two main reasons for this problem, and Facility Managers are missing out on an important source of information. Here are the reasons, and why they don’t apply anymore:
Magazines are a great way to learn and to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in the Facility industry. Even if you can’t read every article, you are likely to find something you can use, and if you pass your magazine around your office, everyone will benefit.
Many have on-line content so you don’t necessarily need a subscription. Some are free to qualified FM professionals, some are association publications provided to members and others require a paid publications.
This is a fairly comprehensive list of magazines from around the world, directly from the ‘References’ section my new book, “Managing Facilities & Real Estate”. In my book, I also list associations and conferences.
The list is alphabetical and mostly includes magazines that deal with FM in general with a few that focus on specific facility types, such as hospital, retail or corporate.
Whether or not you’re in the specific industry or country where the magazines are from, check them out on-line and you may find useful information, ideas and solutions you can use.
If you know of others, even specialized magazines targeting suppliers and contractors in the industry (such as janitorial, plumbing, etc. ), please feel free to add them by adding a comment below with information about the magazine.
There’s a lot of evidence that the typical Key Performance Indicator (KPI) methods of trying to ensure you get performance from an outsourced or subcontracted service provider don’t work the way you think. In this Video (see below), Daniel Pink, author of “Drive : The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” presents research that tells you why.
I have personal experience on both sides of the fence on this issue and use KPI’s with extreme care – it’s better to put a measurement and management system in place to get the results you need, not a ‘set it and forget it’ KPI system where you simply measure success or failure after the fact and award a penalty or bonus accordingly.
My Facility Management book is now available.
It’s written for both new and experienced facility professionals, regardless of level, function or the type of facility managed, who want to leverage existing skills and advance their career with leading business practices, strategy, management and leadership in FM.
$39.95 US Soft Cover 7″x10″ 532 pages ISBN 978-0-9813374-1-8
$59.95 US Hard Cover 7″x10″ 532 pages ISBN 978-0-9813374-2-5
(Ships worldwide. Standard service up to 6 business days for NA and Europe, 12 days elsewhere. Email for other options. Corporate, Wholesale, Educator or Academic pricing also available.)
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Sparring Partners : Outsourcing May Not Equal Partnership
Building Operating Management
My latest article was the feature article and appeared on the May 2010 cover. I took a very hard look at what partnership is and isn’t as well as what needs to change in the industry.
