How to Improve Recognition of Facilities’ Contributions to Institutional Goals
Ann Forman Lippens, Managing Director, Research
Because so many Facilities activities are invisible to customers—work happening behind the walls, underground, on the roof—customers do not always see the connection between Facilities and institutional goals. While not always apparent to all customers and senior leaders, the work performed by Facilities staff is critical to higher education institutions.
Across the industry, Facilities units have seen their budgets suffer as a result of this disconnect. Historically, many senior facilities officers subscribed to the philosophy that “our work should be visible, but our staff should not.” Instead, Facilities units must actively demonstrate the positive impact of their work to the whole campus.
To help Facilities units transition from negative to neutral to positive perceptions, this study explores three imperatives. To support implementation, each imperative is accompanied by corresponding EAB resources and artifacts from other institutions.
1. Socialize campus stakeholders to the true cost and operations of Facilities
Facilities leaders must begin by first addressing negative perceptions about their unit and their work. The biggest driver of customer frustration is confusion around the true cost of Facilities work. While every institution strives to be transparent about costs, rates can still be opaque for customers, who often compare them to work done in their own home. By better explaining why costs are necessarily higher in higher education, Facilities can head off potential frustrations.
Operations and maintenance charges are the costs that customers most frequently encounter in their personal lives—and the reality is that these costs are larger in higher education. To clarify this difference in cost magnitude for customers, Facilities leaders must explain the nonnegotiable, necessary components of operations and maintenance.
2. Get more credit for the work Facilities is already doing
The second imperative is to get more credit for the work Facilities is already doing. Like an iceberg, so much of what Facilities owns is hidden below the waterline and invisible to customers.
| Understand what customers want through Facilities-focused satisfaction survey | The first opportunity is to understand what customers want through a Facilities-focused satisfaction survey. Some institutions see their post-work order survey as one way to track the pulse of customer feedback. |
| Proactively post most commonly requested information online in a user-friendly format | The next tactic is to more proactively share information online. Facilities can be a black box for customers: they send requests in, but often get nothing in response. Leaders can get more credit by proactively posting the most commonly requested information online. In particular, websites should be designed with a customer-centric focus and accessibility in mind. |
| Establish channels with the academy to highlight the impact of Facilities work | The next opportunity to get more credit for Facilities work is to establish channels with the academy to highlight Facilities’ impact. Most interactions with the academy are initiated by problems. To address this, Facilities must target outreach and communication with key roles in the academy to ensure its work is more visible. |
| Identify easy-win service opportunities to increase customer perceptions | The final way to get more credit for Facilities work is to identify easy-win service opportunities to improve customer perceptions. Many private sector practices are cost-prohibitive in a budget-constrained environment such as higher education. |
3. Use existing channels to highlight impact on strategic goals
The final imperative to increase stakeholder recognition of Facilities’ contributions is to use existing channels to explicitly highlight Facilities’ impact on strategic goals. Facilities staff continuously support strategic priorities, whether grounds crews who regularly replant flowers at campus entrances to create an appealing environment or technicians responding to a hot/cold call and ensuring a classroom is comfortable for students. The link between Facilities and strategic goals is real but not always clear for campus customers.
Facilities leaders can use the capital plan to illustrate the link between Facilities and strategic priorities. By better communicating the institution’s prioritization methodology, Facilities can signal that it understands broader strategic priorities. More importantly, Facilities leaders can get credit that their work reinforces those priorities. By better communicating the methodology it uses to prioritize capital projects (which often includes both condition-based and broader strategic considerations), Facilities can signal that it understands senior leaders’ priorities.
Supplemental resources
Cost and funding source cheat sheet
Detailed explanation of the major forces that drive higher education construction costs, complete with examples for each.
Cal Poly's open house schedule
Overview of Cal Poly’s Facilities fall summit and open house schedule; includes topics such as sustainability efforts, how to submit a work order, and, most importantly, Facilities costs.
Guide to building an impactful Facilities dashboard
Toolkit with more than 700 Facilities performance metrics, as well as guidance on filtering, selecting, and tracking the most essential ones.
University of Alaska Fairbanks' (UAF) maintenance road show presentation
Presentation explaining UAF’s staffing levels, budgets, how the shop rate is developed, and more; Facilities leaders regularly present it to leaders across campus.
Get the most out of Facilities customer satisfaction surveys
Ten lessons to support the creation, deployment, and analysis of customer satisfaction survey information.
University of Minnesota's service level agreements
Ten lessons to support the creation, deployment, and analysis of customer satisfaction survey information.
Guide to effective email communication
Tool to help standardize the format of information shared in various emails to reduce the burden of message creation.
Capital project planning toolkit
Five tools to educate project sponsors on the true costs and processes of capital projects.
University of the Fraser Valley's space and renovation planning process
Process map outlining key steps in evaluating, prioritizing, and approving capital projects.
University of British Columbia's (UBC) capital planning and prioritization presentation
Detailed overview of UBC’s process for evaluating potential capital projects, including a detailed explanation of its prioritization model.
University of Calgary's master plan for the faculty of nursing
Detailed overview of UBC’s process for evaluating potential capital projects, including a detailed explanation of its prioritization model.
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