A commercial building manager keeps office towers running for owners and tenants. Chillers, lifts, power and security must work every working hour, and the technical team on duty is judged by what tenants do not notice.
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Share your requirementsA commercial building manager runs one or more office towers for the owner. The building has a technical team for electrical, air-conditioning, plumbing, lifts and fire systems, a housekeeping and security group and a front-of-house team at reception and the parking. Tenants pay rent and maintenance charges and expect the building to work from the first hour of the day. The manager answers to the owner on cost and to tenants on service, with a monthly report to both. Staff are often supplied through vendors, so the manager leads people who are not on the books. The facility management hub covers what the wider sector shares.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
A warm floor or a stuck lift is remembered for weeks, while months of quiet work are not noticed.
One engineer and two technicians cover the chillers, the power and the fire panel, and a single absence puts the whole shift at risk.
The manager directs people employed by other firms, and pay, discipline and turnover sit elsewhere while the complaints come to him.
The chiller plant, the control system and the quirks of the lifts are learnt on the job, and a departing technician takes it all.
Cutting a technician saves money on paper and is paid for during the next summer's breakdowns.
A discourteous or poorly informed receptionist affects how tenants view the manager, though the role is treated as junior.
Problems noted at night are passed on by word, and the morning team repeats the search.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Performance Management; HR Analytics and Management Reporting. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for facility management, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a commercial building managers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
The least number of engineers and technicians for each shift and each critical system, with a plan for absences.
What this coversHideThe least number of engineers and technicians for each shift and each critical system, with a plan for absences. The workforce planning work can set it with the owner.
A short note on induction, attendance, conduct and replacement, signed by the vendor, so that the manager has standing in a dispute.
What this coversHideA short note on induction, attendance, conduct and replacement, signed by the vendor, so that the manager has standing in a dispute.
A simple book for chillers, power, lifts and fire, with what to check and what has gone wrong before, kept current by the engineers.
What this coversHideA simple book for chillers, power, lifts and fire, with what to check and what has gone wrong before, kept current by the engineers.
Grades that recognise skill on specific equipment and tie pay to it.
What this coversHideGrades that recognise skill on specific equipment and tie pay to it. See competency and talent management.
What to say to tenants, how to log requests and when to call the engineer, with training for the team.
What this coversHideWhat to say to tenants, how to log requests and when to call the engineer, with training for the team.
A short form at each change of shift listing open faults, tenant requests and risks, read by the next team.
What this coversHideA short form at each change of shift listing open faults, tenant requests and risks, read by the next team.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Equipment-based training for technicians and a service route for front-of-house staff.
Review of engineers and supervisors on response, preventive work and tenant feedback.
A monthly people summary for the owner covering cover, exits and vendor performance.
Clear spoken and written communication for engineers, reception and supervisors dealing with tenants.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in facility management, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Housekeeping, technician and security staff at client sites leave for reasons head office rarely hears. How to ask, what to look for and how to act on it.
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Plastics training dies when it waits for a free Saturday. Tie it to mould changes, purges and cold starts, use one-point lessons and a visible skill ladder, and protect it in peak months.
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Measures that show how reactor, console, lab and gantry staff are really doing, the ones that mislead or bury near misses, and a monthly sheet an in-charge can run in twenty minutes.
7 min readRead article
Six numbers, one page, same format each month. What they are, how to define them so they mean the same thing twice, and what each one tells you.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
List the critical systems, decide the least people able to run them safely and arrange a call-out path for emergencies. Do not let cost pressure cut below that line without the owner knowing the risk.
Write the expectations into the vendor agreement, induct each person yourself, give feedback to the vendor supervisor and keep a record of replacements. A vendor who sees you notice is more careful.
Ask each engineer to write notes on the systems he knows, run joint rounds for new technicians and keep fault histories. Pay for skill helps keep people long enough to pass it on.
Yes. Reception shapes how tenants see the building. Give the role clear duties, training and a path to higher posts, and the team will treat tenants more carefully than a posting seen as a stopgap.
Share a monthly summary of cover, absences, exits and vendor replacements, and relate it to tenant complaints. Facts help discussions on cost go further than opinions.
We would ask for your shift roster for the technical team, your vendor list with replacement counts and the last quarter's tenant complaints. A skill ladder with a handover book for engineers is a natural first job, and scope is written for your sign-off.
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