Facility maintenance and building upgrade are terms that corporate bodies use to refer to the routine of checking and fixing, cleaning and tidying, removing and replacing, disposing and refilling, and acquiring new office items, that will achieve uninterrupted office activities

Firms and companies understand that facility maintenance and building upgrade area necessary measure to ensure that office equipment and machineries used to execute work objectives are up and working, and updated.

Facility Maintenance

While the essence of an office is to have all assumed work duties and assigned roles done conveniently within a workspace, the procedure of checking, replacing, renewing and managing office equipment and work tools is referred to as facility maintenance.
It is a conscious effort to scrutinise the working abilities and efficiencies of working tools equipment used to facilitate and operate office activities.
While the Heating Ventilator and Air Conditioning(HVAC) may easily be sited as a common office facility, the water dispenser where every employee in the office visits to quench thirst and be rehydrated, may also be identified as an office facility
 

Gadgets and tools that may be identified as an office facility/equipment? 

A view of a corporate office

    1.  Computer systems

    2. Printer

    3. Photocopier

    4. Inverter

    5. Security alarm system

    6. Heating Ventilator and Air Conditioning (HVAC)

    7. Projector

    8. Fans

    9. Window blinds

    10. Office tables and chairs

    11. Kitchen microwave

    12. Book shelves

    13. Television

    14. Air freshener

    15. Lights

    16. Kitchenette

    17. Hand sanitizer

    18. Shredder

    19. Fire extinguisher

    20. Generator

Maintenance staff/personnel

Facility maintenance personnel consulting over notes Photo Source: Pressmaster/Shutterstock.com
Maintenance is not in the availability of the facility or the work equipment. No. Rather, it is in the awareness to manage the facility or work equipment, to make it to good use.
Plain and simple, maintenance is in the necessary intelligence needed to be applied to make a facility or office equipment much more durable and longer to utilize.
Well, that intelligence can only be supplied by the human factor (regardless of the advent of robots or AIs).
If you don’t want that, then want this- the choice of people you hire as an employer, to manage and protect your expensive office gadgets and equipment, is dependent on the amount of human resources (intelligence or material) they can utilize.
In other words;
Facility management = human resources
Imagine a company without a human resource department. Wow! How negligent could that company be not to hire even a single human resource person that will manage the entire staff and ensure they execute their work deliverables.
Gotcha! Did I? While human resource persons are hired to manage the entire staff of a company and ensure they execute their office tasks, facility maintenance personnel are hired for their skills to manage the facility and office equipment, to make sure they are in good working conditions.
If you think facility maintenance personnel are overrated, then let me tell you straight to your face that the thought of doing without them is a mistake- a costly one at that.
And the answer is not far-fetched. The average employee is too preoccupied, mind you, I said “too preoccupied”, with the already busy work schedule of the day, than to make a conscious check on even his own working tools.
That is why, I’d just press the “skip” or “update later” option whenever the windows update notification
up on my screen- hey, you do that too.
A good number of technical issues that occur in the office, or even on our gadgets are simply due to casual negligence- we simply don’t want to look at it- and that’s why facility maintenance personnel cannot be done away with.
People like facility maintenance personnel are conscious and intentional about the working state of every office facility and equipment, so that if a bulb just flickers or blinks, they raise an eyebrow and wonder whatever could be wrong.
Facility maintenance personnel own an abundant technical knowledge about the inner workings of all office facilities and work equipment. And the priority is to keep them safe.
Facility maintenance personnel scrutinise and examine technical issues connected with office facilities and equipment and put in efforts to resolve them. It is also within their jobs to outsource professional technicians who have the authority to detect the problem of an office appliance and fix it.
Facility maintenance isn’t complete without the presence of a facility maintenance staff because regularly, the maintenance team set up office sessions with other employees of the company, and gives them guidelines and tips on how to operate and protect office facilities and equipment.
Extensively, they also advise the office management on certain office gadgets that should be procured in order to ease workflow, and yet, not undermine it.
Additionally, the facility maintenance staff intentionally create relationships with other employees in the office by checking on the individual tools of each employee, to ascertain it’s in a good working condition.
By doing that, employees confidently open up to them about technical issues that they identify and encounter while working.
There and then, the facility maintenance staff can envisage the issue, invite the services of a professional to fix the issue, and make recommendations to employees on what to do and what not, in order not to experience such a problem again.
Facility Maintenance Inventory and Records
A maintenance inventory and records-keeping is as important as facility maintenance itself.
In fact, it is through the inventory and records that the facility maintenance personnel will know when the necessary servicing and repair(s) of an office machinery is due.
The inventory and records-keeping document contains the nature of problems a particular office gadget was faced with at a particular time, and details what was done to fix it.
It is also in this document that the facility personnel staff inputs the materials that were bought to fix it. Ditto, the professional hired to repair the faulty office appliance.
Significantly, it helps the facility personnel staff to know and acquaint the office management with likely problems that may spring up in an office appliance per time, due to constant usage.
Also, the facility maintenance inventory helps to acquaint the accounting and audit department on monies spent to manage an office appliance.
Facility Maintenance Practice and Culture
Facility maintenance practice and culture is simply the conscious efforts put in by every employee at a workplace to maintain, manage and safeguard every office facility and equipment.
Every office gadget available in the office has a management and safety policy- which could be different from others.
And, the knowledge needed to ensure the maintenance and safety of these office facilities and equilibrium, isn’t anything a Tom, Harry or Dick can possess by the snap of the fingers.
Office facility maintenance entails procedures and guidelines needed to be adopted in order to keep the facilities and equipment in a good shape and safe from hazards.
These procedures include;
  1. Every employee should switch off every office appliance immediately after use, and
    closing hours.
  2. Employees should be advised to consult with maintenance/ technical staff on how to
    use an office appliance if he has no knowledge about it.
  3. Employees should make complaints about perceived malfunctions and glitches
    happening to an office appliance.
  4. Employees should desist from “managing ” faulty office appliances and facilities to
    avoid unforeseen office hazards.
  5. Maintenance staff should endeavor to orientate and educate other employees on
    office appliance safety rules.
  6. Maintenance staff should create office sessions regularly, where they’d update other
    employees on news approaches on how to conduct themselves while operating an
    office appliance.
  7. Maintenance staff should frequently inform the management on tools and
    equipment to be purchased that will either improve or aid other existing office
    appliances.
  8. Maintenance staff should always recommend the services of competent and
    knowledgeable professionals to examine and fix faulty office appliances.
  9. The management of the company should always put in good faith in the abilities of
    the facility maintenance staff in order to establish a trustworthy relationship and
    cause the latter to be forthcoming with them.
  10. The company management should always release the demanded budget requested
    on the recommendation of the maintenance team to fix and manage office appliances. 
Building Upgrade

Occasionally, we witness corporate firms decide to change the structure of their office buildings to accommodate more features for conveniency and safety.
The glass doors you normally step into before you enter the banking hall is a necessary adjustment banks had to embrace in order to make sure that no one enters the bank hall with a weapon.
There are other forms of building upgrades that companies adopt to satisfy a particular need or improve a working environment; 

  1. Emergency exits

  2. Elevators

  3. Recreation/relaxation area

  4. Kitchenette

  5. Electrical wall wiring

  6. Ground tiling

  7. Wall wallpapers

  8. Motivational wall frames

  9. Security entrance doors

  10. Alarm systems etc.

Building upgrades are not only an improvement outlook of an office space, but they essentially facilitate office work and duties. Building upgrades:
1. Provide a sense of security in the minds of employees and workers in the office.

  1. Creates a serene working space and environment for employees to work.

  2. Provides and facilitates the safety of employees at the office.

  3. Creates valued convenience for the employees at work, and allows them to have a

    sense of positivity towards completing their work deliverables.

  4. Creates and establishes a healthy work relationship and ethics among workers at the

    office.

  5. Achieves the goals of a company very easily

  6. Creates an unpaid advertisement for the company.

  7. Earns a company higher patronage and engagements.

  8. Creates a cordial relationship between proprietors and employees as the latter

    understand that their wellbeing at the office is highly considered.

  9. Safeguards trust and reputation between proprietors and employees. 

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