Facility Managers Survey - December 2008

By Darius Helm

Since 2000, the trend in facility management has been toward increased responsibility for everything from construction and maintenance to design decisions. Spread thin, facility managers need to have a broader range of expertise, and they have to get things done with smaller staffs and budgets.

When the commercial market rebounded in 2004, projects were in general less extravagant, in part because of a sense that prosperity was more fragile than it seemed in the late 1990s. Back then, facility managers relied more on both in-house and outside designers, enabling them to focus more on the management. When Floor Focus last conducted this survey, in December 2006, there was already a clear movement toward shifting even more interior design responsibilities to facility managers.

All that was before the residential housing mess, the increase in raw material and energy costs, and the ensuing fiscal crisis. And while this may result in facility managers having fewer or smaller properties to manage, they’re also working with tighter budgets, smaller staffs, and expectations that are higher and more critical than ever.

Facility managers are a harried but nimble bunch, always pressing for schedules to be met, constantly coordinating with contract dealers, installers and all the entities who play a role in remodeling and new construction, and trying to manage all the details to get jobs done under budget. Unfortunately, they’re usually in more of a rush than those with whom they work.

WHO THEY ARE & WHAT THEY DO
Facility managers, among their many duties, manage the purchase and installation of floorcoverings across a range of commercial market sectors. The biggest is corporate, followed by education, retail, government and healthcare. The vast majority of facility managers are in charge of multiple buildings, and if they work for major corporations, retail chains or educational facilities, they may find themselves in charge of hundreds or even thousands of locations covering several million square feet.

This year, 76% of those surveyed said they were responsible for the entire square footage, down from 95% in 2006 and up a hair from 2000, when 70% of facility managers claimed full responsibility.

In terms of who decides flooring purchases, back in 2000 only 45% of facility managers made the final decision on flooring purchases. That number jumped to 86% in 2006 as part of the streamlining that dropped so much on the desk of the facility manager. This year the number slipped to 75%, still a lot higher than it was back in 2000.

Some of the decision making has been shifted to in-house committees. This year, 18% of the decisions are made in these committees, up from only 9% in 2006, though down significantly from 31% in 2000. Back then, outside designers and architects made 21% of the decisions. That dropped to 5% in 2006 and 0% this year, suggesting that firms have decided that it’s in their best interests to make these decisions in-house. There are also signs that in-house designers may be playing a bigger role.

For the complete Survey results, see the December 2008 issue of Floor Focus Magazine.

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