Workspaces continue to evolve and facility maintenance teams need to adapt to new trends to keep up. As your tenants or in-house team brings in new products, technology, and processes for doing things, your facility maintenance team will also need to change the way it does things. 

To stay current with what’s new in the industry, here’s a look at the current facility maintenance trends.

Internet of Things (IoT)

The internet of things is taking over everywhere. From our homes to our offices, people are enjoying the convenience of smart switches, appliances that tell you when they need to be refilled or some form of maintenance, and voice commands. 

If you maintain a smaller office, you might just have a few Amazon Echo units or Google Home devices that connect your office. Larger offices might have a much more sophisticated means of taking full advantage of the internet of things. 

For maintenance teams, this might mean answering to mobile app notifications that tell you to replace the filter on the HVAC or change out a lightbulb before it goes bad according to a lifecycle within a smart plug’s maintenance schedule.

Data-driven maintenance 

As devices become “smarter” we have more information at our fingertips. And with that comes the opportunity to create a maintenance schedule based on data. Now you know long before the HVAC filter needs replaced when it will be time to do that work. You can schedule it in weeks or even months in advance.

And you’ll find that this data-driven maintenance builds efficiency and offers insights in a way the old process for doing things never could. With data-driven maintenance routines and schedules, many companies are finding they can reduce their overhead expenses and use their workspaces more efficiently.

Integrated, insightful management 

With a data-driven maintenance routine, now you have so much more insight into what drives efficiency in the workplace. Instead of just organizing your workspaces based on space efficiency, imagine organizing your office based on employee productivity. This is where facility maintenance is headed in the information age.

Using all this data will also help you showcase your department’s worth to your superiors. Facility maintenance used to be an area of a business that people only noticed when something went wrong. Now you can showcase all the things you do to make the business run smoothly to highlight the value you bring.

Greater emphasis on the employee’s office experience

Managers across organizations are looking for ways to show employees that they value the work that they do. And employee retention is becoming more of a focus for many organizations as well. 

Managers look to the facility maintenance team to make a workspace an enjoyable place to be. These managers might come to you asking how you can improve their direct reports’ cubicle or desk arrangement to make them more comfortable and feel more welcomed. Or, you might be called upon to improve an area’s natural light or brighten up space with new wall colors. 

The need for flexible workspaces

Commercial real estate comes at a premium and might be one of your organization’s largest expenses. While it’s an important expense, your superiors are probably not looking to add more expenses by expanding the workspace. 

This means they’ll look to their facility maintenance team to create innovative co-working spaces, areas where teams work on specific projects, and agile workspaces. These innovative ways of organizing the office will help them use the space efficiently and get the most out of their existing commercial real estate investment.

CMMS to manage a facility

With added responsibilities and areas of focus for facility maintenance teams, using a CMMS to manage it all is becoming more important than ever. As new technology brings with it data and insights, CMMS helps your team interpret that data and use it to predict office needs and schedule preventative maintenance to free up more time in your day.

Given current trends, the job of the facility maintenance manager will only become more complex over time. Prepare for those added complexities now by adding Eagle CMMS to your facility. Call Eagle at 262-241-3845, or send us an email or schedule a demo to learn more and get started.