Commercial buildings need regular maintenance performed by dedicated staff. But does that staff need to be in-house? Today we’re exploring the pros and cons of in-house facilities services.
In-House vs. Outsourced Facilities Services
To maintain your commercial building, facilities services are nonnegotiable. Maintenance is always required, upgrades have to get done, and unexpected tasks come up every day. But do you need in-house staff to keep up with your building?
Having in-house facilities staff means someone is always available when you need them. But you can’t scale staff up or down when you have a fixed in-house team with a specific skill set.
With this in mind, which is a bigger priority for you?
- On-site staff with a constant cost
- Customized staff with a varied cost
Let us know in the comments.
Let’s review the pros and cons of on-site facilities management, so you can make an informed choice for the future of your commercial building operations.
Advantages of On-Site FM
On-site FM has many advantages for businesses. From easy communication to culture matching, on-site facilities teams have their place in building operations.
Communication
When you have in-house FM staff, there is a huge reduction in communication time — you can handle any issues with your property instantly rather than having to wait for feedback from an external service provider. You can also respond more effectively to client requests, because you have a fully accountable team that understands your business’s needs inside out. An on-site FM team will be immersed in your operations from day one, which means they know exactly what will work best for your company.
Security
If your company requires high security and privacy, on-site facilities management might be a good choice. By keeping your staff in-house, you have more control over the information available to those outside of the company.
Ownership
An in-house facilities team might feel more ownership over the work that needs to be completed than an outside team. They have a bigger investment in their team’s output and face a bigger risk to their employment if something were to go wrong. This means they could pay closer attention to details and invest more effort into their work than an external provider would.
Timely Response
An in-house FM department is likely to respond more quickly than an outsourced team. Their priority is your facility. If an emergency were to happen, they can respond in minutes rather than days. Additionally, they might respond faster to change order requests than an outsourced team, because they have no other clients. With an outsourced team, your change order might move your project to the end of the line.
Hand-Selected Team
When hiring, you can choose your team members to suit the team as a whole and the company’s culture. This means there is likely to be a good match in personality among team members. You have less control over who is working in your building when you hire an outsourced team with staff that have been chosen by the FM provider.
Disadvantages of On-Site FM
On-site facilities management can come with several disadvantages, such as high costs to hire full-time employees, the need for office space for them to operate out of, and administrative overhead required to supervise them.
If you outsource your facilities management to a service provider like Kroeschell, these costs are reduced — allowing you to scale operations up or down as needed.
Lack of New Perspectives
With an on-site team, there can be a lack of innovation. Some issues may arise that require outside-the-box thinking, and that is best done by someone outside your organization. By outsourcing your FM services, you get fresh perspectives and the ability to use specialists, making it easier to solve your problems correctly the first time.
Linear Time Utilization
When hiring an outsourced team, you will invest more time upfront to onboard them and integrate them with your building workflows, but, after that, you’re using their time more efficiently. You only pay for the amount of facilities services you need. With an in-house team, the cost is the same no matter what, so you don’t have the ability to optimize their time and your operations budget.
Not Scalable
The biggest disadvantage to an in-house FM staff is the inability to optimize their time. By outsourcing, you can scale the time the team spends on work up or down as needed, so you don’t pay for time on the job when no work has to get done. You can add or remove services as you need them and bring in specialists when new or unique projects arise. This reduces your overhead and the consistent costs of salaries and benefits for staff you might not need all the time.
Should You Use In-House or Outsourced Facilities Management?
Each building has its own facilities requirements. You will need to ask yourself several questions to decide whether an in-house or outsourced team is right for you.
- Do you have a highly sensitive business that makes outsourcing difficult?
- Do you have enough work to need a dedicated facilities person in the building at all times?
- Is budget not an issue for your business?
- Is your business flow constant?
If you answered yes to these questions, an on-site team may be right for you. If you answered no, it’s worth considering hiring a professional facilities management company.
Learn about how Kroeschell works with FM departments to support their operations goals, including those with an on-site team who need specialty work.
