We all know this country is experiencing unprecedented economic changes. Businesses and ordinary people are all feeling the pressure of the economic slowdown. There have been steep declines in property values and extreme fluctuations in operating costs for businesses. Fuel prices, services, materials and employee expenses are all on the rise. When the economy is slow, some facility maintenance managers tend to postpone facility maintenance while anticipating an economic turnaround. While seemingly logical, this is a critical mistake. Business owners and facility managers must take every step to ensure that their operation remains healthy in the long term. The economic climate may be discouraging, but it is more necessary than ever to appropriately manage risks to your business and assets. When setting a strategy for managing building assets through tough times, first consider what facility maintenance can provide for your business, despite the tough economy.
Systematic and Routine Facility Maintenance can:
- Decrease the risk of mechanical breakdowns and property deteriorations resulting in expensive emergency service expenditures.
- Decrease the likelihood of making your tenants and occupants uncomfortable when building systems falter. When unhappy tenants move out it can take months to establish new tenants (think about the cost of lost rent). Routine facility maintenance could mean the difference between satisfied tenants or an empty space.
- Decrease the risk of having an unsafe and unhealthy environment. Safety is a critical item for all organizations and providing a safe environment helps to control costs and mitigates risk.
- Increase the efficiency of your building systems. This decreases energy usage and costs over time. Energy is typically the largest operating expense and can sometimes account for up to 65% of an organization’s operating budget. Avoiding unnecessary expenditures through increased efficiency can be significant.
- Increase the value of your building, protect equipment, and ensure better health for employees, so in the long-term you get the full return on your initial investment.
Some professional facility managers will evaluate their needs, especially during tough economic times, and essentially choose a band-aid solution. Instead of employing proper facility maintenance services they opt to get by with minimum expense in the immediate. The band-aid fix, repairs a symptom temporarily in hopes that it can be fixed properly in the future. However, repair services and material costs do not decline over time; in fact, they increase! Businesses increase their margins to offset inflation, higher fuel costs, wage hikes etc; incorporating them into their overall cost of doing business structures. Postponing facility maintenance will actually cost you more in the long term.
It’s clear that deferring facility maintenance is not advisable and that facility maintenance can reduce the cost of ownership through increased occupancy and decreased emergency maintenance costs. In times like these, it’s critical to ensure your business survives in the short term so it can thrive in the long term. Slowly but surely, the U.S. economy is emerging for its recession and sound businesses are positioning themselves to be poised to take full advantage when the economy makes an upturn. Be sure to evaluate where you spend and where you save when it comes facility maintenance. Now is the best time to determine what can be done to prevent costly repairs and maintenance in the future.
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