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As the responsibilities of modern facilities managers become more diverse, so do the skills that facilities managers must bring to the job. 

Addressing the physical aspects of the building is only one aspect of the work, and it is often performed in service to another end goal: Making the building’s tenants comfortable and supporting their business goals.

In a mixed-use facility, managing the building to support the needs of its tenants gains an additional layer of difficulty. This difficulty is compounded further when tenants of the same building are engaged in vastly different occupations — and thus have vastly differing needs. 

Here, we discuss some of the key challenges of managing facilities with diverse clients, including:

• The rise of mixed-use facilities and the unique challenges they pose, 
• Tips for facilities managers juggling the needs of diverse tenants, and
• Ways to employ conflict resolution skills to find creative solutions to tenant problems.

Diverse Tenants: Rising to the Challenge

As our cultures, technology and needs change, so do our buildings. For example, movements to create green buildings that incorporate natural elements are becoming more popular, according to a TED Talk by Jeanne Gang. 

Designer Alastair Parvin calls for “architecture for the people by the people” — a notion that extends to the uses of architecturally designed spaces and the demand for facilities management that supports those uses.

Denser Spaces Bring Different Groups Into Closer Contact

Buildings — and even individual offices — housing tenants with differing needs are becoming more common. The “densification” of urban spaces, in which businesses and living quarters are brought closer together to create more walkable communities, is popular at the urban level, as the Smarter Growth Initiative in Canada notes. 

Architect Michael Green argues that this densification is not only desirable but necessary.

The densification of urban spaces is intended to make them more efficient and useable, according to a study by Danish researcher A. Skovbro. And it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon: In an article for Energy Manager Today, Carl Weinschenk calls urban densification “a key to the future” and “a great way to drive energy efficiency.”

Nor does the trend stop with communities; densification of individual office buildings and workspaces is also proceeding at an ever-increasing rate, often driven by the same desires for better access to more diverse clients and businesses, and the demand for increased energy efficiency. 

Space-Sharing As a Means to an End

Writing for Forbes, Patrick Hull encourages entrepreneurs to consider alternatives to traditional office space that include sharing space in buildings with vastly differing co-tenants and even sharing space within the same office. At Entrepreneur, Jane Hodges tracks the success stories of a number of small retail operations that have shared building space with other ventures.

Why are densification and space-sharing becoming more popular? Aside from the ongoing demand for greater resource efficiency, interest in these workplace arrangements is also increasing because workers are seeking spaces that make them more productive, according to Jason Fried. Well-managed spaces can boost productivity, even when diverse tenants use the space.

Space-sharing may be resource-efficient and beneficial for the development of communities and of creative business ideas. 

But it also poses certain challenges for facilities managers.

Making It Work: Strategies for Meeting Tenants’ Needs

While diverse use of space poses challenges, it also offers certain opportunities for facilities managers.

For example, planning ahead for diverse use of space at the building restoration or rehabilitation stage can give current and future facilities managers the tools they need to prepare for a wide range of tenants — or a mix of tenants within the same building. These tools and systems, such as smart building sensors, can often be retrofitted within existing buildings, allowing facilities managers to track energy efficiency and control comfort levels more precisely, according to Corovan.

Often, one project can solve several problems. For instance, if you could change or fix one part of the building to address the largest number of tenant complaints in one move, what would it be? At the REMI Network, Douglas Lee suggests the answer is better HVAC design. “If an HVAC system is well-designed, with proper air quality and air flow, tenants will be satisfied and property managers will field fewer complaints,” Lee notes. 

By working with HVAC engineers, facilities managers can improve comfort levels throughout mixed-use buildings and avoid situations in which tenants repeatedly file complaints — or worse, attempt to adjust the thermostats, dampers or grilles themselves.

Well-organized facilities management practices and procedures can also help identify and address diverse tenant needs. For example, managing work orders can help balance tenants’ needs, writes Robin Suttell at Buildings magazine. When work-order management is streamlined, facilities managers can more easily identify ways to solve multiple problems simultaneously, for the benefit of the tenants who filed the work orders — as well as others who share the building. 

Gathering data from a number of sources greatly improves the efficiency of facilities management, both in responding to tenant needs and in balancing those needs, as Ted Weidner notes in an interview on the future of college campuses. Cloud-based facilities management can also help identify problems and recommend solutions, according to a recent ebook published by Infor. 

And smart building technology can provide a wide range of data points and allow facilities managers to identify and resolve problems before tenants complain, according to Intel. The Internet of Things can be harnessed to handle a number of problems, allowing facilities managers to focus on supporting the human element of a diverse building space.

Old Skill, New Use: How Conflict Resolution Tools Can Help Facilities Managers Find New Solutions

As discussed above, data on the building and its needs — gathered from sources like smart technology and occupant feedback — is one essential tool for addressing the needs of diverse tenants within the same space. Another is the creative application of conflict-resolution strategies to facilities management in order to identify and implement better ways of balancing occupants’ diverse needs.

How can conflict resolution strategies be redirected to solving concrete problems involving facilities management and the needs of occupants? Consider these tips:

• Trust, but verify. Digging into a problem can help you find the root, which allows you to fix it in the long term and may help you fix it for more than one tenant at once, according to a TED Talk by Margaret Heffernan. When you receive a work order or a complaint, presume it’s valid, but don’t stop there. Ask how the problem is affecting work for various tenants. In other words, as conflict resolution strategists CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke recommend, get curious.
• Leverage your position outside of the conflict. The office on the ninth floor has specific HVAC needs; the warehouse on the ground floor has vastly different needs. If you think of these two spaces as parties in conflict, you can leverage your position as a third party outside of the conflict to identify solutions and create harmony, according to Getting to Yes author William Ury.
• Harness collective genius. Innovation is a product of collective rather than individual creativity and inspiration, according to Harvard professor Linda Hill. Bring together tenants in differing occupations, and you might discover new ways to improve the comfort of the building and boost the productivity of everyone who uses it.
• Have a lunch date. Wellness specialist Elizabeth Lesser recommends taking an ideological opponent to lunch in order to help reduce political divisiveness. Conflicts over facilities management outcomes and strategies may not be on the same level as a political fight, but the strategy can help you juggle the needs of diverse tenants. Before issues arise, make time to talk to a new tenant and find out what their needs are and how they believe the building environment can best support those needs. 

When technological tools and data are implemented intelligently, facilities managers can come out ahead of a number of problems inherent in managing a space occupied by tenants with wide-ranging needs. For the issues that data and automation cannot solve, classic conflict resolution techniques can often be repurposed to help facilities managers reach the heart of their work: creating and maintaining a space that supports the people who use it.

Facilities management offers ever-changing challenges and levels of complexity. When managers have the tools they need to address diverse tenant needs, however, the spaces they manage can be not only functional, but enjoyable.

Credits:

Bethany Legg
Nastuh Abootalebi
Alex Robert