Facilities management plays a crucial role in the long-term success of businesses. Implementing effective facility management best practices helps to protect assets, lower operating costs and support occupant wellbeing. If you are asking what is facilities management (FM) or want a clear facility management meaning, this blog provides practical facility management tips and improvement ideas to help teams that manage facilities work more efficiently and support facility managers in making informed operational decisions. It also explores how to improve facilities management operations in a way that drives cost savings and optimises operations for FM businesses across the facilities management industry, providing guidance for facilities managers.
This blog includes guidance on how to improve maintenance department performance, and practical advice for FM maintenance and day-to-day facility maintenance tasks. You will find maintenance best practices that can be used by facilities departments. How FM teams and the wider facilities services industry interact with internal teams to deliver unique facility management services is also discussed.
For building specific guidance, we explain building facility management so the approaches are relevant for offices and retail sites as well as industrial facilities management, providing practical facilities examples for each setting. We cover office facilities management scenarios so that both estate managers and in-house teams can apply the principles.
Whether you lead an FM team, run the facility department or are responsible for managing facilities, these 10 best practices of facilities management improvement ideas with concrete examples of operations and maintenance in FM can help you improve your services.
1. Strengthen preventive maintenance planning
An important aspect of FM is having reliable maintenance best practices in place. Move away from relying solely on reactive maintenance and instead focus on preventive maintenance and well-structured planned maintenance. Part of this involves communicating planned maintenance to all relevant staff and external vendors to reduce surprises and improve overall efficiency. This ensures that assets and building systems are cared for before problems escalate.
By adopting FM maintenance processes and building a clear maintenance schedule, facility managers can significantly reduce downtime, extend asset lifecycles and cut annual maintenance expenses. This approach contributes directly to cutting costs while improving FM services delivery. Strong operations and maintenance in facility management also leads to fewer emergency repairs, reduced reactive maintenance costs and improved workplace safety.
These approaches are especially important in maintenance facility management, where keeping facilities maintenance consistent allows organisations to maintain compliance with health and safety regulations. When organisations embed best practices in facility management and have clear FM strategies, they achieve long-term success by avoiding costly breakdowns.
For operational facilities, having a strategy for FM projects ensures that both ongoing maintenance and larger capital works are aligned. This helps ensure good facilities performance across office environments, industrial sites and service facilities that depend on uptime.
2. Improve asset management and optimise resources
When organisations adopt structured facility management strategies, they both maximise the life of assets and drive down operating costs. This is a practical FM improvement practice to help ensure resources are allocated efficiently while preventing unnecessary expenditure. Effective asset management also supports waste management initiatives by reducing duplicate purchases and ensuring materials are reused or recycled appropriately.
Facility managers can use management software to monitor performance, schedule maintenance activities and respond to service requests promptly. These approaches also support facility improvements, leading to better facility efficiency and fewer disruptions to daily operations.
Including management facilities routines in everyday tasks ensures consistency and accountability. From facility operations management to larger-scale facilities project management, asset tracking and usage reports play an important role in delivering measurable outcomes.
For example, when building and facilities teams rely on data from inspections, they can adopt facility management process approaches that highlight inefficiencies. These insights are vital to make data driven decisions and show tangible progress towards strategic goals.
3. Focus on energy efficiency and sustainability
As there is across industries and public opinion, there is a major trend in office and building facility management towards eco-friendly practices and reducing environmental impact. Organisations can cut energy use and lower operating costs by upgrading facility lighting, optimising HVAC systems, adjusting cooling settings and controlling heating levels. These facilities management best practices, supported by modern facilities management software, both enhance sustainability and improve workplace comfort.
When facility managers adopt sustainable facilities management, they not only reduce energy but also contribute to wider corporate responsibility goals. Integrating new technologies and facilities management software into facility management projects ensures that businesses stay up to date with smarter building management and greener operations.
Energy-focused facility management maintenance, enabled by facilities management software, can reduce annual maintenance expenses and extend the life of building and facilities management infrastructure. For organisations balancing daily operations with long-term targets, improving sustainability is a clear example of the benefits of effective FM.
4. Strengthen vendor relationships
Strong vendor relationships are an important part of best practices facility management. When managing and coordinating with outside vendors, reliable partnerships ensure smooth FM operations. Good collaboration with suppliers reduces the need for emergency repairs by ensuring timely delivery of parts and specialist support, lowers reactive maintenance costs by allowing preventive measures to be scheduled efficiently, and provides better service for occupants through consistent, reliable operation of building systems.
Clear contracts and well-documented facilities services industry agreements help facility managers ensure facilities maintenance industry standards are met. Regular reviews and coordination of FM services contribute to more reliable facilities maintenance outcomes.
By aligning supplier performance with organisational strategic goals, businesses can reduce downtime, improve facility processes and achieve greater efficiency in facility operations. These practices highlight the importance of facilities in creating a supportive workplace environment.
Clear and effective communication within teams is crucial to successfully manage facility operations and coordinate with external providers.
5. Enhance health and safety
Promoting strong health and safety standards is one of the best practice facilities management approaches to safeguarding both people and assets. Embed regular risk assessment inspections into facilities work practices to reduce workplace incidents and ensure organisations maintain compliance with regulations.
Facility managers should also invest in training programs for employees to build strong employee skills that reduce risks. Linking these initiatives with plans that include facilities management strategy examples ensures staff understand their responsibilities and follow consistent FM best practices.
Safety-focused FM projects should also consider facilities issues such as poor lighting, damaged building and facilities, and ineffective facility operations that impact the workforce. Taking a proactive approach not only lowers risks but also shows the importance of facilities in supporting staff wellbeing.
6. Automate facility processes with technology
Modern facilities managers should be supported by new technologies and digital tools that help automate repetitive work and remove unnecessary tasks. Facilities management software tools allow the manager to assign, track and close tasks. This creates smoother FM process workflows that enhance daily operations.
Automating processes ensures that facility managers can focus on strategic decision-making rather than paperwork. From event scheduling to real time monitoring, technology supports facility operations management and ensures facilities services are delivered consistently.
Technology also helps teams manage facilities effectively by streamlining FM projects, cutting operating costs and ensuring maintenance is carried out on an as-needed basis. These practices reflect best practice facility management by embedding digital innovation into everyday FM activities. Automation tools make it easier for teams to manage facility tasks efficiently and support FM services that are consistent across all sites.
7. Train employees and invest in skills
A skilled workforce is vital for facilities departments. Organisations that prioritise employee training through structured training programs see improvements in employee skills and overall productivity. This is an area where FM strategies and long-term investment in staff can create measurable returns.
When staff understand maintenance best practices and follow consistent facilities work practices, they contribute to smoother facilities maintenance industry operations. Embedding clear FM best practices into training content ensures teams are confident handling issues. Facilities example issues could include tasks ranging from simple FM duties up to complex industrial FM operations.
Providing staff with facilities management resources as well as clear and effective communication supports knowledge transfer across teams. It also ensures that employees remain aligned with strategic goals and demonstrate the benefits of effective facilities management in everyday work.
8. Optimise space utilisation
Rising real estate costs mean organisations must use facilities services industry benchmarks to guide how they optimise space. Applying facility improvement projects to create less space wastage is one of the most practical facilities management tips for controlling costs. Optimising layouts saves money and helps with the cutting costs of energy, heating and cooling.
Strong building facilities management practices help facilities managers adjust layouts, enhance office facility management and rethink facility operations to meet new demands. These facilities services examples highlight the importance of facilities in improving efficiency while reducing costs.
Aligning FM projects with management of facilities goals helps businesses reduce operating costs, improve space utilisation and achieve measurable facility improvements. These initiatives can be supported by FM maintenance data that tracks how often rooms are used.
9. Monitor and analyse data to drive informed decisions
Data analysis has become central to facilities management trends, as can be seen in facility management articles such as this RICS Research report on using big data analytics in FM.
When facility managers track metrics and review data trends, they can spot inefficiencies early and make data driven decisions that improve facility efficiency.
By embedding real time monitoring of building systems such as HVAC systems and facility lighting, facility managers can reduce energy consumption, lower reactive maintenance costs and extend asset life.
Data-focused facilities management improvement strategies can also help with facility operations. They can provide clear insight into how to improve efficiency and reduce downtime. Tracking key performance indicators ensures that all FM strategies align with wider organisational strategic goals.
10. Stay adaptable in an ever evolving process
Facilities management is not static. It is an evolving discipline that must adapt to changing conditions, regulations and workplace needs. Adopting facilities management improvement strategies helps organisations ensure they are future-ready.
This adaptability includes being open to new technologies, reviewing facilities management services and adopting eco-friendly practices to minimise environmental impact. Strong adaptability also requires ongoing investment in FM projects, compliance with industry standards, and applying lessons from facilities management articles and case studies.
Organisations that take the long-term success view of buildings and facilities management are better equipped to reduce reactive maintenance, reduce energy use and deliver good facilities that support their people.
Improving facilities management with Velappity
Improving facilities management requires a combination of strategy, technology and skilled facility managers. The best practices outlined in this blog aim to help organisations achieve operational efficiency, reduce reactive maintenance costs and support long-term success.
Velappity provides a comprehensive platform to help facilities managers manage facilities more effectively. It enables teams to coordinate FM services and track maintenance schedules across sites. With custom inspection forms, asset compliance monitoring, recurring job scheduling, billing documents and automatically generated reports, Velappity enables facility managers to optimise resources and maintain consistency across multiple sites. The software simplifies FM, supports preventive maintenance, and helps organisations reduce energy use and operating costs while maintaining compliance with health and safety standards.
For organisations looking to take their facilities management to the next level, Velappity is the solution for improving efficiency and reducing downtime. Start your trial today to discover how Velappity can improve your facilities management processes.
