What Separates Good Facility Maintenance Teams from Great Ones

Many facilities have maintenance teams that respond to breakage. Something is broken, someone calls maintenance and a technician comes and takes care of it. It’s good enough for things to happen without stopping operations and let’s be honest, for many buildings, this is where they remain—operating in a reactive state, fixing issues as they arise.

But then there are great maintenance teams—those where nothing really breaks on a whim because there are checks in place to prevent troubles. Building systems that run like clockwork year after year. Occupants who hardly even think about maintenance because it just works. The difference between this team and a second team, however, is not so much the levels of individual skill, but how the teams function as units.

The Preventative Maintenance Mindset

Great teams do not wait for things to break—they always look ahead. They check systems before parts go, they document findings to reveal trends in performance. Instead of waiting for things to fail, they catch them before they do. This transition from reaction to prevention vastly improves the ease with which a facility runs.

Preventative work relies on discipline and structure; it’s easy to skip an inspection when things seem normal—this is where problems fester under the surface. Yet teams operating under a preventative mindset push through when things feel good and rarely experience emergencies. A little extra effort in the short term pays major dividends in the long term.

Great teams also understand that not everything is created equal and therefore there’s no need to check things so frequently. Critical systems receive more frequent attention than other options. For example, plumbing systems receive annual checks; it’s likely that parts will be running through their own failure patterns sooner than anticipated but knowing to check them for certain means that preventative maintenance is accomplished and does not bog everyone down in expectations.

Versatility Among Systems

Good technicians come to specialize so their skill set is well-honed. Good technicians can work across many systems and adjust according to the day they encounter. A facility has heating in the morning, it needs electrical troubleshooting after lunch and plumbing at 5 PM.

Cross-training does not happen overnight but facilitates ease of scheduling and response time improvements for both technician teams and facilities. Facilities that rely on cross-trained teams for building maintenance adapt more readily to immediate needs and fill in gaps when someone is absent either through planned vacations or last-minute call-outs.

This does not mean everyone needs to be a jack of all trades; however, having technicians who know the basics—and who know when to ask for help from someone who does know the technical pieces—makes the team much stronger. They can operate through the mundane often necessary across systems and quickly learn when certain systems become too complicated.

Effective Communication

One thing rarely recognized is that great maintenance teams are great communicators; they inform facility managers about the status of equipment; they relay technical fails in layman’s terms; they collaborate with occupants so things are not too disruptive during repairs.

Poor communication complicates matters where technical aspects may work out well. A maintenance team that fixes something perfectly but never tells someone what was required, what’s needed for preventative checks or next steps leaves facility managers without options. When things fail a second time, there’s no real context.

Great teams document well; they keep records for themselves and others to review and puzzle out recurring issues. They communicate challenges ahead of time when they know something might disrupt normal operations. They bring transparency to the table which builds trust with facility managers who can better allocate equipment replacements and upgrades within the same budget considerations.

Issue Diagnosis & Solution Development

Technical prowess matters but so does the ability to troubleshoot problems and develop solutions. Not everything goes wrong in a text book way. Sometimes the diagnosis is not clear—or it’s compounded by several others—or it’s something no one has ever seen before.

Great maintenance technicians diagnose problems systematically; they gather information, formulate hypotheses about what’s wrong, test those assumptions and readjust based on what they find. This systematic troubleshooting provides root-cause analysis instead of surface solutions.

They also think outside the box of a manual. The repair option may not be feasible in time or cost savings. Parts could take longer than anticipated; perhaps the unique configuration of a building leads to newer questions that trained technicians must navigate. Technicians who can figure it out appropriately without challenging any safety or quality standards are worth their weight in gold.

Ownership & Initiative

Good versus great is often an attitude adjustment; great maintenance teams take ownership over their buildings. They notice small things without being told and fix them; they suggest improvements for systems or workflows; they do what it takes to keep the building up and running well.

That sense of ownership goes a long way since if someone isn’t doing what they’re supposed to, great technicians come up to them almost immediately to find out why—as if it’s their building too—and they emphasize improvements to make things right.

Furthermore, this sense of ownership includes continuous learning and improvement. Building systems aren’t static; things change and new technologies arise daily. Great technicians stay current with their fields (and fields applicable to integrated systems) by maintaining proper certification and adding new skills where learned over time mean potential problems down the line from what was learned five years ago might not apply today.

Team Spirit and Support

Good technicians carry their weight; great maintenance teams function as real teams, supporting one another, backing each other up and sharing knowledge—and continuing development opportunities—to transform newbies into seasoned professionals over time.

There’s excellent give-and-take in terms of knowledge retention among new maintenance team members and seasoned professionals as those who learn new troubleshooting techniques from complicated calls share troubleshooting knowledge learned with those who can then implement appropriate best practices learned along the way from others’ previous mistakes.

There’s mutual support around volume consistent with internal considerations as one technician buried in work or evaluating alternate systems gets timely help from those who’ve finished their tickets or weighed in on other simple fixes they could do while waiting.

The Tech Component

Modern systems require building maintenance teams that are more well-versed in current technology than they are straightforward physical aspects relative to their crafts. Great teams aren’t intimidated by computerized building management systems, use work orders effectively on portable devices and have familiarity with smart building technology.

This does not mean everyone must be an IT expert at the level of the building manager; however, basic computer literacy increasingly becomes mandatory for even educated fields with strictly manual components in years past. Buildings operate on computers now—and understanding systems while applying them when necessary separates teams struggling with modern means from those looking great with them.

Moreover, the best teams have instruments that make their jobs easier—and use them, whether it’s software operated for maintenance purposes or self-reporting applications for diagnostics backed by better communication platforms. Teams that see technology as ease instead of burden figure out how to reasonably apply technology in practice.

What It All Adds Up To

Great facility maintenance teams make systems work seamlessly so down time is nonexistent, costs are predictable, occupant satisfaction prevails because no one’s thinking about how systems grow old unless they’re informed otherwise over specific preventative measures. These teams operate ahead of the game instead of behind it.

They successfully communicate amongst themselves—and with others—support one another effectively so all entries get the knowledge they’ve gained. Great maintenance systems take all of this into account and transform what could be mediocre teamwork into something fantastic worth building upon over time; while it’s easy to implement these ideas it’s much harder to facilitate them long term without proper integration considerations up front—but it pays off.

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