Facilities managers used to be the unsung heroes of an organization. But those days of anonymity are over. Facilities teams are front and center in the post-pandemic world. Your expertise is essential to making the best use of office space in a world of remote and hybrid working.
The need to create a healthy workplace is more important than ever. Sustainability has shot back up the agenda and the spotlight is on emissions like never before.
These are all pressing problems that need big picture strategic thinking and a clear headspace.
The trouble is, these new requirements come on top of all the existing requirements. The working day for a typical facilities team member involves endless phone calls troubleshooting and firefighting. Whether it’s security, waste management, pest control or meeting room preparation, so much of your role is reactive.
So how do you balance the important strategic requirements of the post-pandemic workplace with the urgent reactive requirements of the daily workplace?
The answer is Enterprise Service Management software from IFS assyst. Let’s look at three ways it makes a difference.
Helping Employees to Troubleshoot Their Own Issues
The truth is, most service requests don’t need to go to facilities. In most cases, employees can solve their own issues – they just need to know how. The cloud-based IFS assyst self-service portal enables omnichannel self-service around the enterprise. When it comes to troubleshooting, employees can search FAQs and access user guides to fix the issue themselves. There’s also an AI-powered virtual agent they can talk to. This gives employees the answers they need for simple queries such as How do I request a repair or service? What is the turnaround time for facility service requests? Who do I call about pest control? How do I set the alarm?
Creating a searchable facilities service catalog like this has two benefits. It enhances the employee experience by empowering them to self-serve. It also means many fewer service desk calls to sort issues that don’t need expert intervention.
When Saudi Post rolled out IFS assyst to its 13,000 service users, it made a huge difference. The company has 400 tickets a day and 600 corporate service options from IT to facilities. With IFS assyst in place, 90% of support tickets come via self-service, there are 70% fewer service calls received and there is 100% end user satisfaction.
This 20 minute webinar shows you how IFS assyst helps employees solve their facilities issues
Streamlining Standard Requests
Of course, some employee requests do need the help of someone in facilities. Getting a room ready for a meeting is a classic example. But even though human intervention is required, many of the stages can be streamlined and automated to enhance the experience for the employee and reduce the workload for facilities.
To request a meeting room in IFS assyst, users login and complete the relevant form. It’s pre-populated with their name and phone number to reduce keystrokes and save time. Users give details of their meeting – the date and time, numbers attending, chosen meeting room etc. They also give their specific requirements – event lighting, catering, Wi-Fi, multimedia and so on.
When the employee submits the form, it automatically creates a task for the facilities team. It’s assigned to a facilities team member and a notification is sent.
On the system itself, every action is listed so it can be ticked off as it’s completed. It’s visible to the facilities team but also to the employee so they can check on progress if they want – without having to speak to a member of the facilities team. It’s a way of streamlined way of working that helps both the facilities team and the wider enterprise. It also gives you a full data trail for auditing and compliance.
Watch this 20 minute webinar to see how IFS assyst simplifies and streamlines service requests
Enabling Continuous Monitoring and Improvement
When the facilities team is doing a good job, no one notices you exist. But reaching that state requires a culture of continuous improvement. IFS assyst gives you the tools you need. The support portal gives you performance dashboards showing the status of all requests, issues, and services. You’ll also see service level agreements and your scores against them. It means you can see at-a-glance the areas that need to be looked at.
There’s also an intuitive no-code process designer so you can edit, create and refine your workflows to drive continuous improvement across the team.
When Somerset County Council implement IFS assyst, the workflow improvements it implemented reduced bounced tickets from 12% to 1%. Greater visibility of workloads has helped the team boost productivity and prioritize tasks. And where cost savings require director-level approval, the relevant person can do this with a simple approve/reject response to a simple email.
Watch this 20 minute webinar to see how IFS assyst drives continuous improvement
A Game-Changing Solution for Facilities Managers Everywhere
When you need to focus on the bigger picture, you can’t spend your days working reactively. Enterprise Service Management software from IFS assyst puts you in the driving seat, freeing up valuable time and giving you the ability to give your organization the proactive support it needs.
