Can you share a brief glimpse into your career journey? What has been the most pivotal moment in your career, and how has it shaped your professional growth?
A shift from Government to Private organisation was not easy that too when government job is seen as the most stable career. Though I was happy with what I was doing but that enthusiasm of doing little extra was missing and I took a call of leaving the government and shift to a private organisation. Today I feel that I took a right call of shifting my base from a government to private as it has given me so much learning and shaped my career to a different level.
What are some of the significant challenges you’ve encountered in the industry, and what are the measures we can adopt to address them?
When I joined the industry, things were not stabilised and the facility management concept was new to the organisations and corporate. There was so much of learning for everyone who joined the industry but with that there were challenges such as, convincing people / organizations to move from an unorganised system to a more stable and organised system, moreover changing the mindset and that old school thought of an adhoc working was very very difficult. We took this call and started a concept of only educating our clients and our partners and slowly and steadily moved them to an organised facilities management system.
In Today’s world when the information is freely available and we are talking about integrating Artificial Intelligence in the facilities management sector, the most important factor which we are still missing is not adopting the right skill set to manage the Asset of an organisation. In my opinion, skill set of manpower is going to play a major role in efficiently managing the organisation’s facilities management but somewhere the gap between the skill set and compensations is way too high and I feel that as an organization, the thought process of hiring people only at the minimum wages needs to be changed to a “Right Compensation for Right Skills”.
How have you integrated sustainability and eco-friendly practices into your facility management strategies?
Sustainability is an essential part of organisation’s brand image and it is a factor in purchasing decisions for us. Though there are many eco friendly practices which we adapted but sharing the most common and used at our sites:
- Energy Efficiency : we adopted and installed energy efficient lights at our offices and clients office to have the efficient lighting systems. Apart from this we have renewable energy sources like solar panels installed at our premises and we also recommend the same to our clients whenever and wherever we do the energy audits for them.
- The other crucial adoption is the water conservation: we have installed the water efficient fixtures at all our premises and this is also considered as must do for our clients whenever we take on any new site for management.
- One of the most important adoption in our organization is that our organization is paperless organization, we do not use papers for any communication, rather use the technology to send and receive the communications only.
What innovative technologies or processes have you implemented to enhance operational efficiency and user experience within your facilities?
We fully believe that implementing technology is the only way to have a efficient and optimum management of your company assets and in last one year we have heavily invested on the technology such as “Cloud Technology” which help us manage customer interactions and centralize data and this can be accessed from any device from anywhere in the world.
We also introduced Chatbot to respond to our customer queries and provide an instant support.
The other technology which we work in routing in our organisation is the ERP system for various verticals such as HR, Finance and Compliances. Apart from this we also use CRM systems which help us understand customer needs in a better way and provide them with the customised solution.
In your opinion, what are the essential qualities and skills that have contributed to your success in facility management, and what advice would you give to aspiring professionals in this field?
As a facilities management professional, I go through challenges every day and every day there is new learning for me. As a professional, one most important skill set which I believe that every professional should have is “Communication”. A better communication not only brings transparency in the system, but also provides the faster solution to any problem which you face. Apart from this I feel that Continuous learning is must for every professional and keeping you updated with the industry trends is most essential part of your skill set.