Over the past decade, attitudes towards outsourcing have changed significantly. What was once considered lazy and perhaps unprofessional is now the new norm; the more of your everyday business practices you can hand over to a professional, the better. In fact, the data shows that outsourcing has grown more than 120% in the United Kingdom over the past ten years, with businesses now realising the potential of offloading some of their responsibilities.
Though it’s rare you’d decide to bring services back in-house after working with a facilities management company, there are questions you should ask before selecting the right one.
Could managing facilities internally offer a competitive advantage?
Perhaps the most obvious question to ask before working with a facilities management firm is whether you could benefit by delivering services in-house. If you’re an IT company, for instance, then you’re unlikely to want to outsource to an external IT department. But in some cases, your core products could benefit from services UK facilities management companies can offer. If you’re already offering window cleaning, why would you outsource office cleaning? You could instead hire internally and offer the service to your customers, as well.
Do you need permanent or temporary support?
Something else to think about before hiring a facilities manager is the long-term need of the services such a company could provide. Outsourcing tasks to third parties is the better option if you’re only looking for a weekly office clean or an office redesign, as hiring internally would not be cost-effective. Weigh up the pros and cons of bringing in a member of staff with the skills and experience you desire; could they be utilised elsewhere for other tasks?
Does the company reflect our values and share our passion?
When you’re handing over customer-facing responsibilities like cleaning, manned security guarding and COVID-19 queue management to another company, it’s vital that they’re on the same page as you. Choosing a company that doesn’t share your ethos could result in bad publicity for your business. Make sure you speak to the organisation and be clear on your expectations and requirements – it could mean that their end staff need additional training to properly align to your business values and objectives. That could increase costs.
Does it make sense financially?
We’ve all had to clean the office toilets at the end of a shift on a Friday. With that being said, does it make more sense to leave some of your every day responsibilities to your staffers, or is it cost-effective to hand over facilities management to an expert team? For example, some businesses depend on CCTV and cloud monitoring rather than hire a security guard or FM provider, but more often than not, third parties can fulfil the task for a lower cost than you’d be able to manage internally. Think about the opportunity cost and ensure that every member of your core team is being utilised to their fullest potential – if they’ve got to worry about managing your facilities on top of their workload, it could impact their productivity.
Still on the fence about working with an FM provider? Let us know your reasons in the comments and we’ll do our best to help. Check back soon for more SME tips and tricks.