r/FacilityManagement

Hi all

To preface this, I am 29 and recently landed a job in our hospital engineering department as a Hospital Mechanic II. I am new to the industry, but have some technical experience in a similar environment from a prior role in the semiconductor manufacturing world as a field service engineer. I have no degree and upon taking this job have started going back to a school online through our local community college and am l currently still taking basic pre-reqs to re-acclimate to school.

I am hoping to work in this field through my degree and use this role to network and build a path to management in a similar or adjacent role. With that being said, I am trying to decide on my specific degree. Would a project management or business administration bachelors be more appropriate for my role? I am also highly interested in regulatory work and inspections/auditing involving environmental health and safety. Would public health be a good option?

I recently obtained a work sponsored ASHE MECH certificate, and am planning on getting a CMRP, then CHFM+Bachelors, and feel like this plan puts me in a good 5 year position to get better.

Also, Healthcare is also not an absolute necessity, however I really appreciate this hospitals retirement benefits and insurance package. I would be happy to work in any number of settings for really any industry as long as there was a path to scaling up.

Any thoughts or helpful suggestions?

Visitor checks in, gets a badge, host gets notified. Sounds easy.

Then come the real questions:

Should door access expire automatically when the visit ends?
What if the visitor never checks out?
Should guest Wi-Fi expire at the same time?
What happens when badge printing or access-control integration fails?

For anyone supporting a visitor management system:

What has been the biggest headache after go-live?

We have been able to break away from the old-fashioned paper visitor check-in book.

Actually, I had previously thought that a digital visitor system was merely an advancement in technology for the manual process; however, the change was so drastic.

The benefit we got out of not having to physically keep track of vendors, visitor badges, and employee check-ins in multiple locations was unbelievable.

I wonder how many of your sites have been able to go digital?

Facilities / maintenance folks, I've got a hackathon coming up (one day, idea to working app) and I'd rather build something you'd genuinely use than something that demos nice and dies. So I'm going to the people who actually do the job. what's the problem worth solving?

What quietly eats your day or drives you up the wall? Like

- What do you STILL do in Excel, WhatsApp, email, or on paper because your CMMS/software can't?
- The most repetitive manual task you wish would just do itself?
- Where does time vanish — work orders, chasing vendors, chasing approvals, reporting, data entry, hunting for asset info?
- The report/number your boss asks for that's a nightmare to pull together?
- Mobile/offline in the field — does it actually work for you, or nah?

Rants, war stories, petty annoyances — all welcome, the more specific the better. If a comment nails a real pain, that might literally be the thing I build.

Hey ya'll. First time post. Long time following. 40/M/Central Canada. Next month I start a new role with a Commercial Real Estate company. Starting pay 90K (this is a 46% increase from my current role as a Building Operator and I still can't believe it).

I've been in an unofficial Senior Operator role for the past couple years. People know my capabilities. They trust me. My current employer has been "saying" they see me as the next Operations Sup. here but it's been all talk with no action. My boss is 60 and has given zero indication about his retirement timeline. This new job is a bit of a leap forward, but not a huge stretch. I'll be reporting to the National Director of Ops and have a Maintenance Tech and Senior Operator reporting to me. I'm FREAKING excited but of course, there is imposter syndrome. The Nat' Director said I could go to her with any questions and I really look forward to working with her. And TBH I am so over the old boys club with my current organization.

Anyway, just wanna let folks know. And hoping I can come back here with questions/updates ;)

✌🏻

We have a mid size (around 400 person) congregation and our fellowship hall does basically everything. Sunday overflow seating one week, community dinners the next, then small group setup on Wednesdays. Same room with different config every few days.The problem is we partner with a nonprofit that runs a food pantry out of the space Saturday mornings, and they tear it down and reset it completely. We've been going back and forth on stackable chairs vs interlocking for months now.

Looking for church chairs that hold up better when reconfiguring constantly. Interlocking looks more intentional (if I can say that) and feels right for the overflow use, but unlinking and relinking for the pantry reset has started to wear on volunteers. Stackable is way easier to move but I've seen them look kinda cheap in settings like ours. All ears for any advice at this stage.

Has anyone engaged a drone window-cleaning contractor for a high-rise building?
I’m interested in whether it actually works out cheaper than traditional rope-access methods, and what the results were like in practice. Was the quality of the clean comparable, and would you use the service again?

My old FM (I left the job 7 months ago) invited me to apply for the assistant facility manager spot at my old job (entertainment venue). I had a senior lead role before leaving (not salary/management). This was a position I wanted for a while, but ultimately had to leave the company due to lack of growth opportunity and personal financial changes. Before I left, I was fulfilling plenty of supervisor duties and was very well respected and liked by the management team.

I know I have the skills to do the job, and my old boss has told me he's going to push where he can to get me the spot, but that will only get me so far. I'm worried about bombing the interviews and not being considered, and wanted some advice as to what I should focus on before the interviews. I might be well known by the management team, but the recruiters and hiring team are a different story. I'm a younger guy with little experience in a management role, and want to make sure I can do well in my interviews.

I have a phone interview with a recruiter coming up, and then one or two interviews afterwards with the regional FM and regional director of operations. I'm looking for advice on how to sell myself, because I've never worked at the management level.

Any advice on what to expect and prepare for for assistant facilities manager interviews?

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