Facility management report: what to include, and what makes it believable

01

What a facility management report is for

A facility management report is the regular account a facilities team, or a company providing facility services under contract, gives of the buildings and services it runs, from a single office building to a campus or a national portfolio: what was done, what was not, what is at risk, and what it cost. It goes to the owner, the asset manager, the property manager, the director of facilities or the client's contract manager, and it is usually reviewed at a monthly or quarterly business review.

The International Facility Management Association's definition of facility management, which it takes from the ISO 41000 family of standards, calls it "an organizational function which integrates people, place and process within the built environment with the purpose of improving the quality of life of people and the productivity of the core business." A report that describes only equipment and dollars, and never the people who use the building, is reporting half the job.

There is no federal format for a facility management report on a private building. Its content is set by the contract or the internal charter: the scope of work, the key performance indicators and any service levels the two sides agreed. Behind it, though, sit duties that belong to the employer or the building owner, whoever does the work: injury and illness recordkeeping under OSHA's recordkeeping rule, 29 CFR Part 1904 (or the equivalent rule where a state runs its own OSHA-approved state plan), the inspection, testing and maintenance of fire protection systems required by the fire code the local authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) has adopted, elevator inspections under state or city law, and, where the building has one, a water management program for Legionella. The report is where the owner learns whether those duties are being met on their behalf, which is why its life safety and compliance section matters more than any other.

02

What to include

A useful facility management report covers the same headings every month, so that changes stand out:

• Executive summary: one page, in plain words, of what went well, what did not, and what the owner needs to decide or know this month.
• Safety: injuries, near misses and incidents, whether any case was recordable on the OSHA 300 log or had to be reported to OSHA, and the corrective actions taken.
• Life safety and code compliance: the status of each required inspection and test, such as fire alarm, sprinkler and standpipe systems, fire pumps, extinguishers, emergency and exit lighting, generators, backflow preventers, elevators, boilers and pressure vessels, and cooling towers, with anything overdue, failed or awaiting a deficiency repair shown clearly.
• Preventive maintenance: PM work orders scheduled, completed, and missed with the reason, across HVAC, electrical, plumbing, the building envelope and the roof.
• Corrective and reactive work orders: requests logged through the help desk, by priority and building, completed within the response and completion times, and still open, with the oldest explained.
• Janitorial, security and other services: custodial, day porter, security officers, grounds, pest control, waste and recycling, with inspection scores or the contract's own measures.
• Key performance indicators: the KPIs in the contract, against target, with the trend over several months.
• Financials: operating spend against budget, work outside the fixed price, and proposals awaiting approval.
• Energy and water: consumption against the same month last year, adjusted for weather where you can, and progress on any efficiency projects.
• Capital planning and risks: failing equipment, repeat faults, assets near the end of their life, deferred maintenance and the repairs or replacements recommended, with the likely disruption to occupants and an estimate of the future costs, so the owner can plan the budget.
• Action items: what was agreed at the last review, and whether it has been done.

Keep what the contract asks for and cut the rest. Every page nobody reads makes it harder to find the one page that matters.

03

Reporting life safety, compliance and maintenance properly

The compliance section is the one an owner relies on, and the one most often written loosely. "Fire and life safety: compliant" tells the reader nothing. A good compliance report is a table, one row per system and per building, showing:

• what the inspection or test is, which code or standard calls for it, and how often it is due;
• when it was last done, by whom (the in-house engineer or the licensed contractor), and the result;
• when it is next due;
• any deficiencies or impairments from the last inspection, and whether they are corrected;
• where the inspection report, tag or certificate is kept.

Name the code as the jurisdiction adopted it. For water-based fire protection, for example, many jurisdictions call up NFPA 25, Standard for the Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance of Water-Based Fire Protection Systems, through the International Fire Code or NFPA 1 and with local amendments; it is a requirement at your building only once your AHJ has adopted it, and the edition that applies is the one the AHJ adopted, not necessarily the latest. For building water systems, the CDC's Toolkit: Developing a Legionella Water Management Program notes that such programs "are now an industry standard for many buildings in the United States" and includes a yes or no worksheet for deciding whether a building needs one. If yours has one, the report should say whether this month's monitoring was done and what it found.

An item that is overdue, or passed with deficiencies still open, should be obvious at a glance, not hidden in a percentage. A line such as "96% of life safety inspections complete" can hide one overdue fire pump test or an expired elevator certificate, which matters more than all the others together.

For preventive maintenance, report PM completion against the schedule and separate the code-required tasks from the rest. For corrective work orders, report response time and completion time separately, and show the open work orders by age. Downtime of critical equipment deserves its own line, such as chillers in July, boilers in January or the elevators in a building where occupants cannot take the stairs, because occupants experience a building through what does not work. Upkeep deferred this month becomes capital cost later, and the report is where that trade-off should be visible to the person who controls the budget.

04

KPIs, and the evidence behind them

Key performance indicators work best when there are few of them, each measures something tied to the objectives the owner has set, and each can be checked. Common facility management KPIs include:

• code-required inspections and tests completed on time;
• PM work orders completed on schedule;
• corrective work orders responded to and completed within the agreed times, by priority;
• help desk requests logged, and repeat requests for the same fault;
• janitorial and security inspection results against the scope of work;
• occupant satisfaction, from a short survey or feedback when a work order closes;
• safety incidents and near misses reported;
• energy use, for example tracked in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, where eligible buildings get a 1 to 100 score on which, in ENERGY STAR's words, "a score of 50 represents median performance."

A KPI is only as good as the record behind it. If "99% of janitorial tasks completed" comes from sheets signed at the end of the shift, or "all security rounds completed per post orders" from a patrol log nobody checks, the owner is reading the vendor's assurance, not evidence. Before a number goes into the report, the facility manager writing it should know where it came from and be able to show the underlying records if asked.

Safety figures need the same care. Under 29 CFR 1904.39, an employer must report a work-related fatality to OSHA within eight hours, and an in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours. Recordable cases go on the OSHA 300 log, and 29 CFR 1904.32 requires the annual summary to be posted "no later than February 1 of the year following the year covered by the records" and kept up until April 30. The monthly report does not replace any of those records; it tells the owner they are being kept. When a vendor's staff are hurt on site, the report should say so too, whichever employer records the case. See the OSHA 300 log for how the log works.

Trends matter more than single months. A report that shows the last six or twelve months of data for each KPI lets the reader see a slow slide, such as corrective work orders creeping up as equipment ages or demand on the help desk rising after a change in occupancy, that a single month hides. A sentence of analysis beside each chart, saying why the line moved, is worth more than the chart.

05

Presenting the report and the monthly review

Good facility management reports share a few habits:

1. Lead with exceptions. Put what is overdue, failed, at risk or needs a decision on the first page. Green charts can come later.
2. Use the same structure every month, so the reader knows where to look and can compare months.
3. Report by building where there are several, because a portfolio average hides the one site that is struggling.
4. Explain every miss. A missed PM with a reason and a new date is credible; a missed PM with no comment invites the question.
5. Be on time. A report issued three weeks into the next month describes a building that no longer exists. Agree a date, and keep to it.
6. Keep the action list live. Each action item has an owner and a due date, and stays on the list until it is closed.

The monthly review should work through the exceptions and the action items, not read the report aloud, and should cover anything received during the month from the fire marshal, an OSHA inspector, the elevator inspector, the insurance carrier's loss control visit or a vendor's technician. Good facility teams also walk part of the building with the owner from time to time. What the report says and what the building shows should match; when they do not, the report is the thing to fix.

Keep each month's report, with the records behind it, for as long as the contract or your records policy requires. Some of the underlying records have their own retention rules: 29 CFR 1904.33, for example, requires the OSHA 300 log, the annual summary and the 301 incident reports to be saved "for five (5) years following the end of the calendar year that these records cover."

06

Where the record fails, and what SiteClara does about it

The monthly report is usually assembled at the end of the month from whatever records exist: the CMMS for work orders and PM, contractors' inspection reports for life safety, and, for janitorial and security, paper sheets on the back of a restroom door, a daily activity report and the supervisor's memory. Those last records are the weakest, and they cover the services occupants notice most. A month of problems that nobody wrote down arrives in the report as a single line: "no issues".

SiteClara does not write the monthly report. It produces a record each day. A printed QR poster, with an NFC tag behind it if staff prefer to tap, sits at each location, such as a restroom, lobby, mechanical room or loading dock. Custodial, security and engineering staff scan or tap with their own phone, with no app to install, complete the scheduled checks due there or say what stopped them, and report problems with a photo, which go onto the team's list of jobs until someone closes them.

Each day the supervisor reviews the totals and photos, gives the reason for any check that was missed, and approves the daily report, which goes to the facility manager and other nominated contacts at 8 a.m. the next morning. It shows what was reported, what was completed, what is still open and how the scheduled checks went, for example 12 of 12 completed. Whoever writes the monthly report has a month of approved daily records to draw on, rather than a month of memory.

07

Questions people ask

What are the four P's of facility management?

There is no official list of four. The International Facility Management Association's page, What is Facility Management? defines facility management as a function that "integrates people, place and process within the built environment," which is three. A report that covers all three says something about the occupants and how the work is done, not only about the building.

What are the roles of facilities management?

There is no fixed number. The International Facility Management Association's page, What is Facility Management? says that "facility managers hold a variety of roles," and lists building operations such as cleaning, security, maintenance and grounds management; emergency and disaster mitigation and response; sustainability planning; project management and budgeting; real estate management and space planning; business continuity planning; and return-to-work processes and policies. The monthly report should cover whichever of those are in the facilities team's scope.

08

Further reading, and a list to take away

IFMA publishes its definition of facility management and its core competencies, and the ISO 41000 family sets out the international standards for facility management. OSHA's injury and illness recordkeeping pages explain what must be logged and reported, and your state plan, if you are in one, may add to them. NFPA publishes the standards most fire codes call up, and your fire marshal or AHJ can tell you which editions apply to your buildings. The CDC's Legionella toolkit explains water management programs, and ENERGY STAR explains how to benchmark energy and water use in Portfolio Manager.

Before the next facility management report goes out, check that:

• the first page shows what is overdue, failed, at risk or needs a decision;
• life safety and code compliance is a table by system and building, not a percentage;
• each inspection names the code and edition your AHJ adopted;
• corrective work orders show response and completion times separately, and open work orders by age;
• every KPI has a named source record that could be shown if asked;
• janitorial and security figures come from records made at the time, not end-of-shift sheets;
• safety incidents match what is on the OSHA 300 log and what was reported to OSHA;
• trends cover at least six months;
• every missed PM or inspection has a reason and a new date;
• the action list has owners and due dates, and is reviewed at the monthly meeting.