How it works
Facilities management usually splits into hard services, which relate to the building fabric and systems (heating, ventilation and air conditioning, electrical, plumbing, fire safety, lifts), and soft services, which relate to people (cleaning, security, reception, catering, mail and waste). Many teams also own space allocation and moves.
Work is either planned or reactive. Planned maintenance follows schedules set by equipment and regulation; reactive work starts from a service request or fault report. Larger organizations track both in a computer-aided facilities management (CAFM) or computerized maintenance management (CMMS) system, and often buy services from one or several providers, sometimes under a single integrated facilities management contract.
In hybrid offices, facilities management depends on knowing how the building is used. Cleaning, catering, heating and security planned for full occupancy cost money on quiet days, so facilities teams increasingly schedule services from attendance and occupancy data. The international vocabulary for the discipline is set out in ISO 41011.
How to measure it
- Service request volume, response time and time to resolve, by category and building.
- The balance of planned and reactive maintenance.
- Cost per square foot or per seat for each service line.
- Occupancy by day, so cleaning, catering and energy follow real attendance.
Examples
- A facilities team moves desk cleaning from a daily round to after-use cleaning, using check-in data to see which desks were occupied.
- An employee reports a broken screen from the room display, and the request reaches on-site maintenance with the room already identified.
Common mistakes
- Planning services to headcount instead of to the people who are actually in the building.
- Keeping service requests in email, which hides volume, repeat faults and response times.
- Separating facilities data from booking and occupancy data, so neither team sees the full picture.
How Kadence helps
Kadence gives facilities teams the occupancy side: attendance, occupancy and no-shows from check-ins in Workplace Insights. Employees order catering with a room booking and raise tickets for equipment, amenity or space issues, including from Kadence Room Displays (WorkOps Pro). Kadence also integrates with ticketing systems, including ServiceNow, Jira and Zendesk.
Workplace analytics · Integrations · Room booking software
Frequently asked questions
What are hard and soft services in facilities management?
Hard services relate to the building itself: heating, ventilation and air conditioning, electrical and plumbing systems, fire safety and lifts. Soft services relate to the people using it: cleaning, security, reception, catering, mail and waste. Most facilities teams and contracts are organized around this split.
What is integrated facilities management?
Integrated facilities management brings many services, such as maintenance, cleaning, security and catering, under one contract or provider with one management layer. Organizations use it to simplify supplier management, keep service levels consistent across sites and get combined reporting.
What is the difference between facilities management and property management?
Property management acts for the owner: leases, rent, tenant relations and the building as an investment. Facilities management acts for the occupier and the building's users: keeping the space safe, working and serviced. In a leased office, the landlord's property manager and the tenant's facilities team often work side by side.
What software do facilities managers use?
Common tools are CAFM and CMMS systems for maintenance and assets, IWMS platforms for space, leases and projects, help desk tools for service requests, and workplace platforms for booking, visitors and occupancy data. Many organizations connect several of these rather than use one system for everything.
Related terms
- CAFM (computer-aided facilities management) Software that links floor plans to a database of rooms and assets to run space, maintenance and service requests.
- CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) Software that plans, assigns and records maintenance work on buildings and equipment, from asset register to work order.
- Building operations The day-to-day running of a building's systems and services, such as heating, cooling, lighting, security, lifts and maintenance.
- Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) Enterprise software that runs real estate, leases, space, maintenance and assets from one shared database.
- Workplace operations (WorkOps) The day-to-day running of an office for the people in it: space, bookings, visitors, services, policies and the data they produce.
Sources
- ISO 41011:2024 Facility management — Vocabulary, International Organization for Standardization
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