Hybrid learning within universities has had a significant impact on how the facilities are being used. Karl Cundill, Partner at LitmusFM, delves into what in-house Facilities Management teams should be looking for within their estates strategy and how they can adapt their plans to ensure facilities are fit for the future.
It has been identified that around two thirds of face-to-face academic learning hasn’t returned at universities, with online learning taking hold. This is further mirrored in a recent Student Futures Commission study, which revealed 70% of students ‘strongly’ support recorded in-person lectures. It’s pretty clear that hybrid learning isn’t just a pandemic hangover, but rather a revised approach that has been adopted for the long-term. This is having a dramatic impact on how university facilities are being used. It’s creating a very different environment with reduced footfall across campuses, lecture theatres not in use anywhere near as much, as well as the knock-on effect to other facilities such as coffee shops and eateries.
Rather than this being a period of overwhelm or worry, we view it more as an opportunity. An opportunity for universities to review and take stock of their facilities portfolio (something which may well have needed to be done long before the pandemic), realign and create an estates strategy that will work for the university now and in the future.
Given that the majority of Facilities Management services across university estates in the UK are delivered in-house, the importance of having a strong strategy in place for managing the estate in this new era is essential to the smooth running of the university as a whole.
Firstly, the new estates strategy needs to be developed. This should cover the entire estate and detail planned acquisitions, change of use of buildings, any mothballing of facilities and planned disposal, potentially covering a 5-10 year period.
The next step is to understand your assets across the facilities – and to implement a long term, whole life approach to managing them – which will enable you to manage your budget far more effectively. For example, instead of investing in upgrading the facilities and then later down the line selling assets that are no longer used, this could be done the other way around and any capital from assets sold could go towards upgrading the remaining portfolio. Getting to grips with assets, capital allowance and the lifecycle of upgrading and renewing will essentially mean you will reduce the need to invest ‘new’ budget into facilities; rather, you can recycle from old.
Once the estates strategy is in place, putting a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) programme – which essentially ensures all of your assets are properly maintained over their lifetime – is essential. A PPM programme can save thousands in the long run and in the end will prolong the life of your equipment. The time and cost to repair items that fail out of the blue can be in the region of three to five times more expensive than the cost of making a planned maintenance repair to the same item prior to failure.
Aside from the direct financial benefit, PPM planning is also better for the environment, ensuring the assets work as efficiently as they can, for as long as they can – rather than consuming high levels of energy as they slowly deteriorate, eventually breaking, being discarded and potentially ending up as landfill. Given the recent hike in energy prices, managing energy consumption is more important than ever and will have a significant impact on operational budgets.
Implementing a PPM involves properly understanding your equipment – so understanding what you have, when it was installed and last serviced and where it is located, all within a comprehensive and detailed asset register. This can include anything from catering equipment, fire safety and security systems, air conditioning units and so on.
Once the current condition of the equipment is established, and therefore the residual life remaining of them is known, a Forward Maintenance Register (FMR) can be created. This essentially captures the remaining service life of each piece of equipment. For example, the FMR could initially span five years and detail the maintenance and / or capital expenditure required over this period. Or it could be developed further into a full lifecycle programme covering a 10, 15, 20-year period. With a reliable and complete FMR in place, universities will know exactly when equipment will need maintenance work and therefore be able to budget accordingly.
This also brings peace of mind that all your assets meet compliance standards. Every piece of equipment will have different standards to adhere to in terms of frequency of servicing and so on. When you’re managing an entire estate, it’s impossible to keep on top of all of this unless you have a comprehensive system in place, like a FMR register.
Of course, you need the right people in place who can concept, deliver and then manage the estates strategy on an ongoing basis. This can either be through the use of in-house teams or bringing in external consultants/specialists at key stages. Often a hybrid mix of both works well, with a core in-house team and the expertise of consultants to help navigate through crucial elements. Finding the right calibre of people is key and often the investment in the recruitment budget is well worth it to find quality individuals. Equally, another way to create a pipeline of staff is to implement an internship programme, which enables universities to recruit from within and build and develop talent from the ground up. This will also mean the recruitment budget can be reduced and put towards other areas.
Indeed, by having the right people in place drives innovation. Having visionary individuals within your team, who bring fresh ideas around how the estate can be managed more effectively will make a big difference. In fact, this is an area where working with external consultants can be very useful. Even the most creative of individuals can become blinkered when they work in-house within the facilities day in, day out. Bringing external experts in, who often have a wider perspective and experience of the sector, and current market trends, will breathe fresh life into how your facilities are run.
There are a lot of new tech developments that have emerged recently that can help manage university facilities. For example, the use of sensor technology that monitors footfall and how frequently areas are used. The data from tech like this can then feed into every part of managing that area, building or facility – from how often it needs to be cleaned to opening times and the provision of hospitality services.
Robotic cleaners are also becoming an increasingly popular option and particularly useful in open plan spaces. After the initial investment, your budget can be adjusted to utilise cleaning staff in the more complex and specialist areas, leaving the robotic cleaner to take care of the more straightforward open plan spaces.
Managing university estates has always required nimble thinking. However, it’s fair to say, that the past two years have had a greater impact on how we live our lives than any other period in memory. The hybrid approach is being embraced within university learning, within the workplace and so on. Whatever your estates strategy has been, and however well it’s worked, it will need overhauling in light of the changes in the way we’re all operating.
For further information please visit https://litmuspartnership.co.uk/services/facilities-management/