Managining Business Facilities - Assignment Example

Managing Business Facilities Introduction Before the collage joined the for the Cost sharing initiative, there were some provisions that were agreed upon. It is understandable that the university has been in existence for a long time and owns most of the facilities but the agreement signed by both the institutions grants each equal opportunity to the use of the facilities. The car par, the five room allocation, cleaning services, portage and janitorial services and both the front office and reception activities are not owned privately by either of the institution. Their usage must be mutual just as stated by the memorandum of understanding signed by the two institutions (Richard, 2003). However, this paper is not purely an expression of complain but just one aimed at elaborating the memorandum so as to quell any future conflicts that many arise from within all the quarters that access these joint services and facilities. Sharing of resources does not imply any weakness in either or lack of investment plans but such arrangement are entered into simply for convenience. Both the facilities run parallel program and they therefore are not competitions for each other. They thus coexist symbiotically. By accepting and signing the memorandum, the two parties committed themselves to the terms of the terms of sharing and by default agreed to uphold its terms to the latter. The two parties signed the memorandum willingly and on grounds of mutual consent. There are thus no stated mechanisms of supervising the application of the memorandum or any manner of punishing whichever party that faults the terms of the agreement. Such an environment creates room for exploitation in the application of the memorandum, as has been the case lately. Roles of the facilities manager The facilities manager is one of the key creations of the memorandum. The office was created to observe the application of the memorandum. It seeks to ensure that both the parties enjoy equal rights and access to the services. Additionally, the office addresses any complains pertaining the application of the memorandum. It is understood that the two facilities exist independently yet mutually share the stated resources. The memorandum provides for equal payment for the services, the office of the facilities manager therefore ensures that the dues are paid in time and looks into all the issues raised by the service providers (Painter, 2012). The memorandum effectively provides for the manner in which the facilities are shared, in managing the facilities the office therefore does very little ground work. Besides the memorandum, there are special cases when either of the institutions have special occurrences and therefore require bigger share of the facilities and services. Such occasions as graduation ceremonies attract very many people and the fifty perfect sharing ration is never sufficient for the either the university or the collage. In such occasions, it is understandable that the facility hosting the event use the facilities to their satisfaction while the inconvenienced institution seeks alternatives. However, in such occasions the mostly sought after facility is the car park thereby resulting in minimal inconvenience. The role of the manager is therefore supervisory besides public relations. It is mandatory that the service providers relate cordially with the members of the two societies. It is normal for collage students to belittle the subordinate staff and instance of discrimination and assault therefore seldom occurs. The office ensures that such complains are settled amicably for the general good of both the institutions. Additionally, the office ensures that the rented facilities are used effectively, it is thus charged repairs should a case arise that requires one and general maintenance of the facilities. It is worth noting that the office is not part of the collage despite its head being a member of staff from the collage. The office is an institution that serves both the sides of the divide and ensures smooth flow of services. Relationship between business needs and space planning The memorandum at its signing took into consideration the fact that the collage was still at its inception while the university had been in existence for quite a while. Given these facts, it simply became natural for the university to have higher population than that of the collage. The university was thus allowed to access bigger shares of the services and the facilities. However, it was also understood that the collage still had room for development and it was likely to grow with time. The memorandum thus provided for an eventual fifty-fifty sharing should the time and events warrant it (Jiaming, 2008). The memorandum additionally provided for how the two institutions were to pay for the services. For the period that the collage was still at inception, it was agreed that it pays an amount equivalent to the services it sought. It was also agreed that as time progressed and the collage grew, its payment for the services be reviewed to tally with the services that it seeks but this was limited to the car park, the potage and janitorial services. The front room and reception services and the five room allocation and space planning was however to stay as they were. The front office and reception facilities are very likely to confuse visitors if not effectively managed. To prevent such from occurring, a highly qualified receptionist is employed who on receipt of visitors advises them appropriately on their next move. The front offices can possibly be offered in a single office but it is advisable that each of the institutions hires its own officer to offer its services. These two can possibly share the same office space provided that their visitors and clients will be effectively advised by the receptionist. For more complicated managerial services, the front officers advise the visitors and the clients on the location of the administrative offices that should sit safely within the respective compounds of these institutions (Florian & Tony, 2012). A collage is a business institution that offers strange services with strange requirements. The space allocated for the collage must thus be adequate and effectively managed. A collage requires a library, the lecture hall, dormitories if possible but this service is not mandatory and more importantly a playing ground. The spec allocated must be big enough to offer these and create an environment conducive enough for the studies to take place. Most collages rule out the provision of a playing ground, this is not advisable as physical development is part of the development that one should acquire while at institutions of higher learning. Collages that offer boarding facilities have no alternative but ton offer their students with a recreational facility, which in most cases is the playing ground. The library is the most important facility in an institution of higher learning. Despite the small number of students and the possibly small size of space, the institution must ensure that it develops a library that is capable of housing at least three quarters of its students in one go. Since the collage is developing and its future still is uncertain, it is advisable that the institution puts up a library that is fairly big with the capacity to sit about a thousand students. This will, apart from act as a center of academics, also double up as a type of self advertisement technique. The library among other important facilities are highly regharde4d by prospective students. The library should be located in a very quite part of the space, this is the center of all the academic services offered in the institution. It must be a serene environment, one that is highly convenient for the learning activities to be successes. It position must therefore be a way from any source of noise, these may include roads and busy streets in case of a town set up and a way from the play ground as well. The second most important facility at an academic institution are classrooms or lecture halls. These are where the actual learning takes place. The lecture halls should be designed in a manner that every student is places close enough to the teacher and is quite enough to allow for a peaceful learning experience. However, the halls are not used at all the times as is the case with the library, they can thus be placed in not so quite places provided that the time they are in use, no student is inconvenienced. The hostel or residential flats as they are commonly referred to are not compulsory. This is a decision made by the management. In case they are to be constructed, they must be made conveniently to allow for ease of access to all students including the disabled. Once the boarding facility is constructed, the security of the institution must be boosted. Unlike in the past when only learning materials could be stolen, the new situations provides for possible loss of lives of the students who coincidentally sum up as the clients. The facility must therefore ensure that the security personnel are added and the facility becomes more secure. The playing ground is one facility that can possibly be shared between the two institutions. It is not much of a hustle to accommodate additional thousand or so students into a pitch of football. Not all the students will be interested in using the facility at the same time. Besides, the inclusion of the new users only makes the facilities more productive as the schools engage in competitions. Problems encountered in room allocation Rooms and boarding facilities are some of the most sought after services in an institution of higher learning. As stated above, each of the rooms in an institution of higher learning has its own special consideration. Some of the factors run onto each other and this make the actual allocation of the rooms difficult. The new collage requires lecture halls capable of handling an approximately one thousand students undertaking three units in every single hour of the day. Furthermore, the collage requires s a library that as earlier explained must be placed in a quite and conducive environment. The location of the rooms must above all be consolidated if the collage is to run smoothly, however, the rooms that the university is letting out to the collage have scattered placement a factor that do not take the considerations of the collage seriously. Besides the size of the rooms were not adequate for the needs that the university was to employ them for. Health safety and environmental issues The health and safety of the students while at the premises of the two institutions is of utmost importance. Calamities strike and when they do, effective mechanism must be in place to ensure that they are contained and that no loss of life results. Fire outbreaks are normal especially in areas where a lot of electronics are. The presence of bedding facilities thus heightens the risk that the facility may put the students incase of such unwarranted occurrences. The rooms must be spacious to allow for easier evacuation, the windows must be made big enough to allow the free passage of students should they been trapped. Besides these provisions, the facility must have fire fighting equipments placed at strategic locations within the institutions. This allows for easy fire fighting which may eventually contain smaller fires thus preventing the, from spreading (Elizabeth & Michelle, 2008) Environmental issues also become rampant once people have began to converge in a single place. Students are notorious for playing loud music either in their cars or in their hostels. These may inconvenience the community around the institution. The two schools must therefore come up with fool proof plans of ensuring that no unnecessary sound is produced. This may be hard to observe but with effective policies such as the banning of playing of music in the cars once within the school compound may greatly succeed in achieving noiseless environment one, which is very conducive for learning and related activities. Other environmental pollution factors such as rubbish littering the compound may be curtailed through effective policies besides hiring the services of a dedicated compound-cleaning firm. Some colleges across the expanse of the United States of America have policies that ban stepping on grass. These institutions are thus clean and evergreen (Karen and Ricardo, 2012). Ethics and management Ethics simply refers to responsive behavior. Once in a place habited by people of diverse backgrounds it becomes mandatory that people drop some of the practices that ma either belittle others or show signs of disrespect. Knocking a closed door before budging in is a way of showing respect to the office holders however low the offices may seem. Utterances that may demean others in the facility must be abolished, the students and the entire fraternity made to appreciate others. Racial discrimination is one symptom of a poor ethically inclined society, one that is not condoned in this age and time. Every student, member of both the teaching and non-teaching staff must learn to appreciate and accept others as they are. All that is of essence is the service they render and not their skin color or ethnic affiliation (Jonathan, 2005). It is a natural occurrence for people to drag their entire personality to wherever they go. Some of these traits may not at all be admirable, for the employed staff, their conducts are guided by the strict code of conducts which provides a way of punishing one should he or she break any of the codes. The students on the other hand will be made to behave appropriately through a set of effective policies (Bowers, 2009). References Bowers. J, 2009, A Practical approach to Employment Law, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Elizabeth, B & Michelle, C, 2008, Definition of Social environment, New York, Mc GrawHill. Florian, R & Tony B, 2012, Mind mapping for dummies, New York, John Wiley and sons. Jiaming, Y, 2008, Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design, Melbourne, Springer. Jonathan, K,2005, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, New York, crown. Karen, M. and Ricardo, P, 2012,. Environmental and Energy Law, London, John Wiley & Sons. Painter, R. et all., 2012, Cases and Materials on Employment law, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Richard, B, 2003, Vocational business training, developing and motivating peope,. New York: McGraw-Hill. Read More