Facilities Management KPIs: What Facility Managers Should Track

Creating and tracking a KPI facility management plan has always been one of the most important facility manager (FM) responsibilities. Good KPIs provide actionable insight into the workplace, improving both headcount planning and facility planning, while enhancing the office and the workplace experience.

With hybrid work, the office is becoming much more fluid and flexible—requiring more adaptable performance measurements to keep pace.

In this article, we explore a revised and updated KPI facility management plan to help optimize your organization’s hybrid workplace experience.

What does a KPI measure?

KPI stands for ‘key performance indicator’. These are specific measurements tracked and analyzed to understand how well an organization is meeting strategic goals.

KPIs are not simple, one-off metrics. For example, average space utilization is a metric, but tracking expected space usage versus actual usage, over time, by building or by floor, is a KPI that can help an FM make more informed decisions regarding their real estate portfolio.

KPIs are curated benchmarks that offer a better picture of organizational performance and point to areas of improvement.

What is KPI in facilities management?

Most departments in an organization have their own KPIs to monitor growth and success. Facility maintenance and management departments are no different. FMs should measure multiple metrics to gain insight into their workplace.

FMs need metrics to better understand complex issues, such as how employees are using space, average completion time for service requests and work orders, and whether energy consumption aligns with sustainability goals.

Employees are like an FM’s customers. To ensure satisfaction, FMs need to understand how well the facility meets employee needs. Whether it’s space planning, move management, improving space utilization, or revamping the office for a new work environment, the better FMs can track facility operations, the better they’ll serve their customers.

To do this, they need good workplace analytics provided by facility management software, such as a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) or an integrated workplace management system (IWMS).

In an increasingly complex hybrid workplace, FMs also need increasingly complex facility management KPIs that keep pace with new initiatives.

What are the 5 KPIs for facility management?

As we return to the office, we’re also returning to a new office—one that is increasingly flexible, human-centric, and hybrid. To keep up and stay cost-effective, FMs need a revised set of real estate and workplace KPIs.

This process isn’t about discarding traditional KPIs, but revamping them to gain better insight into both the hybrid workplace and the employee experience.

FMs should create a new, smart KPI facility management plan that covers the following five updated KPIs:

1. New facility management metrics for space utilization

Understanding space utilization is crucial for facility management, but improving it is not always easy. Maximizing space allocation keeps operating costs low, but should not come at the expense of employee needs.

With hybrid work schedules, FMs need to carefully choose and track the right KPIs to understand how facilities are being used in real time. Important KPIs include:

• ​Average space utilization on a daily or hourly basis
• ​Peak utilization
• ​Occupancy rates by floor

For offices using agile or activity-based working, it’s helpful to understand utilization for each area of the office. This data is best collected using software that pulls information from desk bookings and IoT sensors. With this data, FMs can make recommendations to enhance workplace strategy.

2. New facility management metrics for meeting rooms

Hybrid meetings can be challenging. As workers return to the office, many companies are reassessing their meeting room design to provide the right mix of collaborative spaces.

To ensure the right types of meeting spaces, FMs need new KPIs that track:

• ​Popularity of individual rooms
• ​Popularity of different room types

3. New facility management metrics for desk usage

Modern offices offer flexible seating options, which employees appreciate. However, it can be challenging if employees struggle to book or find desks, or if FMs can’t track desk usage.

FMs need accurate desk usage metrics to show how well the workspace serves its users. Important metrics include:

• ​Booking demand
• ​Seat popularity
• ​Desk utilization (daily, hourly, by desk type)

4. New facility management metrics for workplace requests

One of an FM’s main jobs is to ensure employees have what they need to do their jobs well. Optimizing workplace requests is critical, as prompt responses reduce maintenance costs and downtime.

FMs should track more than just average response time. They also need to understand:

• ​Where requests are coming from
• ​What type of requests are being fielded
• ​Whether employees feel their needs are being met

Employees need an intuitive system for submitting facilities requests. FMs benefit from tools that provide insight into maintenance operations and allow for better preventative maintenance. Creating an informal service level agreement (SLA) with employees can help ensure targets are met, but this requires tracking dedicated performance metrics.

5. New FM metrics for occupancy costs

Overestimating or underestimating corporate real estate needs is costly. FMs need new ways to track occupancy costs across their real estate portfolio.

Hybrid employees make this more complex, as they may not use assigned desks all the time. FMs need metrics to measure real occupancy costs, ideally as part of a software platform that can also track leases, normalize costs, and optimize space at scale.

The right KPIs create a better workspace

FMs have always needed to optimize the three basic elements of space management: space planning, implementation, and tracking. They must do this in line with company goals and budget, while ensuring employees have the tools they need to do their best work.

How FMs do this in a hybrid environment has changed dramatically, requiring complex new KPIs and the right software to track them. But the goal remains the same: to create a better workspace for everyone who uses it.