Facility managers will do more with less in 2024

The pivotal theme of The state of facilities management technology 2024, a new industry report from JLL Technologies, is that facility managers and their teams will be challenged to do more with less this year—more work orders, more reporting, more data, more compliance and risk, and more disruption from technology and possibly economic forces.

There will also be more and higher expectations as facilities management (FM) job roles and descriptions expand to include new software and technology skills.

And there will be less. Shrinking FM budgets, fewer facility managers, a shortage of qualified FM labor, less hiring, and tighter margins for service providers will all impact productivity.

FM software automation coupled with innovative technologies will be the solution for capturing gains in efficiency to compensate for understaffing. The ongoing mass retirement of aging facility managers, along with hiring freezes and budget constraints, will prevent full staffing through the end of this decade.

Automation exists right now to accelerate 80% of FM workflows from request assignment and dispatch through execution and invoice submission review, approval, and payment. Automation makes quick work of setting not-to-exceed (NTE) limits and scheduling preventive maintenance (PM), reporting, warranty flagging, and more.

In 2024, facility managers must exploit the power of FM software and related technologies to accelerate work order completion, capture time- and cost-savings, ensure compliance, and raise team performance.

The several hundred respondents to the FM industry survey informing the report didn’t hold back about challenges and opportunities related to FM software, technology, and best-practices in 2024. Here are some notable responses:

• 55.7% of respondents expect work order volumes to increase in 2024 compared to 2023




• That will challenge 42.6% of respondents who report their FM teams to be understaffed




• Understaffed FM teams may not find relief anytime soon with 64.8% of respondents citing hiring freezes and budget constraints as major obstacles preventing full employment




• When asked which FM software areas teams would prioritize this year, the runaway top response was “More proactive work order management” (i.e., faster response times, compliance with SLAs, more first-time fix, etc.)




• The most common types of reactive work orders in descending order were: HVAC, plumbing, janitorial, and electrical.




• Preventive maintenance (PM) takes on new importance in 2024 as shrinking FM budgets require equipment to remain in service longer




• Automating PM is the number one expected outcome of asset management software.

Nearly 75% of the survey respondents had the word “facility” or “facilities” in their job titles. Other respondents came from adjacent industries to facilities management, like property management and commercial real estate. Respondents were primarily from North America—with some representation from EMEA and APAC—and worked in varied industries, including technology, education, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, and retail.