Improving FM Maturity in Aged Care

About the client

This client is a prominent figure within the landscape of aged care facilities in Australia, known for their excellence and diversity of care.

This outstanding reputation has allowed this client to expand considerably over the last few years. As their business expanded, this client-first organisation was searching for ways to ensure their high standards were scalable.

In 2021, the provider undertook significant upgrades to their retirement communities’ facilities. In undertaking a project of this magnitude, they began looking at ways to improve efficiency in management of their facilities.

The challenge

The client needed their workforce to log work requests directly into the facilities management platform. In doing this, they hoped to unlock efficiencies by reducing the number of requests coming in through phone and email, that then had to be logged by the facilities team.

While their workforce are experts in providing care, historically they had encountered some difficulties with the adoption of new technologies. Additionally, operating in culturally diverse regions of Australia, several staff work with English as a second language.

The existing software wasn’t particularly intuitive, which exacerbated these challenges and made it difficult for staff to raise requests in the platform.

Most of the staff avoided using the system in favour of calling or emailing the facilities team to request work.

This left the facilities team time poor, and unable to advance the maturity of their operations as they struggled to maintain the status quo.

The decision

To make the process of raising a request easier for staff, the client decided to search for a more intuitive platform. The goal was to find a modern solution to significantly improve user adoption.

A cloud-first organisation, the client is exceptionally security-conscious, and needed a solution that could meet stringent requirements. Considerations around login procedures and hosting were important factors in their research.

The journey

Having worked with the FMI team previously, this client was quick to shortlist FMI Works in their search for a new platform. After signing on to migrate to FMI Works in late 2021, the client engaged with the FMI team to get a clearer picture of where they were, and where they wanted to be.

Working with our team of expert consultants, the client expressed their struggles with user adoption in the existing platform. Understanding the potential user challenges from a lack of technical understanding, the team worked quickly to make the transition as easy as possible.

“We knew that user adoption was an important goal for the client, and so we engaged with a range of users to put together a package of training and online videos to support their adoption of FMI” – Simona Riftin, Customer Success Manager

Training provided to core users and access to online help videos and articles equipped them with the confidence to onboard users quickly. Within a couple of weeks, they were set up to receive and action work orders.

The solution

Since migrating to FMI Works, this client has advanced their facilities management maturity, and is moving towards engaging in asset management.

While previously user adoption had proved to be a significant challenge, this client is now running with a “no log, no job” approach.

Users from across the business are able to use the system with ease. Hundreds of users are now actively using the system.

Previously, this client had been using their facilities management software purely as a ticketing system. It was used exclusively for dealing with reactive maintenance works, and requests frequently had to be revised by the facilities team.

The increase in user adoption has contributed to streamlining of internal processes for the client. Thanks to templated requests, when the facilities team receive requests, they contain all information necessary to action those requests.

A quick glance at the dashboard shows the facilities team all open jobs, with the ability to filter by building or site. By displaying this information in a visual format, information is made more accessible to all users.

The time the facilities team has saved by not having to follow up incomplete requests, or log requests submitted by phone or email has allowed them to move onto more strategic work.

Within six months of migrating to FMI Works, the team had started to develop a planned maintenance program. Previously, this wasn’t a viable option, as their entire focus was on keeping up with reactive maintenance requests.

The implementation of planned maintenance has supported this client during a period of expansion, providing a seamless experience for residents.