Visibility, Control, and Compliance: Managing 35 Sites with Hobart City Mission

Key Metrics

• 172 Years of Service

• 4,500+ People Supported Annually

• 225 Employees

• 1880+ Work Orders Created to Date

• 35 Sites

• 109 Buildings

• 45+ Suppliers

• 90+ Users

Key Outcomes

• Compliance reporting transformed: Within months of go-live, 90% of compliance activities are now reportable through FMI Works - up from near zero - with 100% coverage on track by year-end.

• Contractor chaos eliminated: Standardised work orders and scheduling visibility have ended the cycle of missed site visits, access failures, and costly rescheduling.

• Contractor accreditation oversight: All contractor and staff accreditation data is now centralised, with expiry alerts ensuring no unqualified contractor accesses a vulnerable-person site.

• Operational visibility at scale: Reactive and planned maintenance, contractor KPI performance, and expenditure reporting are now accessible through a single, unified platform.

• A system that scales with growth: With a growing property portfolio, FMI Works provides the infrastructure to onboard new properties without losing oversight of existing assets and maintenance schedules.

About Hobart City Mission

Hobart City Mission (HCM) is one of Australia’s most enduring community organisations, established in 1852 as the first City Mission in the country and the third oldest Mission in the world.  

For 172 years, HCM has provided emotional, physical, and financial support to the most vulnerable people in Southern Tasmania - including crisis accommodation, disability services, and social housing - supported by a dedicated team of 225 staff and the generosity of volunteers and donors.

Learn more at hobartcitymission.org.au.

The Challenge

Hobart City Mission manages a diverse and growing property portfolio - spanning offices, disability group homes, retail premises, and social housing - each with its own maintenance and compliance obligations. As cost-of-living pressures drove a surge in demand for HCM’s services, the strain on facilities management became increasingly difficult to absorb. Without a dedicated FM system, maintenance data was scattered across spreadsheets saved in disparate locations, reporting was laborious, and there was no consistent method for issuing work orders to contractors - creating confusion and eroding accountability on both sides.

The consequences were felt operationally in ways that wasted precious resource. Contractors would arrive at properties to carry out scheduled maintenance, only to find no one was aware they were coming - meaning access couldn’t be provided and the work couldn’t proceed. The subsequent cycle of rescheduling was time-consuming and frustrating for everyone involved. For a not-for-profit organisation wholly committed to directing resources toward community impact rather than administrative overhead, this level of inefficiency was simply unsustainable.

“Contractor scheduling was a huge problem for us - contractors would show up to carry out maintenance at our properties, but no-one knew they were coming, so the maintenance couldn’t be carried out due to lack of access. We would have to try to reschedule and start that whole process again. It was time consuming and frustrating for everyone involved.”
- Nadia Zeini, Facilities Manager, Hobart City Mission

The Solution

Hobart City Mission engaged FMI Works in early 2023, with a clear set of priorities: improve visibility over planned and reactive maintenance, standardise contractor communication, and build the reporting capability needed to demonstrate compliance. Onboarding was swift, and the platform was configured to reflect HCM’s specific operational requirements - including tailored work order templates and contractor KPI benchmarks aligned to service agreements.

Adoption across the team was strong from the outset, aided by FMI Works’ accessibility through HCM’s existing intranet infrastructure and the quality of the support provided during implementation. For a not-for-profit organisation with lean internal resources, the responsiveness of the FMI Works support team proved particularly valuable during the early stages of the platform’s rollout.

“There’s always a few teething issues, but the support has been amazing - they jump on questions or issues straight away. The team is so responsive and helpful.”
- Nadia Zeini, Facilities Manager, Hobart City Mission

The Impact

From scattered data to a single source of truth

The shift from spreadsheets to FMI Works has fundamentally changed how Hobart City Mission manages maintenance information. Work orders are now issued consistently and immediately upon request, giving everyday contractors - electricians, plumbers, handypeople - clear instructions from the moment a maintenance need is raised. KPIs and benchmarks are embedded into work orders and service agreements, and FMI Works’ reporting capability makes it straightforward to evaluate contractor performance against those standards over time.

“For our everyday contractors, like our electricians, handymen, plumbers - the system is working really well. They get sent a work order as soon as a maintenance request comes in, and can jump on them straight away. We’ve set benchmarks and KPIs for them, and FMI helps us evaluate how well they align to those by enabling us to run reports.”
- Nadia Zeini, Facilities Manager, Hobart City Mission

Compliance and accreditation: no longer left to chance

For an organisation working with some of Tasmania’s most vulnerable people, contractor accreditation is not an administrative formality - it is a safeguarding imperative. Tightened child safety regulations in Tasmania have increased the compliance burden significantly, and FMI Works has become the platform through which HCM manages this responsibility. All contractor and staff accreditation data is now held centrally, with expiry notifications ensuring that no contractor accesses an HCM site without current, verified credentials. Meanwhile, compliance reporting coverage has jumped to 90% in the months since go-live - with full coverage expected before year-end.

“We’re building the data in FMI with all our contractors and their staff so we can easily see when accreditations are expiring and give them a heads up. We work with really vulnerable people, so it is absolutely imperative that our contractors have the appropriate accreditations before they set foot on any of our sites.”
- Nadia Zeini, Facilities Manager, Hobart City Mission