At Vision Pro Software, we understand that facilities management, or FM, is not just a broad field encompassing a range of potential activities – it is also a critically important one.
If your organisation owns or operates buildings or structures in the UK, you cannot underestimate the importance of proactive and vigilant FM practices, which greatly help keep a particular environment safe, functional, and comfortable.
Of all the different aspects of FM that are important, none can be considered more important than compliance. Below, then, we will explain how you can assemble a checklist that will assist your organisation in achieving and maintaining FM compliance.
Why is a facilities compliance checklist essential?
No organisation – whatever its size or sector – can afford to treat facilities management compliance as a “one-off” event.
FM compliance is necessarily a continuous obligation, reflecting the importance of constant attention and maintenance for buildings and structures. Failure to keep up with proper facilities management risks your organisation’s premises becoming unsafe, inefficient, and uncomfortable for anyone and everyone who needs to use them.
It will be crucial, then, for your organisation to adopt a structured approach to facilities compliance management. This can be especially true for larger entities that have multiple and/or complex compliance requirements, such as estates, property portfolios, and public-sector facilities like those of the NHS, universities, and academies.
Facilities management compliance is, of course, a legal obligation relating to a variety of regulations in the UK. These encompass the likes of The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, The Building Regulations 2010, and The Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Other examples of legal and regulatory requirements and guidelines in the UK that necessitate compliance tracking include:
- The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (FSO), which applies to all workplaces and the common parts of buildings containing multiple domestic premises.
- The Health and Safety Executive (HSE)’s Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) and guidance document addressing the control of legionella bacteria in water systems, under the L8 series code.
- The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 (CAR 2012), and associated texts such as the HSE’s ACOP and guidance publication, Managing and working with asbestos, under the L143 series code.
If your organisation fails to comply with relevant regulations and guidelines, this could bring operational risks, such as decreased productivity, heightened employee absenteeism, and a greater likelihood of accidents and injury for those using your premises. It could also mean your organisation being hit with legal penalties and damage to its reputation.
So, you can probably begin to see why having an easy-to-refer-to facilities management compliance checklist can help bring a range of benefits to your organisation.
What key areas should your compliance checklist cover?
In light of all the above, here are the areas of fundamental importance you should be looking to address in any facilities management compliance checklist you put together for your organisation:
- Fire safety compliance encompasses such elements as fire risk assessments, fire alarms, emergency lighting, extinguishers, and evacuation drills.
- Water hygiene and legionella management, including risk assessments, temperature monitoring, and system disinfection.
- Asbestos management, in which surveys, risk assessments, and effective maintenance protocols will need to be covered.
- Asset management and compliance, encompassing HVAC systems, electrical testing, lift servicing, and gas safety checks.
- General health and safety audits, such as workplace safety inspections, Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH), and accessibility compliance audits.
How do you identify compliance gaps in your current processes?
It is one thing to appreciate the general importance of facilities management compliance, and quite another matter to know what your organisation’s present compliance posture is.
It is imperative that your organisation evaluates its current FM compliance policies, procedures, and practices against relevant regulations and standards – a process known as a “compliance gap analysis”. This will help ensure you are well-informed on how effectively your organisation adheres to national, global, and industry-specific legal requirements and guidelines.
Where certain gaps in policies, procedures, communication, and training do become apparent – making clear potential risk areas within your organisation – you will be able to take targeted action to ensure your organisation’s sustained compliance.
The following steps, then, will be key to your organisation’s efforts to pinpoint compliance gaps in its current processes:
- Carrying out an internal audit to assess existing compliance performance.
- Identifying recurring compliance failures, overdue maintenance, and missing records.
- Using risk assessment frameworks to prioritise areas posing the greatest risk.
What are the steps to creating a facilities compliance checklist?
The aforementioned compliance gap analysis process, once completed, should leave you well-placed to begin assembling the facility compliance checklist itself.
The following are the steps you can expect to take:
- Step 1: define your organisation’s compliance requirements, in accordance with the UK regulations and industry standards to which you are subject.
- Step 2: identify all assets and facilities within your organisation for which compliance oversight is needed.
- Step 3: assign responsibilities for each compliance area to personnel within your organisation.
- Step 4: put in place a schedule for FM compliance inspections, reporting, and corrective actions.
- Step 5: implement documentation and audit trails to help ensure strong accountability for FM compliance responsibilities within your organisation.
- Step 6: review and update your organisation’s FM compliance checklist on a regular basis, and make adjustments to reflect changing regulations and operational needs.
How can you ensure compliance tasks are completed on time?
One of the common ways in which an organisation can sometimes fall out of compliance is through missing vital compliance tasks or completing them late.
Here, then, are some steps you can take to ensure your organisation practises the highest standards of timeliness when it comes to compliance:
- Introduce automated compliance tracking and scheduled reminders, as leading FM software platforms like Vision Pro Software can enable you to do.
- Assign accountability and ensure role-based access to compliance checklists. Vision Pro Software allows for the easy implementation of such role-specific access, which helps simplify onboarding and improve data security.
- Leverage real-time monitoring and audit logs to track your progress with compliance tasks. Again, Vision Pro Software can be instrumental in achieving this, thanks to the convenient “live” overview it can give of the present compliance situation at your organisation.
What are the challenges of using manual compliance checklists?
When it comes to facilities management compliance – as, indeed, is the case across various aspects of organisations’ operations – it can be easy to default to an attitude of “this is how we do it, because this is the way we have always done it.”
However, persisting with a manual approach to FM compliance in the 2020s can be fraught with risks. It can present such challenges as:
- A high likelihood of human error, missing records, and inconsistent reporting.
- Difficulty in tracking compliance across multiple locations or large property portfolios.
- Inefficiency in responding to audits and investigations by regulators.
How can compliance software like Vision Pro Software improve your checklist management?
There has arguably never been a time when it makes so much sense for an organisation to invest in a comprehensive compliance software solution like Vision Pro Software.
Even once you have got a well-optimised FM compliance checklist in place for your organisation’s personnel to follow, here are some ways in which Vision Pro Software or a similar platform can help your team manage that checklist:
- The cloud-based, secure nature of such software makes it easy to access and use for all authorised stakeholders
It has become a “standard” approach for compliance platforms like ours to tap into the wealth of benefits offered by the cloud.
You can depend on Vision Pro Software, to give your employees convenient, centralised, and real-time access to your organisation’s compliance records across all locations. All the while, our platform can also be counted on to guard against the risk of unauthorised access.
- It allows for automated task scheduling
When there is less need for constant manual intervention by your team members, there is less scope for human error. This helps ensure no compliance task gets missed or is done late.
- Vision Pro Software comprises modules covering various specific areas of compliance
Your organisation adopting Vision Pro Software means its fire risk, legionella, asbestos, asset tracking, and audit requirements can be covered in a single platform.
- It lends itself to collaboration and role-based access
Today’s leading FM compliance software solutions are designed to make it simple and intuitive for a variety of stakeholders to access and use the system – and to work together. For example, teams are able to use Vision Pro Software to update, review, and manage compliance tasks efficiently.
- Vision Pro Software is cost-effective and scalable
An organisation’s needs are liable to change over time, potentially necessitating its use of a software platform like Vision Pro Software to be expanded or otherwise adjusted at short notice.
Our own platform is tailored to the needs of organisations managing multiple estates, such as NHS trusts and universities.
How do you get started with a digital compliance checklist?
So, if you feel that now is the time for your organisation to put together an FM compliance checklist using a digital system such as Vision Pro Software, what should you be looking to do first?
Taking the following steps will enable you to soon modernise your approach to compliance and put together a suitable checklist:
- Assess your organisation’s present compliance challenges and requirements, including through the aforementioned “compliance gap analysis”.
- Book a demo of Vision Pro Software to explore this highly regarded platform’s automation and data centralisation capabilities.
- The transition from manual processes to a digital, cloud-based compliance solution.
- Train your team members in how to effectively use your new system, and establish ongoing review processes to support continuous improvement at your organisation.
What are the long-term benefits of a digitally managed compliance checklist?
Drawing upon to-the-minute digital technology to help manage your organisation’s facilities management checklist can bring a variety of advantages.
Not only can the digital management of your FM compliance checklist – with help from Vision Pro Software – help enhance your organisation’s regulatory compliance and minimise its risk exposure, but it can also make possible increased operational efficiency and time savings.
Furthermore, a digitally managed FM compliance checklist can bring your organisation the benefit of greater transparency and confidence in audit readiness. In addition, it can help improve your organisation’s decision-making, thanks to the easy access a solution like Vision Pro Software provides to insightful real-time compliance data.
To learn more about what the adoption of Vision Pro Software could mean for your facilities management compliance efforts, and to arrange a demo, please feel free to enquire to our team.
