Building relationships for better maintenance

Effective management of building maintenance is a vital ingredient in ensuring a high quality built environment for any building's occupiers. However, maintenance is not high on the list of priorities for most organisations. Communication between top management personnel looking at maintenance issues from a strategic standpoint and maintenance staff considering them at an operational level is often not as good as it should be. When planning maintenance activities maintenance personnel often draw too heavily on their technical experience and expertise without taking sufficient account of wider organisational objectives or consulting effectively with top management. Senior managers also regularly complain about lack of managerial input from maintenance departments. Such barriers contribute to communication difficulties between top management at a strategic level and maintenance personnel at an operational level. Identifying where the key differences lie in senior managers' and maintenance personnel's viewpoints on maintenance strategy can prove invaluable in achieving some convergence of opinions and optimising the efficiency of the overall building maintenance process.