GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITIES
FOR FACILITIES MANAGERS
Any facilities management (FM) professional is acutely aware
that juggling legal requirements, updates, compliance, site
visits, audits and workplace culture is an enormous challenge,
says Teresa Higgins Brand Director – Barbour EHS
FMs now have the added complication of navigating complex
local laws when operating on international sites. Where they
could once rely on their knowledge of UK best practice, many
organisations now find they’re being asked to understand how
local legislation differs from British Legislation.
Any company that wants to achieve Global certification to
45001 needs to demonstrate it has evaluated its compliance
with local laws and taken further actions where necessary.
And as countries can potentially have different standards,
this can present huge difficulties – something as simple as
occupancy space, hand rail height, who inspects and enforces
can be entirely different in two neighbouring countries.
Sometimes, finding information is just a Google search away,
but it is correct? how up to date is it? Other times, up-to-date
information isn’t available online in English, making it too much
of a risk to rely on potentially misleading English translations.
All this means it can be far too unreliable and time-consuming
to source the information you need to remain compliant across
borders – and that’s where Barbour steps in.
Making life easier for FMs working abroad
First, based on a list of the countries our clients’ search for most,
we wrote a series of country guides outlining each nation’s legal
system and how laws are enforced and inspected, linking to key
pieces of legislation. For those documents we were unable to
source in English, we have produced an English summary
Next, we added word tagging, which would link local
terminology to the equivalent English expression. For instance,
if a user searched for ‘fire marshal’, it would find legislation
relating to the relevant local name if it differed from English,
ensuring the user wouldn’t miss any important information.
Finally, we added a bookmarking tool, letting users highlight
and save important documents so they can easily refer to them
in the future and share them with their team. Furthermore, to
make sure users are kept constantly updated Barbour will send
out email reminders whenever a saved document has been
amended.
Concise answers to key questions
We’ve worked closely with FMs and discovered there are
common topics professionals need information on regularly.
To help get to the right answer quickly, we have created a ‘quick
facts’ section, which give short, factual easy to read information
about essential regulations and legislation.
This has already been well received, and we are aiming to
create an online matrix of these quick facts covering hot topics
from more and more countries. This will separate legislation by
topic and country, making it easy to access and navigate.
Meeting international challenges
Barbour is here to help global FMs meet new international
challenges. With Brexit potentially set to create huge changes
to the UK regulatory landscape, FMs are likely to face more and
more difficulties in the near future.
For us, the most important thing is to keep talking to FMs to
discover how their roles are changing, and what we need to do
to ensure our service meets those needs in the most effective
way. The information we have already added is sure to help
more FMs access the critical information they need to thrive.
Stand No: SH1210
FACILITIES SHOW DAILY JUNE 2019 3
INDEPENDENT THINKING
Workplace wellbeing and smart buildings are integral themes for the
2019 Facilities Show. But having access to reliable and verifiable
data is essential to be able to demonstrate the health of your premises
and workforce wellbeing initiatives, as well as how clever your building
really is.
For over 30 years, Assurity Consulting has been a source of truly
independent, accredited and multi award winning workplace compliance
advice. Our service specialises in operational buildings and developing
mutually beneficial long-term relationships with our customers. Over the
period of the Facilities Show, history tells us as that many of our customers
will invest time to visit our stand, and we will meet new people and industry
contacts, so the event always is an important date in the diary for us.
Taking the theme of workplace wellbeing and the indoor environment as
an example - for indoor air quality (IAQ), occupancy comfort, water quality
and hygiene standards we provide a means of monitoring and collecting data
to demonstrate their effectiveness. Covering everything from ventilation,
lighting, cleanliness and temperature to dust, bacteria, gases, airflow,
noise and chemicals, we provide quality assured performance information.
These assessments can be targeted to regulatory compliance, initiative
verification (i.e. supporting a sustainability or other business objective) or be a
combination of both. All are tailored to the building and customer needs.
Our customer base covers large commercial organisations, property
management companies, independent schools, universities and the charity
sector - be it a single site owner occupier, FRI, tenant or a multi-sited,
multinational portfolio.
All the services you receive from us are underpinned by an industry
leading suit of accreditations and assurances. From ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and
OHSAS 18001 (transition in progress) through UKAS 17020 and 17025, to
our Primary Authority partnerships. Be it our site testing/monitoring work,
inspection programmes or the analysis of samples in our own laboratory, all is
encompassed on your behalf by the relevant standards.
This is a reason why in our annual customer satisfaction survey for 2019, 98%
of responders indicated they would recommend our services to others.
In total we offer you a service that is becoming increasingly more rare - a
wholly independent and accredited partnership solution for your workplace
compliance, free from vested interest.
So, from accessibility to zinc whiskers and whether compliance-based risk
assessment and management systems or more specific strategic reviews and
contractor audits, at Assurity Consulting we’ve been providing customers with
detailed performance information on their buildings for decades.
Throughout the exhibition, we will have several our Consultancy Services
team members happy to meet you, so come and visit us on stand FM4460 to see
how you could use our experience to support you. The chances are, if you have
a question, query or need some advice on the best course of action for your
workplace environment, we’ve got the answer.
Stand No: FM4460
FMJ.CO.UK FACILITIES SHOW DAILY