I am fortunate to work in a normal shift as a FM Engineer and working for the building owner. Tonight, I reflect on how I had progress over the years. There are still so many things that I have gained over the work through experience be it the soft or hard way.
As a FM Engineer, we are ready to sweat the hours out when we are call upon duty. This include emergency breakdown at odds hours or preventive maintenance shutdown after the office hours. You must be prepare to work in these odd hours to get the job done. Do not shun this out of office hours if you want to be a true facility management engineer.
You must be prepare to sacrifice your time outside your office hours. This does not occur frequently and thus you must be prepare to support your superiors. Those who does not take up this call of duty means there are not fully committed to the job yet.
Are you ready to accept message and calls after office hours and on weekends?
I was reading through an old email where someone send me this email on becoming a competent staff in Facility Management. Previously, I was a equipment engineer for 15 years before transiting to facility management (FM) engineer. An opportunity was given to me in late 2013 and I took a leap of faith. I have moved through the years in my aspiration to become a competent FM Engineer through the 4 stages below.
The first stage is being unconsciously incompetent. This is where the professional doesn’t know what they don’t know. They understand that they have a lot to learn, but they have no idea where to start.It is in this stage that you are completely worthless to the organization because you are not doing anything to improve.
The second stage is being consciously incompetent. Here the professional understands everything that they don’t know, but they don’t know how to do it.In the case of FM, you might have read a list of responsibilities but still have no clue about practical application at your facility.In this stage, you start to build value because you know what you need to learn and you actively study it.
From there, the professional will progress into the third stage of being consciously competent. Now, they understand both what is expected of them and can perform their new skills in a deliberate fashion. They will still need to reference resources, checklists, and training aids, but they can function at their jobs.
The final stage in the progression is unconscious competence. Here the professional has truly mastered their skill and can perform it without thinking about it as if it was a reflex. This is where you are truly valuable to the organization.In this stage, you are so proficient at the tasks that must get done, you can do them and focus on improving the organization and leading you department strategically at the same time.
I would like to take an opportunity to nurture the new staffs whom had joined. In fact, sharing with one and other will gain our knowledge further. There are still many other competent staffs than me out there but does not share due to many factors that you cannot list in a competitive world.
FM company are employing innovative technology to improve their work flow.
ISS had placed RFID tag in all the toilets at the NHG Woodlands Polyclinic. This must be one of the technology innovation to assist them in their processes.
PUB had recently contact me to modify the water efficiency plan for 2015 submission as they feel that some data was not correctly represented. They only give me 5 working days to modify when the submission was done in June 2015. PUB would have contact me earlier if they feel the submission was not accurate.
Water Efficiency Manager are now busy preparing for the WEMS Submission for 2016 right now as the deadline is 30 June 2016. Have you started your WEMS submission plan already?
An Engineer in the Day and Tech Cruncher at Night.
