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How Facility Managers Can Influence Employees, Vendors & Contractors and Improve Performance

Guest post by: Tony Kubica & Sara LaForest

Article Overview: Learn how to influence without authority... positively impact the morale of your employees or tenants of the facility and have a positive impact on your vendors, subcontractors and others who provide services to your facility.

How Facility Managers Can Influence Employees, Vendors & Contractors and Improve Performance

Facility Managers have a difficult job. They are in a profession that has a lot of responsibility and very little direct authority. While they may have some employees, their constituents represent: tenants, employees of the facility, vendors, general contractors, architects and subcontractors.

So how do you make things happen and achieve positive results?

You have to learn how to effectively influence others.Sure you can threaten vendors, contractors, subcontractors and architects with no further business if they don't do what you ask. That can work, but you are kidding yourself if you believe that approach will result in their best effort. It won't.

The intangibles of doing that "little extra" and that "attention to detail" will rapidly disappear. You get exactly what you contracted for and you can never address the intangibles in the contract because they simply won't care anymore.

Or, you can learn how to influence without authority. If you are looking for best performance and service that wow's your tenants or the facilities employees - read on.

As you delve deeper within this article, you will soon realize that you can motivate others to higher levels of performance You can positively impact the morale of your employees or tenants of the facility and have a positive impact on your vendors, subcontractors and others who provide services to your facility. The result - you get more work done and a higher level of cooperation.

Influencing without Positional Authority Strategy #1:

Build Positive Relationships

We estimate that more than 80% of the time we spend as coaches to high-performance facility managers and leaders - is spent on helping them manage the transition and work their way through performance issues with others.

You will fast-track and gain altitude in your career as a facility manager when you learn and practice the keys to building strong, effective interpersonal relationships with others. And, it starts with recognizing that nothing happens until a relationship is developed.

Building a relationship includes:

. Having the other person's best interest in mind - win-win verses win-lose

. Understanding and respecting the other person's work style and key needs/expectations

. Understanding and respecting personality differences

. Finding areas of mutual interest

. Using exchange principles to enhance the relationship

Influencing without Positional Authority Strategy #2:

Honor the Law of Reciprocation

The law of reciprocation involves a mutual value for value exchange. To effectively engage in the law of reciprocation, you must identify what the recipient values - whether the other person is your employee, an employee or tenant in the facility, or a contractor.

For example you can offer employees and tenants:

. Funding for projects, additional personnel, space

. Organizational support

. Your own personal support by being readily available when an employee or tenant is stressed, vulnerable or perhaps just needs someone listen to them

. Reliability -- Doing what you say when you say you will do it

. Your acknowledgement

. Vision -- Identifying the future direction, portraying excitement and confidence in the future, and in the outcome of the project

. Rapid response -- This is self-explanatory

. Recognition -It can be an award, a new project assignment or praise at a public meeting

You can offer vendors and subcontractors:

. Information - Competitive intelligence, industry trends, upcoming changes

. Gratitude by thanking them with testimonials

. Your recommendation - The best way you can motivate your vendors and subcontractors is to let them know if they meet or exceed your expectations you will be more than happy to refer them to others.

. Bonuses when they meet certain milestones or criteria

No matter what you offer, it must be meaningful to the recipient. Just because we think we are providing something of value does not mean the recipient agrees with us. To determine what is meaningful, we need to understand issues such as:

. What do they need to succeed?

. How are they measured on their performance?

. How are they rewarded? And what is their greatest reward?

. Career objectives

. Their key concerns (or fears if they will share it with you)

. Key expectations (of their boss, peers, subordinates, their constituents)

. Recognition / Privacy. Preferences of the individual and considering the culture of the organization

. Interests outside the organization

This means you must first build a relationship with your employees, employees or tenants of the facility and those who work for your facility!

Influencing without Positional Authority Strategy #3:

Participate in Healthy Conflict

It's possible that as you work to influence others without positional authority, that conflict will arise. Employees, employees and tenants of the facility and contractors will push back, argue, and disagree.

Let's face it, some people like to argue, negotiate and play devils advocate. In other words "they love a good fight".

So, facility managers, please take note: Conflict is NOT bad or wrong. Engaged in the right way, conflict is good. In fact, it's not only good, it's essential for facility growth and development. "Healthy conflict", that is vibrant and candid leads to:

. Expanding ideas and perspectives

. Identifying more options

. Better decisions

. Inclusion (individual value and contribution) rather than reinforcing exclusion and a natural futility when not being heard

So learn how to appreciate and participate in healthy conflict.

Remember, being a successful facility manager requires more that the hard skills we learn in school. Success also requires that we recognize and master the intangibles of successful management. And the most powerful intangible that is extremely important to master is the ability to influence others without authority. It will provide you with leverage and enable you to garner more support than you would ever achieve on your own or through positional authority alone.

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  Now You Can Be A More Motivational Manager
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  How Managers Undermine Employee Performance
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  Performance Appraisals: Critical Conversations
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  Coaching the Sales Person

Article Tags: Authority, Conflict, law of reciprocation, morale, motivate, Relationships



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Re: Template of Service Agreement/Contractor Agreement - Shimmy- I, too, would be happy to share my template contract for a service provider. But beware, a template agreement may not be sufficient to properly address your needs. Some key differences between Employees and Service Providers: 1. Tax Status. Employers are responsible for withholding tax on employee's earnings. Independent Contractors are responsible for reporting their income/taxes. There is a significant reporting burden and liability associated with this. 2. Confidentiality/Intellectual Property. Often times, employee handbooks will specify an employees confidentiality obligations and many states impute a duty of loyalty. Contractors are under no such obligations absent a written agreement. Same thing for IP/Creative works. The copyright Act draws a sharp and significant distinction between employees and contractors when it comes to ownership of creative works. 3. Liability for tortious acts. Generally an employer is liable for the tortious acts of its employees under the theory of respondeat superior. An entity hiring a contractor may/may not be liable, but without a written agreement for the contractor to indemnify/defend the hiring entity, their may be little recourse against the contractor. There are many other subtle differences too numerous to mention. I hope you find this helpful.
Re: Template of Service Agreement/Contractor Agreement - [quote="Dave_Adler":21fe7egl]Shimmy- I, too, would be happy to share my template contract for a service provider. But beware, a template agreement may not be sufficient to properly address your needs. Some key differences between Employees and Service Providers: 1. Tax Status. Employers are responsible for withholding tax on employee's earnings. Independent Contractors are responsible for reporting their income/taxes. There is a significant reporting burden and liability associated with this. 2. Confidentiality/Intellectual Property. Often times, employee handbooks will specify an employees confidentiality obligations and many states impute a duty of loyalty. Contractors are under no such obligations absent a written agreement. Same thing for IP/Creative works. The copyright Act draws a sharp and significant distinction between employees and contractors when it comes to ownership of creative works. 3. Liability for tortious acts. Generally an employer is liable for the tortious acts of its employees under the theory of respondeat superior. An entity hiring a contractor may/may not be liable, but without a written agreement for the contractor to indemnify/defend the hiring entity, their may be little recourse against the contractor. There are many other subtle differences too numerous to mention. I hope you find this helpful.[/quote:21fe7egl] I was thinking these same points as I was reading the earlier posts. I've been working with independent contractors for years - first as one, and then hiring many of others. These are three of the key things to be sure you include in your agreement. If they are truly an independent contractor, they are reasonable to handle their own taxes. I always include a confidentiality clause and very few have tried to break it. Liability can be a huge issue, depending on the sort of business you are in. In the US - there are all sorts of tax rules for state and federal government to distinguish if a person is or is not an independent contractor. If you make the wrong choice there are all kinds of penalties to be paid. Another thing that should be considered is that your business worker's compensation and/or liability insurance may have to cover these people. I know in construction, I'm charged for any independent contractor and their employees if they don't have their own insurance. That can get really pricey. If you're in a similar situation, talk with your insurance company, some will allow an independent contractor to sign an agreement that they will waive your responsibility to insure them. You would still need to pay for their employees, but it does save some money during an insurance audit. Chris
Re: QUESTION: What was the last book you read? Would you recomme - Right now I'm reading [i:3d7bb3lw]How to Win Friends and Influence People[/i:3d7bb3lw] by Dale Carnegie. I'm not finished yet but I can already say that I highly recommend it!
Re: Ways to Boost Productivity - 1. Give Employees More Than a Paycheck 2. Provide Better eSupport Channels to Promote Self-Service 3. Complete your most dreaded tasks first thing in the morning. 4. Outsource as much as possible 5. . Turn off the TV.
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