Creativity from Crisis

By Kevin Hansen
Assistant VP of Facilities Management, Weber State University

Isn’t it amazing how fast the economic situation in our country has changed and the subsequent impact it is having on our institutions. The economic crisis is making it very challenging for us in the facilities management business, because all too often we are perceived as an easy target for budget cuts and personnel reductions.

We have experienced that at my University, but I guess I am a bit more optimistic than most. I look at the forced budget and personnel reductions as opportunities to make some cultural and paradigm shifts that would have been impossible without the impetus of the budget cuts we are experiencing. At our university, for example, the budget cuts forced us to carefully reevaluate what the mission is that we are there to accomplish in several different interest areas. Let me illustrate with a couple of short examples.

First is with our shuttle bus system. Before the budget cuts were imposed on us, our shuttle bus system was a fleet of six busses, four full time drivers, and operated as a transport device from a remote parking area to our main campus and as a convenience for students to get from one area of our main campus to another. But, when we carefully considered the mission, we were able to make some fundamental changes in the shuttle bus system. We determined that our real mission was just to transport students from a remote parking area about a mile from the center of our main campus and back. The mission did not include convenience travel around the main campus itself.

Our main campus is relatively small, and it is an easy 10 minute walk from any one point on our main campus to another. The shuttles were running on a perimeter road around the campus, so students would just jump on and ride rather than walk across the center of campus, even though we have very good sidewalks. With our reevaluation of mission, we are cutting the bus fleet and the number of drivers in half. We are cutting the overall budget by more than a third. And we are only providing point to point service from the remote parking area to a point as close to the center of our campus as we can get a bus. From that central point, students will have to walk.

Yes, we have encountered some complaints and grumbling, but that is where the budget cuts have worked to our advantage, because we could not have made such dramatic changes without the impetus of the budget driving the requirement.

The second example is in our custodial care. Before the dramatic and deep budget cuts were imposed, we were cleaning with a dedicated team in each major building. That meant a supervisor in each building, and duplicated equipment in each building. It also meant the building occupants knew our custodial crews and asked for “favors” from them that occasionally impeded the crews from being able to do their work. With the imposed budget cuts, we converted to a team cleaning concept where one crew now takes care of a cluster of buildings.

The number of supervisors has been decreased, the staff custodians are now specialists in a particular area, such as carpet care or hard floor care, and are trained and equipped to work much more efficiently as specialists. We have seen productivity go up, absenteeism go down, and better overall morale. We have also seen a nearly 15 percent reduction in staff requirements. That has allowed us to maintain our service and quality levels despite the budget cuts imposed upon us.

So what does all of this mean? As facilities professionals, we have the opportunity to demonstrate creativity, innovation and imaginative solutions in a variety of ways. We can be catalysts for needed changes that would not otherwise be possible. We can make our organizations more efficient, more capable, and more committed. By doing so, we can rise above the immediate challenges and make our organizations stronger, more effective and more efficient for the long term.

The key is trusting and taking care of our good people. We only need to unleash the creativity and imagination of our people to allow them to become problem solvers and innovators. They have many of the answers we need in these stressful times. The opportunity is there, it is up to us as managers to let their creativity and innovation flourish to help all of us. At our university, the custodial staff proposed and developed the cluster cleaning idea and developed it into a highly successful result.

To them goes all of the credit.

Editor's Note: Kevin wrote this while serving as the 2008/2009 RMA President. He presently serves as the Junior APPA Representative for our region.