The current helpdesk paradigm is failing us.
There tends to be two levels of communication we engage in with the occupiers of our spaces: individual one-to-one or broadcast where we advise on more widespread problems. Managing a space is much more complex than that. Most problems affect more than one person but equally, we don't want to shout to everyone about every issue we are managing. This is where the current helpdesk paradigm fails us.
In the standard helpdesk model:
- a person reports a problem
- Facilities then deals with the issue
- At the end, Facilities advises the person their issue is resolved
The space is shared so why is the trouble ticket personal?
This is practical as long as the person has a personal office or some other space that's theirs alone, and the issue affects only that person. Unlikely. Issues are more likely to be in the hallway, in a multi-occupant office, in the tea room. When an issue affects one person, it's clear we should contact them directly; when the lift breaks, we broadcast a message to everyone. We need a solution for in between: when people share offices, when the issue affects everyone at one end of the building, when it's the ladies or gents...
Pull in those who've expressly involved themselves, and make affected people aware of what's happening.
The space is shared so why is the trouble ticket personal? Doesn't it make sense to change the paradigm? Not that you want to expose every trouble ticket – that would just be noise with very little signal. Share the right information with the affected people and not by filling their inboxes but by making them users of the same FM software you use. Issues related to them are highlighted so they are aware but not actively contacted about every little thing. Look at Twitter -- you get notifications about activity that directly involves you, but your feed is there so you can see what interests you. This is what a facilities helpdesk should be like -- pull in those who've expressly involved themselves, and make affected people aware of what's happening.
This means you can move from communicating one-to-one to publishing the right information secure that the right people will be notified. By making things visible, you also get access to more knowledge before you even start the job. Which, in turn, helps you chose the right person and set of tools for the job, increasing the rate things are fixed on the first visit.