You have a maintenance team for your commercial facility. They may be responsible for everything from electrical, plumbing, keeping the floors clean, repairing windows, responding to tenant calls, and much more.
They have a lot of responsibilities every single day. Just like a professional team, regardless of the sport, that maintenance team of years needs a good coach. No, it needs a great coach. So, how can you be a great coach for your maintenance team?
Be hands-on.
Let your maintenance personnel see you from time to time. You don’t have to get down and visit with them every single day. However, if they don’t know who you are, wouldn’t recognize you if they walked past you on the street, that’s not good.
A team responds to a coach who is hands-on and personable. Take some time to get to know them. Find out what they like. Reward them accordingly.
Offer rewards, not discipline.
Tough coaches that love to punish their team members for poor performance don’t often get the kind of results they desire. They may win more often with that approach, but they won’t win championships very frequently.
Understand their job.
If you don’t have any experience with commercial floor maintenance or other aspects of your maintenance department responsibilities, it’s a good idea to become more familiar with them. Take a walk along. Ask questions, observe.
When they see you’re interested in what they do, they will respond better to you.
When you understand what they do, you will respond better to what they have requested with regard to new commercial floor cleaning equipment, vacation requests, or other factors that happen to be important to them as well.
Supervisors and commercial property managers do well when they understand the value of being a great coach to all team members, including their maintenance team.