SLA as a relationship strengthening tool

Commonly, some participants who attended my "Facilities Management's Service Level Agreements" (FM-SLA) workshops have the thought that after completing the programme they can complete an Service Level Agreements for their facilities management services. That expectation reflects the common misconception about developing an FM-SLA by filling in the blanks into a template. By learning the knowledge and skills learnt from the workshop may accelerate the development of an FM-SLA as FMs may be pressured to implement it by a certain deadline which they have no control over.

Know that by rushing the planning, organising and development of an FM-SLA may cause the good intention and effort for establishing an FM-SLA to fail. The value intention for adopting an SLA is in the communication that takes place during the development of the SLA. The communication is important in enabling both the Client (FM function) and the FM Service Providers to exchange views on the services delivery and their set performance targets and to learn more about each other perceptions and perspectives.

In my consultancy works and training, I observed that many FMs lack of the purposeful level of communication. Instead, most FMs tend to shortcut the communication process so as to rush to complete the FM-SLA as soon as they can.

An FM-SLA is not intended as a strategy to fix poor performance or poor Client-Service Providers relationship. The process of planning, organising, developing, and rolling-out an FM-SLA requires careful time (many months) process of information gathering, analysing, evaluating, documenting, presenting, negotiating and consensus-building.

A well established and effective FM-SLA contributes to the success of FM operations.

If you have missed the last article post on FM-SLA you can visit: Creating a Win-Win Relationship

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