You have to love those days when doing your job feels great!
Maybe you got a commitment from that vendor that’s been dodging you. Or you solved the mystery of the overloaded circuit in the pump room. Those are the days when you are on top of your responsibilities and it shows.
In fact, you did such a good job fixing that pump room issue…that your boss now needs a full written account of what happened for his 9 am directors meeting.
Nothing saps that “mission accomplished feeling” like realizing there is a stack of paperwork, or similar administrative tasks, to catch up with back at your desk.
Even though it’s late, and the satisfaction with your accomplishment has been replaced with annoyance, you get to work. Just “doing the paperwork” necessary for tomorrow morning gets you home much later than you planned, with a less than stellar attitude.
Documentation responsibilities on the rise
Does it seem like the more you do for your building the more paperwork it means for you?
The burden of paperwork or documentation is on the rise for all different jobs, not just FM. Even after all the training and schooling it takes to become a doctor for instance, you’d find yourself spending more time with documentation than with patients.
Every dream job has a flip side and in the facilities world, it’s often paperwork. I’ve experienced this firsthand:
I thought I found my dream job. I helped commission the fabrication and installation of a pharmaceutical processing facility. It was a very hands on job bringing unique equipment to life and testing procedures for operation and maintenance.
There was plenty of paperwork but not too much to keep up with. As a representative of the party paying for the project, I had the power to make decisions, freedom to make an impact, and an experienced team of engineers and trades contractors to learn from. For someone with a childhood full of disassembling and reassembling anything I could open up, this job was a blast.
The good times don’t last forever
Well, unfortunately not all engineering work of this type was so satisfying. With fewer plants being built, I found myself on a string of projects that were quite literally just creating documentation. That’s right, a lot more paperwork! And now I was only managing the documents used for my dream job. What happened!?
While it’s tedious, it’s also worth it…
Basically all that paperwork protects you from liability, allows you manage data used to make your building more efficient, and is essential for communication and ultimately the success of the building. In fact, the documentation and paperwork you complete is all that’s left when everyone goes home.
The truth is that good business depends on good documentation and yes, paperwork. Without it, whatever you do may as well have not even happened and whatever you are trying to get done probably won’t go well.
The paperwork problem won’t go away on its own, but there are better ways to do it than struggling through the same painful process that’s a total drag and everybody hates…
It may be as easy as modifying some forms, trimming redundancy, or just reiterating its importance to your team. But, there is also great technology available that can make a much larger impact and make you look like a problem solving, time saving hero.
LogCheck is an easy change you can make to fight the war on paperwork sprawl and wasted time. It eliminates paper log sheets for tracking maintenance data, as well as the need to transcribe the data to another system or a spreadsheet.
See if LogCheck can take the burden of maintenance paperwork off your hands.
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