Facilities Manager Spotlight: Interview with Danielle Paquette

by Tammy Mitchell | April 30, 2021 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

We know Facilities Managers take care of your facilities, building grounds and all of those engineering drawings. But what do you know about them outside of their role at work? We began this Facilities Manager Spotlight series to get to know the people behind emerald curtains.

Facilities Manager Spotlight:

Danielle Paquette, CFM

This week we were lucky to catch up with Danielle Paquette, CFM. Danielle is a passionate and results-focused facilities management professional with over 10 years of solid office repair, maintenance and space-planning experience in the field. She currently works in the healthcare industry.

Tell us a bit about yourself…

I’m a single mom of a teenage boy who lives with her parents and it’s the best thing I could have ever done for myself, my kid and my parents. Of course you can’t forget the star of the family our miniature schnauzer princess Kallie.

I like to run and my greatest running achievement was doing the 2016 Dopey Challenge at Disney World in Florida. You run 5km, 10km, 21.1km and end with 42.2km over four consecutive days!! I even got a Dopey tattoo on my calf to commemorate it!

What’s your favourite drink?

Water – kidding it would be a spicy Caesar

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Own it – whether it’s a decision you’ve made or a mistake you’ve made.

How did you get started as a Facilities Manager?

After doing home daycare for a year after having my son I wanted to get back into the workforce and there was contract position for a facilities clerk (reception) available and I was successful. A few months after the Facilities Assistant put in her notice of retirement so I applied as a long shot.

From there I advanced to Coordinator, then Supervisor, Manager, Interim Director (position was eliminated) so I went back to Manager.

Do you have any stories you’d like to share?

So many stories but one that has stayed with me so vividly throughout the years sort of sums up the most basic piece of the role but also one of the important pieces.

It was my first move/renovation so there was a lot to take in and try to manage. We had just completed the first phase and staff had to pack up and label their belongings including chairs. The next morning I arrived early and there was one employee who came to me almost in tears because someone apparently took her chair and left her with another one.

At first I thought this was a joke, who the hell cares most of the chairs are the same. Anyway she was incredibly upset so I offered her mine because it was almost the same chair. She was incredibly grateful. I remember going home to tell my family about the craziest thing and really couldn’t believe a grown woman was that upset over a chair.

What I came to realize was that wouldn’t be the first time I had to soothe somebody with a piece of equipment and an ear to vent. A big part of our role is bringing space and people together in a cohesive way so you have an efficiently run workplace.

We finish the interview and you step outside and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

Wow – the possibilities! I would make sure my parents, myself and my son were set in a comfortable location (likely right where we are now only no mortgage!). Set aside money so I don’t have to worry for my retirement. Make sure my cousin could retire and be okay and give a bit to his two boys. Make sure my son was okay – he would still need to work but he would have an “emergency fund”. Take my parents and son on an African Safari and an Alaskan Cruise.

Then the fun begins! I would set up a place mainly geared for adolescent/young adult boys who are struggling. Maybe they’re homeless or just down on their luck. It would be in town so they had amenities. There would be a “motel” area where they could crash for a short time so they didn’t have to be on the streets. I would work with the community to get community service activities for them, counselling services, job skills. Let them know the world hasn’t turned against them and that there’s hope but they also need to work for it.

What makes this different from other “group homes” you may ask?! Well, first I would have a cool name for it. It would have rules for sure but it would also have a bit of a carefree feeling to it. A place where they could take part in something, maybe “own” a piece of it. It would also have professionals available for different things but most importantly it would be run by a mom who thinks given the smallest opportunity you can make someone feel good about themselves – and I’m pretty cool!

Thank you Danielle, for taking the time to speak with us in our Facilities Manager Spotlight series!

What does a Facilities Manager do? FM’s tell you in their own words.

by Tammy Mitchell | April 29, 2021 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

The world as we know it changes very quickly, but never has Facilities Management grabbed so many headlines, as it has in the past year. How we move forward post-pandemic with work spaces, buildings, malls and public venues, is changing at such a rapid pace. The demand for Facility Managers is expected to grow exponentially by 2026. But what does a Facilities Manager actually do?

The Roles and Responsibilities of a Facilities Manager

A quick Google search will tell you a vast array of responsibilities of a Facility Manager, including:

Maintaining Facilities, including grounds, engineering drawings and building maintenance
Overseeing contractors and staff
Ensuring the building is up to code with health and safety regulations
Creating a budget for the facilities operational costs
Improving operations and building functions

Maybe you’re thinking, that sounds up my alley. I’d like to be a Facilities Manager. Perhaps you’re interested in the future of healthy buildings, including overseeing the infrastructure and maintenance of a given environment. At the same time, you love organizing and ensuring a facility is running smoothly.

Is that all a Facilities Manager does?

The IFMA – International Facility Management Association, wanted to find out the answer to that very question. They recently posed this tongue and cheek inquiry on their LinkedIn account, asking the following:

Tell us you’re a facility manager, without telling us you’re a facility manager.
IMFA – International Facility Management Association

Facility Managers everywhere replied. In other words, they told in their own words, what their job really entails.

Not only were they accurate, they were creative and funny! At the same time, they were honest.

Here are some of our favorites:

“I manage chaos.”
– Jermain DeFreeze, Facilities Process Manager

“I have 2 people complaining in the same work space. One is too cold the other is too hot.”
– Corvin Dozier, Facilities Manager at JLL

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.” – How I respond to busted pipes, broken security gates, it being too hot/cold and when the coffee maker doesn’t work.
Michael Porter, Facilities, Maintenance and Construction Manager at Aflac

“I go to bed every snow storm praying my generators do not have to get woken up either. My wife also tells me to stop pointing out OSHA violations while we are out shopping.”
– Danny Moore, Facility Manager

Are your lights are on, and the the heat or air conditioning is going at work? Is your access card working? You can thank your Facility Manager for that peace of mind.

“The lights are on, its warm in winter and cool in summer, magically your access card works everyday, the coffee machines are full and the dishes done and packed away, your bins are empty and clean and the bathrooms sparkle in every building on every floor, the numerous plant rooms and chillers chug away without any weird noises and the access gates let you in and out all day and night long. The lawns and grounds are green and lush and the walking path weed and leaf free….. silent magic…..”
Heather Walker-Broose, Facilities Manager Snowy Hydro Limited

“A magician wearing superman costume, walking with my family in weekends looking out for any defects in any place we visit, specially toilets”
Heba Kamal PMP, FMP Instructor CEM, General Manager at Enova

Their work never stops. Weekends? What’s a weekend?

*gets phone call at 2am* “Hey Will, everything is broken”
– Will Richeson, Project Manager at Ameritech Facility Services

“It’s February and it’s hot in your room? You’re welcome.”
– Daniel Pego, FMP, Facilities Operations Manager at NYU Langone Health

“I can help you find a mop, tell you if the conference room is available, activate your badge to give you access to the garage, inform you when the window cleaners are coming, and make sure your office is at the right temperature. On top of all of that, if I don’t know how, I surely know who!”
– Arie Baker, CPRP FMP MBA Certified Post-Crisis Leader

They’re always there to save the day. Again.

“The Phantom who serves at low profile round the clock without seeking any attention to ensure no disruption to normal Operations in the Facility .. sometimes we have to reveal our identity and go public to contain emergencies :)”
– Adnan El Cheikh Mohamad, Facilities Management, Project Operations

As a result, needless to say, we are truly grateful for all Facilities Managers out there. As well as their sense of humor!. If this sounds like a career you’d like to purse, get to know them on LinkedIn by following the hashtags: #FacilitiesManagement, #FacMan and #FMTech.

For the full thread and many, more amazing comments from talented Facilities Managers all around, join the conversation on IFMA’s post on LinkedIn. Similarly, if you’re a Facilities Manager and need help with your engineering drawing management, have a conversation with us – we can help with you that.

Don’t Lose Your Drawing History When Frank Retires

by Tammy Mitchell | September 25, 2020 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Do you have an employee in your department who’s been there for as long as anyone remembers? Someone who knows everyone and can tell you how everything works?

These employees are the go-to guys and gals. You rely on them.

But one day down the road, those dependable anchors will punch their last time clock card and retire. You’ll throw whiz banger parties for them and wish them endless hours of relaxing enjoyment. You’ll also wish to the heavens you hadn’t relied on them so heavily and centralized so much knowledge in a single staff member. The wise old employees, you realize too late, are the glue of the department. And that’s problematic when the department is facilities management.

Let’s take a look at Frank, an invaluable facility manager.

Frank has kept engineering drawings orderly for 30 years and can find any drawing in under half an hour at the home base facility. Drawings kept at other locations are similarly organized according to Frank’s tried and true filing system, but retrieving them means driving to that facility. But when Frank gets there, he can pull up the needed drawing—in the third drawer of large-format filing cabinet #20519 in aisle H of the basement—in under half an hour. Frank knows the drive time hurts his retrieval score so he’s been scanning small stacks of drawings to DVD for the last five years on “Lucille,” Frank’s clunky, marginal-resolution large-format scanner (whenever he finds time). That DVD stack holds down Frank’s window sill—alphabetized. Frank’s backup DVDs (of course) line a banker’s box in Frank’s attic. This has worked for 30 years.

Rather, this worked well for 10 years, started to show signs of inefficacy in the 10 years after that, and hasn’t worked very well at all for the last decade. But Frank is the man and you don’t want to rock the boat.

But you have to.

Frank doesn’t need to feel the sting of replacement. Frank is still invaluable because he can best facilitate the digitization of his orderly drawings while working with drawing specialists. Ask Frank what happens when he retires, gets sick, or goes on a fly fishing vacation in Montana? What happens when any of the facilities Frank manages catches fire or floods? And what about the growing concern that, no matter how “fast” Frank is at finding the needed files, other team members and subcontractors wait around on Frank? Tell Frank his retiring gift to the facilities he’s managed his entire career is to get things well set up for the employees to whom he will pass his torch. Empower Frank!

Let’s talk about the importance of centralizing drawing history not in one person but in a digital database (in the Cloud).

How often do facilities lose track of their drawing history?

Often.

Worst-case scenarios are too common. Most facilities don’t fall under Frank’s fastidious filing format. It is common for a decentralized repository of engineering drawings to have little or no organization.

This happens when someone like Frank tells Molly or Dan how he categorizes engineering drawings (by state then by alphabetical facility then by building then by floor then by trade then by year), but neither Molly nor Dan share Frank’s passion for file management… so they half-listen. Molly and Dan use apps on their smartphones to run their lives, and their eyes glaze over under the dim basement lighting as Frank regales them with stories of Boolean beginnings.

There is a disconnect between generations.

And so, there must be a new, sustainable system put in place for tracking and storing important drawings. This new system must prevent damage, monitor use, and track versions and markups. It’s devastating when entire drawing sets, representing many years of work, go missing or become unusable.

Even when drawings are digital, it can be challenging to find the right drawings or versions of drawings. As people access, use, and markup drawings from a shared drive, they upload multiple copies of different versions of the same drawings to the drive. Isolated servers are a nightmare. And duplicates are a nightmare on those isolated servers, especially when they aren’t the right version.

Effective facility management depends heavily on an organized drawing management system—centralized in the Cloud and accessed (from anywhere) with permission-based logins.

What does a streamlined drawing management system (DMS) look like?

It looks digital.

It looks much smaller than it did yesterday, too (because hundreds to thousands of redundant drawings are identified and archived). And it looks clickable, searchable, and shareable. Storage is centralized, tracked, and secure.

But before anything at all happens to begin the game-changing overhaul that will revolutionize how you manage your engineering drawings, you need an audit. Whether paper-based or digital, an audit will weed out old or irrelevant drawings and identify the master architectural, mechanical, and electrical plans.

This is harder than it sounds—it’s mind-numbing work.

Not even Frank could pull off this task alone. It’s too daunting. Engineering drawings require specific skills and tools for scanning, maintenance, and storage. They require scanning with wide format scanners using proper specifications to ensure manageable sizes. Once scanned, standardized file naming is essential for easy access, search, and retrieval today and 30 years from now.

Applying standards is the easy part.

The real challenge is managing the drawing history according to industry best practices and compliance regulations in a short timeframe over the long term. Emergencies can’t wait on Frank. Defined user roles and permissions gate access to specific files and lock out access when a file is in use to prevent duplication. Preventing duplication and working off one master drawing is what it’s all about. Multiple users must be prevented from making multiple versions of that file. Tracking which drawing is the master and who has it is almost impossible in a manual system. It’s automatic in a DMS.

No more confusion over different versions of a drawing. No more delays or unwise decisions based on inaccurate information.

How do Facility Managers effectively control drawing history?

Imagine knocking down a wall where there’s supposed to be a water pipe and finding nothing. Or worse, knocking down a wall where there was supposed to be no water pipes, but there were two. And now there’s a flood.

Accurate drawing identification is step one. Then, team members need instant access to the master, but that access must be gated to ensure drawings register chronological changes and don’t go missing. Instead of manually monitoring who has what file, you can use an automated drawing management system (DMS) like echo. Echo is a modern engineering drawing management app created by DCM The Drawing Specialists.

Echo is an online drawing library that allows team members to find the exact drawing they need from wherever they are for wherever the problem is happening for whomever is there onsite ready to solve that problem. Onsite access to engineering drawings stored in the Cloud gives answers in minutes remotely. No phone calls. No faxes. No driving blueprints hundreds of miles to the emergency site. Echo manages this entire process, requiring only internet connectivity and a smart device. Admins grant access to sub-contractors for a specified time frame and echo tracks what drawing went where, for how long, by whom, and why.

Automating your facilities’ drawing management removes the burden from a single employee. A modern control center adds speed to retrievability, accuracy to trackability, and savings to operability. Deciding to go digital is the best decision you can make to prevent wasted time searching for drawings and unlock instant team access to proactively gauge possible problems, plan ahead, and pull up drawings on the spot.

Give your team the lightning-fast tools they need to manage your drawing history when a senior member retires. Empower them with a DMS that curbs disasters with fast action. And set up your facility for the future with a Cloud-based, remotely accessed, digital engineering drawing library.

DCM’s on-call experts have over 15 years of experience assisting facility and project managers with sorting, organizing, fixing, digitizing, and properly storing entire drawing histories, creating easy access in a few clicks that’s real-time updateable—and highly secure.

If you have a Frank (or two) in your organization, it’s time to safeguard your drawing history before they go. Get in touch with us today to learn how!

Have you read our latest eBook?

2D vs 3D vs Baseline, what’s the difference?

4 Ways to Digitally Enable Facilities Managers Working Remotely

by Tammy Mitchell | April 30, 2020 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Summary

You’re a Facility Manager and you need access to drawings to do your job. But right now, those assets are locked away on-site at the facility. We can help! DCM serves Canada, the United States, and countries around the world with industry-leading drawing conversion services in all major industries. Convert drawings in almost any format to AutoCAD quickly and cost-effectively. Want even more control and optimized efficiency? Our powerful cloud-based drawing management software makes managing your new high-quality digital drawings fast and easy. We’re here to help your remote team when they’re working miles apart, across the country, across national boundaries, or around the world.

The work world changed overnight on March 11, 2020 when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 strain of the coronavirus a pandemic. Offices locked their doors and working remotely became imperative. Millions of people are now out of work and trillions of dollars are being thrown at the corporate machine to control damage and curb collapse.

For some companies, this sudden change away from the centre wasn’t a big transition. They had already adopted a partially- or fully-remote business process and were unexpectedly prepared to hit the ground running. But most of North America wasn’t set up that way. Most companies operated in-person, on-location, in analog.

In the coming months, businesses are going to become more reliant than ever on their digital strategy. Without wanting to sound too alarmist, in many cases, it will be the deciding factor in whether they make it through the tough times ahead. —Forbes

Remote work has been growing by leaps and bounds in the last decade. Before COVID-19, roughly 5% of Canadians worked from home already. Almost 5 million Americans worked from home half the week (Global Workplace Analytics). And 70% of the world worked from home one day a week. At the end of 2019, the number of remote workers was projected to grow to as much as 66% by 2030 (Zapier).

These numbers all pointed to a fast trend away from the office. But no one anticipated the kind of acceleration that would happen because of a virus. And not every company was ready.

Solutions for facilities managers

With physical locations suddenly closed, that left many facilities managers scrambling. Without access to drawings, operations ground to a halt. Operations grinding to a halt is bad for business.

But DCM can help. It’s time to get the gears turning again!

There is an affordable way for facilities managers to survive this crisis—and come out of it even more productive and profitable than before. The answer is a digital document management strategy designed by DCM.

Below you’ll find a detailed list of services and tools that you need to keep up and running. Read on!

4 tools Facilities Managers need to work remotely—successfully:

1. A workspace

2. Document conversion (redraw)

3. A Document Management System (DMS)

4. Support

WORKSPACE

Let’s talk about the basics: working from home means you need a secure internet connection protected by a VPN and a firewall. You need a home computer, tablet, or at least a cell phone. Then you need to download tools that keep your employees talking and working through the same problems they had before the office shut down. Take a look at Monday, TeamWork, Asana, Slack, Google Hangouts, and Zoom for task management, file sharing, chat, and video conferencing. These apps are easy to download and use. And right now, many of these collaboration apps have provided their premium level for free. Get those tools in place and you’re back up. Yay!

Then what?

Well, just because you’re up again, doesn’t mean you’re up and running. How do you run your business from a distance? By digitizing the drawings you need to work with.

GET A FREE DRAWING CONVERSION!*

Contact us to see if you qualify for a free conversion. Attach your source files or samples, scans, PDF, JPEG, TIFF files in just about any format (good or poor quality drawings) by email (or upload to FTP). Send hard copies, prints, and scans by courier.

CONTACT DCM

2. GET (PROPERLY) DIGITAL

Paper drawings and old digital drawings on degrading CDs have been a problem to productivity for a while. And now, a digital solution makes more sense than ever—because you can’t work without drawings. And you’re tired of searching for lost drawings. Get all your drawings into a digital format so they’re accessible and shareable. Digital doesn’t have to be AutoCAD, but it can be. Start by scanning paper to PDF.

3. REDRAW (CONVERT TO CAD)

DCM’s redraw service converts drawings to AutoCAD when you need to make edits (planning, gathering scaled measurements) to working document. Our powerful technology converts files in almost any format into a workable, digital CAD format. We’ve been helping facilities just like yours streamline their drawing situation for over 15 years and we do it in a way that delivers the highest quality at the most affordable price.

Our process takes the hassle off your shoulders. It starts with a no-obligation chat with one of our amazing Account Managers. We estimate the time and conversion cost—as fast as 1-3 business days to get things rolling. From there, you send us your files (or we can come and get them!), we convert them, clean them up, add things like attributing, custom colours, and layers, then send them through our innovative 8-point quality control. The last step is to deliver your digital drawings.

4. Echo DMS (Drawing Management Software)

Once your assets are digital, you are functional. You’ve organized and repaired the scattered, unstructured chaos. But now you have hundreds or even thousands of digital drawings to manage. Better than before, but not as streamlined as you could be.

That’s why we built echo, our DMS digital library that makes finding the drawing you need almost effortless. We feed your company’s drawings into a shared software system so remote workers can continue from where they left off. Login authentication keeps drawings secure for your team in the shared cloud environment. Your digital drawings are searchable, shareable, and instantly updateable. Retrieve drawings as you need them, know they are the right version, and send them to the person waiting for them in seconds. Then create reports for even better management.

echo is tailor-made for your business. You need software that keeps up with engineering drawings coming in from many sources with revisions. You need a way to manage many versions over a long life-cycle. You need up-to-the-minute accuracy for your team.

If you’re a facility manager, the best way for you to bring your facility out of the chaos and into the future is by transforming your old process into a digital workflow and letting all of the bonuses that come with that transformation turn your stress into profits.

cost savings
time savings
disaster prevention (fire, flood, or theft)
no more lost files
physical storage space reduction
improved customer satisfaction
boost in employee morale
reduced errors.
industry compliance
drawing security (password protection and tracking)

5. Support (technical + friendly)

Once you have your DCM drawing management toolkit (digital drawings and software to manage them) you’re charging forward again—hooray!

But you’re not used to working at home, are you? And that might mean you’re struggling with a different kind of stress. We care about that too! Our account managers are here for you. Whether you have questions about drawing conversion, want a walk-through quickstart of our echo software, or you need some positive encouragement, please reach out. Isolation has a way of… well, making us all feel isolated. And communication helps combat that. Communication is also key for business continuity. DCM’s team of drawing professionals is dedicated to client success. We back our technological services with impeccable customer service—you’re never alone!

We’re here to keep your facility functioning at its best. Help your remote team when they’re working miles apart, in different provinces or states, across national boundaries, or around the world.

Whether you want paper drawings redrawn to digital, or an online drawing library to keep track of everything, DCM is your one-stop shop. We simplify your workload with a seamless and convenient process that ends in high-quality drawings at value pricing. We deliver hands-on perfection that’s hands-down the best on the market. That’s why we’re known as The Drawing Specialists.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you right away. It starts with a conversation and a no-obligation quote.

DCM leads the way in all major industries including: healthcare, education, engineering, manufacturing, utilities, recreational, government, insurance and more. And our powerful cloud-based echo drawing library makes managing digital drawings faster and easier. Access the information you need the moment you need it.

Leave a Legacy

by Tammy Mitchell | March 15, 2020 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Modernize. Grow. Take the lead.

Leave a legacy.

In your twenties, you looked at your career as an open possibility toward greater things. You were idealistic and eagre. In your thirties, you moved upward and sometimes onward, trying out various roles for various companies. In your forties, you settled in and made some good strides. Maybe you directed some crucial projects or mentored the new wave of twentysomethings entering the workforce. You did a good job—or even a great job—of things, and you were proud of your accomplishments.

But right around the 50-mark, you started asking yourself if it was enough? Did you do what you set out to do all those years ago? Did you make a difference? Had you self-actualized? When you go, will people notice that your contributions mattered?

Making an impact takes courage

Month over month, quarter after quarter, you pushed the needle up. You delivered positive results for your company. But doing a great job, though praise-worthy, isn’t something that will stand out years from now as a memorable thing. Because your results are individual. Your drive to succeed is of personal benefit.

Legacy is bigger than one person. And it lasts beyond one person’s time.

Want to leave a legacy?

Be kind to your people. Treat your team well and invest in them. Empower them. When you enable your team to succeed, you create a rippling positive change; those who model your behaviour contribute to a virtuous cycle.

By caring about those around you, you create positive change for others so that others carry that torch into the future.

The most visible way to care about others is to fix a significant problem on their behalf. But fixing major problems takes courage. Many times, that problem is a process that doesn’t work. Slow processes create bottlenecks throughout your organization. And bottlenecks create cascades of stress throughout divisions.

Streamlining workflows not only increases productivity, but it also reaches multiple levels of a workforce. It impacts many people. But streamlining workflows isn’t easy—transformative fixes seldom are. And yet, the fixes that matter most are the ones that create employee happiness. They decrease stress, save time, boost efficiency, and increase revenues.

Being the one who unclogs a jam of magnitude creates impact.

Leaving a legacy means being the one who turns a giant flashing amber pause button into a stable green play button. But the decision to set things in motion for the better often gets pushed off. The simple reason is that the beginning is the hardest part. The noise of current-day urgent demands takes focus away from the future. But legacies happen when “how it can be” finds a place in the daily grind.

The enormity of legacy

If you’re a facility manager and retirement is something you’ve started thinking about, your legacy can be to transform how your company manages its drawings.

Volume is usually the biggest initial stumbling block. You feel that there’s simply too much to tackle. But changing how you manage drawings doesn’t have to be a system you design from scratch. It doesn’t have to be one person handling thousands of pounds of paper. It doesn’t mean one person alone needs to find what’s missing. Because documents go missing over many years, hiding amid thousands of yards of square footage, on disconnected CPUs and dusty, locked-away CDs and DVDs. It comes off as too daunting to be worthwhile!

But it isn’t daunting. And it is worthwhile.

Transforming drawing management processes within a company is as easy as deciding to hire someone else to do it. Someone with decades of experience handling that very thing—from the beginning right through to the end.

That someone is DCM. And we’re actually a great team of someones.

The beginning requires a hands-on accumulation of all assets. Our team of specialists tackles paper chaos and digital disorganization every day. This part is dirty work. But once all assets are centralized, digitization begins. That is a multi-step process that ends with all drawings in the right format in the right place, managed by a drawing library that’s searchable.

READ MORE ABOUT OUR PROCESS

The hard part—the one that garners praise at the end—is deciding to embark on this process by hiring drawing conversion professionals. It’s realizing that hiring a drawing management company to manage your drawings will pay back dividends immediately and for years to come, saving your company hundreds of thousands of dollars after you’re gone. What you leave behind is a cloud-based system that makes finding and sharing your facility’s engineering drawings a clickable affair that takes mere moments.

That’s something everyone in an organization notices. That’s something that gets talked about by the water cooler years later—“Remember when we used to have to go to that dark room in the basement and sort through hundreds of rolls of blueprints?”

employees who benefit from leaving a legacy

Your legacy is your gift to current and future team members. That gift is efficiency, ease-of-use, retrievability, and shareability of digitized documents. It’s lower stress, higher productivity, better decision-making, and more time to devote to future profit-generating goals.

The legacy you leave behind is one of modernization. So take charge! Make the call. Put your name on transformation and help your organization move into the future.

Inspire your team, then pass the torch.

GET A FREE DRAWING CONVERSION!*

CONTACT DCM

What is the best way to prepare for a valuable employee’s retirement?

by Tammy Mitchell | February 20, 2020 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

I know you’re wishing that “Bob” would take back his intention to retire and keep on working alongside you until his last breath. We know it’s hard to let go after decades of experience; it’s obvious there are things that just cannot be taught!

Bob deserves to kick back and breathe in retirement. Living the good life with a newspaper in his hand on an idle Monday morning.

Sign up for the Drawing Specialists Blog

But before I give you the industry secrets, I must give you some facts.

Approximately 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day? We both know they hold key management positions with tribal knowledge and secrets that they’ve built up over decades.

Also, it’s good to note a higher cycle of turnover is a new reality in the 21 century! 90% of millennials expect to stay in a position for less than three years. Yes, three years. Millennials move around a lot, and just when things are flowing smoothly, they get bored. Thank you, social media.

How will your company manage the turnover of key positions every few years as opposed to every decade or two?

Here are seven ways to excel at extracting and storing valuable information from turnover to turnover.

Don’t Undervalue Older Staff

Long-time workers have built in routine knowledge about how to work efficiently, and they know their way around facilities like second nature. They understand what has worked in the past, what hasn’t worked, and the why’s of everything.

Value your older workers by having open conversations with them about their history in the company and their plans moving forward. Applaud them on the knowledge of historic renovations, the discoveries they’ve made and all the pieces of the puzzles they have help solve.

Manage Cross-Generation Learning

Your aging employees need to know that it’s a part of their job to train the younger generation coming in. At the same time, younger workers need to know they are required to learn from their more experienced peers during this critical transition.

You can help facilitate cross-generational learning by noting that there is much to be learned from different perspectives, generations and work styles. Before training starts, communicate your expectations, which will minimize feelings of discrimination that older workers may feel as they begin to transition to retirement.

Avoid Knowledge Silos

Your long-time employees have formed relationships across the company, giving them a deeper understanding of how their job impacts someone else’s work in another area. Without a broader appreciation for other departmental roles, less experienced employees may cause delays in performance.

To avoid knowledge silos, encourage collaboration and accessibility through echo Drawing Management System to streamline, document, the process moving forward. Capture the information in a format that is transferable.

Cross-Train Employees

Cross-training is another remedy when long-time employees leave. By giving a new hire a three-month post in another department allows them hands-on experience in areas of the company unfamiliar to their job title.

Cross-training will prevent information silos gifting all new employees’ full access to the knowledge available.

Start the Knowledge Transfer Now

Knowledge transfers take time. Do not wait until two weeks before your older workers last day to start the process. Yikes.

The best thing you could do for your business during this critical time is to have your retiring worker share in this process. Have them be a part of the process of getting your facility drawings organized and into an echo Drawing Management System. By working together with a Drawing Specialist along with your older staff, we can capture the knowledge in their head. This allows for the future of your buildings to be organized, moving forward.

Another option is creating Baseline drawings. Baseline helps your older staff’s knowledge and history out of their heads and on one master drawing: securing your future today for tomorrow.

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Bringing in the human element to the conversation when dealing with your older staff’s retirement helps them feel appreciated. Remember, you are touching on this person’s livelihood, identity, and legacy. Please proceed with kindness and respect – we are all human.

You Are Not Alone

Now that we know 10,000 baby boomers are retiring every day and Millennial’s are cutting careers short, you can know with confidence you are not alone. It’s true, Facilities across the globe are managing the turnover of key positions every few years as opposed to every decade or two. But don’t worry! It’s figureoutable. DCM has affordable solutions to assist you with managing turnovers like a pro.

Our goal is to improve your drawing management so profoundly; you can’t imagine going back to the old way. Which means, the timing is perfect since your old way is retiring!

Book a call with a Drawing Specialist for your free no-obligation plan for 2020.

Client Spotlight Q&A With Facility Manager Richard Driscoll

by Tammy Mitchell | May 10, 2019 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Manager of Facility Services: Richard Driscoll

It’s World FM (Facility Manager) week and to celebrate we are giving a few DCM Inc. clients the spotlight! Grab a coffee and learn more about Manager of Facility Services Richard Driscoll from Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board. He may have you daydreaming about a marathon.

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Tell us a bit about yourself?

I am an avid runner who has completed over 30 half marathons and 2 full marathons. I enjoy golfing, camping, and hiking.

I have been married for 35 years and have 3 children all girls. The 2 older girls are now teachers and the 3rd child is a social worker.

I have worked in Management for the last 22 years starting in the automotive industry, was the Manger of Facilities for Casino Rama before coming to the school board.

I worked at the Sudbury Catholic school board for 5 years and most recently have been working as the Facility Manager at the Peterborough Victoria Northhumberland Clarington Catholic District School board.

When it comes to self-improvement, do you prefer to read books, listen to podcasts or take a course?

I have taken a number of self improvement courses over my career.

What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

I had the opportunity to go to Jakarta, Indonesia.

Describe the biggest challenge you’ve faced when trying to reduce operational costs?

The cooperation and understanding from others for the reduction.

Tell me how you organize, plan, and prioritize your work.

I use my calendar for scheduling all my work and use one note to keep notes of items happening through out the day. The priority of the work is Health & Safety, Legislative requirements, Board requirements, School requirements. All prepared through a 5-year capital plan.

We finish the interview, and you step outside the office and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

I would pay off my daughter’s student loans, buy them each a house and I would retire with an around the world cruise.

Thank you, Richard, for sharing your story and for letting us feature you in our client spotlight! If you’d like to be featured contact your account manager today! #We❤ToSupportFacilityManagers

For more client Testimonials click here.

In the world of drawing management, keeping organized is key. There’s a lot you can do to put your organization at the front of document storage, retrieval, and updates. DCM is your drawing specialist. Let us help you Clean up your paper mess.

Ask how we can help!

Client Spotlight Q&A With Facility Manager Gordon Bartlett

by Tammy Mitchell | May 10, 2019 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Facility Manager: Gordon Bartlett

It’s World FM (Facility Manager) week and to celebrate we are giving a few DCM Inc. clients the spotlight! Grab a coffee and learn more about Facility Manager Gordon Bartlett from Peterborough Regional Health Centre.

Tell us a bit about yourself?

A seasoned FM professional with over 30 years related experience industrial, commercial and healthcare. Gordon is an avid musician (guitarist) with some professional experience in the 80’s. Married 30 years with 3 sons, all enrolled in post-secondary education. He’s recently moved into “cottage country” with plans to rekindle a long time love for fishing.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

It’s not always a competition.

To get ahead you have to cooperate.

What is your favorite quote?

“That’s all turnips” Vladimir to Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot – after emptying his pockets looking for a carrot, there are none, and he points at the pile of turnips he has removed and says this…accept what we have because there is nothing better. Part of a much larger dialogue.

How would your co-workers describe you?

Intelligent, experienced. Sometimes, a bit of a goof.

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When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with?

I fix things. Mechanical things can always be repaired. Though they think that they are just looking to expedite repairs or installations, other managers in the organization look to me for improvements to operations and processes

We finish the interview, and you step outside the office and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

In our office, this is often referred to as the “lottery bus.” I would take care of my family financially and then travel.

Thank you, Gordon, for sharing your story and for letting us feature you in our client spotlight! If you’d like to be featured contact your account manager today! #We❤ToSupportFacilityManagers

For more client Testimonials click here.

Ask how we can help!

Client Spotlight Q&A With Project Manager Terra Kitzul-Arens

by Tammy Mitchell | April 30, 2019 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Project Manager: Terra Kitzul-Arens

It’s World FM (Facility Manager) week and to celebrate we are giving a few DCM Inc. clients the spotlight! Grab a coffee and learn more about Project Manager Terra Kitzul-Arens from Chatham-Kent Health Alliance behind the scenes. She may have you reminiscing about your childhood.

Tell us a bit about yourself?

A native of Chatham-Kent, I returned to the area in 2003 after completing my Bachelor’s degree in Architecture at Carleton University and a few months stay in Vancouver. When I returned home, I started work immediately on the same street I grew up, and the same street both of my parents worked. I interned at Jorden & Cook Architect Ltd. and received my license with the Ontario Association of Architects in 2008. Two years later I married my husband, Ryan Arens. Also, a native of Chatham, Ryan and I had attended both public and high school together and reconnected when we both returned to the area after university. When we married, I also became a stepmother to Ryan’s beautiful daughter, Mackenzie, now 18. I remained at Jorden & Cook until 2011 when I accepted a job at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. I was only with the Alliance a few months when I started an early maternity leave when our twin girls, Blake and Lila, surprised us 8 weeks early. Healthy and strong and just needing to grow, the girls stayed in the NICU at LHSC for only 3 weeks before coming back to CKHA for another 10 days. The girls are now wonderfully active 7-year-olds in Grade 1 at that same school where Ryan and I first met. We enjoy traveling, movies, gymnastics, reading, swimming, Rotary, golf and spending time playing games and doing puzzles.

Pitas, Tacos, Sushi or Pizza? What do you like and how do you like it?

It’s a real toss up between sushi and tacos, but I think I have to go with sushi. One of our favorite things to do on a beautiful Friday night is to drive to Windsor to our favorite sushi restaurant. Even as little girls, the two of them would squeal with excitement when we were headed for ‘soosheee.’

If you could have dinner with someone famous, or a loved one from your past who would it be and why?

I’d really love to sit down and visit with my dad’s father, William Kitzul. I was lucky to have relationships with my other grandparents into my 20’s and 30’s, but my grandpa Kitzul passed away when I was only 5. I do have lovely snippets of fish kisses, an 80’s Grand Marquis and cherry blossom treats but I’d love to fill in the gaps.

Tell me how you organize, plan, and prioritize your work.

Some days it feels like I put out the most significant fires first. Thankfully not literally! But in general, that can be the nature of this type of work. I always try to be a step or two ahead of all of our trades so that they have no downtime. When they have what they need to do their jobs, I can prepare for the next one or catch up on my independent work.

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When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with?

There are relatively standard requests. Corporate initiatives like ‘build this, renovate that’ – and then others that may start with ‘not sure what to do about this, so I’m reaching out to you?’ Which can include any and everything from ‘I need to fit this piece of huge equipment into this tiny closet’ to ‘we’ve had a fecal-incontinence event – we need to replace all of the furniture in this room’ to ‘every person down the hall is in a new role, can we get new signage?’

We finish the interview, and you step outside the office and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

I think that until you actually have $10 million in your hand, you can only guess what you’d really do. I am relatively sure I’d plan a nice trip with my family – Ryan and the girls, my parents, Ryan’s parents, our sisters and their families – and sit around a gorgeous pool and think about life’s possibilities. I really do love my job, but maybe there are adventures I’ve never considered that would be possible. Perhaps I’d buy the Crock-a-Doodle down the street, or maybe I’d start a Youth Foundation in our community. I have a strong suspicion Ryan would be opening a Brewery – that would be something fun to design.

Thank you, Terra, for sharing your story and for letting us feature you in our client spotlight! If you’d like to be featured contact your account manager today! #We❤ToSupportFacilityManagers

For more client Testimonials click here.

Ask how we can help!

Client Spotlight Q&A With Manager of Planning Lewis Morgulis

by Tammy Mitchell | April 30, 2019 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Manager of Planning: Lewis Morgulis

It’s World FM (Facility Manager) week and to celebrate we are giving a few DCM Inc. clients the spotlight! Grab a coffee and learn more about Manager of Planning Lewis Morgulis behind the scenes. You may just be planning your next adventure after you read his Q&A!

Tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m a Planner by education and trade and have worked at the Durham Catholic District School Board for 8 years following 27 years with the Durham and York District School Boards. I’m an avid reader. Our family loves camping, hockey, and soccer. I have a wonderful wife who is my best friend, three amazing daughters, a daughter in law and a granddaughter. I have been a coach in four different sports over a 35-year coaching career, have volunteered with my professional association and with four minor sports organizations. Life is amazing and brings new challenges each day, and my goal is to see as much of this world and have as many amazing experiences with my family that one full lifetime will allow.

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What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

This year we traveled to Vietnam at March break, and so far that is the farthest I’ve been away, but my daughter is at school in New Zealand, and in December we will likely travel there to see her. We have traveled to China, Morroco, Greece, Italy, and France in the last 3 years and travel will be a large part of our retirement as well.

Pitas, Tacos, Sushi or Pizza? What do you like and how do you like it?

I have a life long love of great food, and the answer is all of the above! But…. If I have to pick just one, I’d say a simple ham, and prosciutto pizza with buffalo mozzarella on a thin crust served with a very cold beer in Amalfi Italy. At 8 euros and with a spectacular view of the Mediterranean it was about the best pizza experience ever.

How has DCM helped you?

We have transformed the way we look at our facility drawings from using a simple cluttered storage room, with an inventory that was not complete, and at times duplicated or missing to a much more usable system where online access makes all of our drawings available to users without risking the integrity of the originals. Over the last 3-4 years, DCM has transformed how we give access to architects and staff, how we manage our drawings and related documents, and how we integrate new drawings into our system. With our missing drawings, we are able to know what we do and don’t have, and what to look out for or reach out to architects to get. We have added an upload of all drawings electronically as part of the requirements from architects and going forward as new staff take over from older ones we will have all of the underlying data preserved permanently in a readily searchable manner.

How has your education prepared you for your career?

In my current job, I do less traditional urban or regional planning now, than before in my other jobs. My formal education helped me with a body of knowledge that got me my first job. After that, creativity, inquisitiveness, restlessness and wanting to make things better helped shape what I did and with whom I got to work. What my education taught me was how to build processes to identify and solve problems, not just for planning problems but for a great range of issues. Like any excellent education it didn’t stop as I left the school, I wanted to learn more at work, in the field and in new areas of interest. My informal education continues and will continue the rest of my life forever.

We finish the interview, and you step outside the office and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

$10 million is the kind of money that makes you think… maybe I don’t need to go to work tomorrow. I’d have a lot of fun finding new adventures every day.

Thank you, Lewis, for sharing your story and for letting us feature you in our client spotlight! If you’d like to be featured contact your account manager today! #We❤ToSupportFacilityManagers

For more client Testimonials click here.

Ask how we can help!