Influence of change management for effective outsourcing of facilities management services

Abstract

The procurement by partial or full outsourcing of Facilities Management services is one of the options available for operation and maintenance of buildings. Since the recent past, this has been observed as a popular trend in this sector. Outsourcing can bring about many changes and conflicts into the organisation. This is due to many reasons such as services being performed in different ways, some services changing in quality and rhythm, the employees being asked to do things differently and the organisational culture also having to adopt the changes. Organisations need to adopt an intelligent approach to manage such changes if they are to maintain the continuity of the operations. As such, the aim of this study is to identify the influence of change management towards the effective outsourcing of Facilities Management services. Multiple case study method was adopted as the research methodology for this purpose. Data were analysed against the three predetermined categories which were; reasons for the outsourcing, the impact of change during outsourcing practices, and incorporating the change management with the outsourcing practices, in order to reach a compromise. Findings of the study reveal that the efficiency of outsourcing the Facilities Management services can be improved and the organisations can reap the maximum benefit out of such outsourcing if the change management is handled in an effective manner.