What Is a Facilities Management Company? Roles & Duties
What Is a Facilities Management Company? Roles & Duties
Building issues rarely announce themselves in advance. A missed inspection, an unexpected system failure, or unclear responsibility between contractors can quickly disrupt operations and place pressure on those responsible for commercial premises. For many organisations, it is at this point that gaps in building oversight become visible, and this is where facilities management plays a defined role.
A facilities management company is responsible for the ongoing safety, compliance, and operation of commercial buildings, coordinating systems, services, and maintenance activities so workplaces function reliably on a day-to-day basis. For growing organisations, this creates clearer responsibility for compliance, safer working environments, and greater control over operational risk and cost.
In modern offices, facilities management helps organisations move away from reactive responses and towards a more stable, planned approach to managing their buildings.
What a Facilities Management Company Is Responsible for Day to Day
A facilities management company manages health and safety as part of the daily operation of commercial buildings. Its role is to identify risks, meet statutory requirements, and ensure building systems are managed safely and consistently.
This responsibility typically includes:
- Carrying out and reviewing health and safety risk assessments.
- Managing fire safety, electrical safety, and statutory inspections.
- Overseeing asbestos and Legionella risk control.
- Coordinating contractors to ensure safe working practices.
- Maintaining compliance records and documentation.
Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme (CHAS) confirms that employers and duty holders remain legally responsible for workplace safety [1]. Facilities management supports this obligation by embedding risk assessment, monitoring, and record keeping into routine building management.
How Facilities Management Supports Safe & Accountable Workplaces
In modern workplaces, facilities management supports consistent decision-making across building operations. By establishing clear service standards, defined responsibilities, and documented oversight, organisations gain better visibility over how buildings perform and where risk sits.
Government guidance highlights the importance of structured management arrangements that align organisational needs with service delivery [2]. These frameworks help ensure quality and consistency across both hard and soft services, particularly within complex or multi-site estates.
In occupied workplaces, this clarity allows maintenance and compliance activity to be planned around real patterns of use. When facilities management and building works are coordinated, organisations benefit from clearer work sequencing and reduced disruption.
Understanding Hard & Soft Facilities Management Responsibilities
Facilities management is commonly grouped into hard and soft disciplines. Hard facilities management relates to the physical structure of a building and the systems required for it to operate safely and legally.
These typically include:
- Electrical systems
- Mechanical services
- Access control
- Fire safety infrastructure
- And more
Soft facilities management covers services that support daily workplace use, such as cleaning, waste management, and security. In commercial office environments, hard facilities management is usually prioritised because it directly affects compliance, safety, and operational reliability.
A clear understanding of these responsibilities helps organisations define scope, allocate budgets, and determine where external support is required within a facilities management framework.
Why Structured Facilities Management Reduces Risk & Liability
Commercial buildings have legal duties regarding health, safety, and risk management. Facilities management supports compliance by ensuring inspections, maintenance activities, and safety controls are consistently recorded and monitored.
Where facilities management is fragmented, organisations face greater exposure. Missed inspections, unclear responsibility, and incomplete records make compliance difficult to evidence following incidents. A structured facilities management approach reduces this risk by establishing routine monitoring and defensible audit trails.
UK health and safety reporting consistently shows that failures in maintenance, risk assessment, and management control continue to be contributory factors in workplace incidents [3]. Effective facilities management addresses these issues by embedding risk management into day-to-day building operations, rather than treating safety as a reactive or isolated task.
How Planned & Reactive Maintenance Work Together
Planned and reactive maintenance frameworks allow organisations to manage building upkeep more predictably. By separating scheduled work from unplanned response, facilities teams can forecast costs, allocate contractor time, and prioritise risk more effectively.
Planned maintenance typically includes:
- Scheduled inspections of building systems.
- Routine servicing and testing.
- Forward planning to address wear and compliance requirements.
Reactive maintenance focuses on:
- Responding to faults or failures.
- Securing buildings following unexpected incidents.
- Restoring systems to safe working order.
Coordinating both approaches through facilities management improves financial visibility and reduces the likelihood that reactive work will escalate into larger issues. This structured control supports consistent building performance across the year.
Maintenance responsibilities can also extend to internal finishes in occupied offices. Decorating and deep cleaning services delivered within a facilities management framework help maintain professional standards without disrupting daily operations.
Speak to Jade Aden Interiors About Facilities Management
Facilities management often becomes a requirement when responsibility for building safety, compliance, and maintenance can no longer be managed effectively in-house. As estates grow or building complexity increases, the risk of oversight gaps also rises.
Jade Aden Interiors provides facilities management for commercial offices and business premises across Dorset, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Sussex. Regional coverage supports consistent standards and coordinated delivery across sites. You can find relevant experience in our recent case studies, and further guidance is available on our blog page.
Call 01425 689199 or book a consultation to discuss facilities management requirements for your commercial premises.
External Sources
[1] Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme (CHAS), “employers and duty holders remain legally responsible for workplace safety”: https://www.chas.co.uk/blog/health-safety-responsibilities-facilities-management/
[2] GOV.UK, Government Property Function, “the importance of structured management arrangements”: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/facilities-management-standards-for-govs-004-property/facilities-management-standard-001-management-and-services
[3] GOV.UK, Research report, “failures in maintenance, risk assessment, and management control continue to be contributory factors in workplace incidents”: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a750e1ce5274a59fa7170bb/rrep750.pdf