Our survey said

Lizzy Hand

Our annual Building Operations customer satisfaction survey results

Building Operations have scored 80% overall for being responsive, helpful and effective in their annual customer satisfaction survey.

A big thank you to the 344 people who took the time to provide us with valuable feedback, it is helping us look not just at where we do well, and why, but also where we could do better and how.

Building Operations comprises some two dozen Building Managers, Assistant Building Managers, Building Facilities Managers and Campus Managers across our estate. They are a primary point of contact for their various buildings or groups of buildings (some managing more than one campus) and are the glue that binds the various services, such as maintenance, soft services and contractors supporting our buildings. They also manage many minor projects for their buildings.

Scores for each of the teams is reassuringly consistent, confirmation that we are getting much right and to a consistent high standard. 

Among the favourable comments received were:

‘Excellent service. They really bend over backwards to help. They should be appreciated more - some building users don’t understand that BMs are not able to solve all maintenance issues or do anything about delays that are completely beyond their control.’

‘Overall, very effective in managing small works.’

‘Excellent! Particularly grateful for the understanding around trying to manage disruptions to teaching.’

‘Very often seen, always contactable.’

‘They are positive and maintain that positivity despite the challenges of managing some very difficult situations in buildings which have recurring significant issues (eg. flooding toilets, post refurbishment issues etc.)‘

Improvements

Where scores are lower, although still ‘good’, we are using these to improve.

Communication is going to be our priority. Building User Groups (BUG) and Campus User Group (CUG) meetings were commented on by 93 people. 25% made positive, 54% neutral and 22 % negative comments.

We realise that there is no one size fits all for the different types of building and user across our campuses, and that we should begin to look at more tailored methods, also increasing some less formal communication methods alongside this, to ensure information cascades to all who should receive it.

Building Management Teams will be looking at how to make these changes working with their building users.

Communication shortfalls might also be tied in with perceptions of teams’ visibility as sometimes within the same building, some say they don’t know who their team are, while others find them very visible and contactable. In these areas we will also be looking at the reasons for this disparity of feedback.

Lizzy Hand is the Head of Building Operations, (photo above) and the survey, conducted in the summer is the first since she joined the College the previous year. She said: “It is really assuring to receive such positive feedback from all corners of the College and we are working on a number of updates and initiatives in response to the constructive comments. Thank you so much to all who participated."

Director of Estates Operations, Nick Roalfe commented: “These results are confirmation of the sterling work our Building Operations team do. They will be working with Lizzy to improve their service even further, they are a strong effective team who will continue to get better and better under her leadership.”