In this first module of your course on Facilities Management, we have aimed to provide you with a broad overview of the discipline itself, in order to give you a taste of some of the tasks that you will become involved in as a successful Facilities Manager. Firstly, we defined the term facilities management and then broke it down further into some of the key tasks and activities involved in the field, both from an operation and a project perspective. As part of this, we also discussed the difference between outsourced and in-house facilities management functions and some of the important considerations that organisations take, when deciding where to house their facilities support.

Following this, we looked more closely at some of the important skills and personal attributes that a good Facilities Manager possesses and encouraged you to consider this against your own personal skill set, so that you are able to proactively tackle any areas in which you need extra support or experience. We also looked at some of the different routes into a successful facilities management career. Finally, we covered some interesting strategic thoughts around what successful facilities management looks like, including the merits of good negotiating strategies.

This module built on the general principles that you learnt in Module 1, to further explore the important concept of space planning within facilities management. To begin with, we discussed what space planning is and why it is important within a business, for both current and future business needs. As part of this, we covered some key principles that you may wish to include in your space management document or strategy, to ensure that space is used to its best effect within your organisation.

Following this, we moved onto a definition of space utilisation rates and some suggested methods for the Facilities Manager to improve the way that space is used. Of course, it is not always possible to make space work even harder than its maximum - and this is when you may need to be involved in a decision to increase the amount of working space available by moving to new premises. We covered the key factors that you will take into consideration when choosing the most appropriate space for your needs and, following this, how to manage the practical aspects of a move of premises, to ensure that it runs as smoothly as possible for staff, managers and customers.

We began this module with a definition of hard and soft facilities services and some of the most common areas that you are likely to encounter in your role as a Facilities Manager. Following this introduction, the main part of this module was dedicated to looking at some of these areas in more detail. The first concept that we considered was that of building management systems and how they can be useful in co-ordinating some of the basic functions across a building, such as heating, lighting, air conditioning, etc.

We then moved on to an examination of the water supply required by working premises, including what you must provide by law and some interesting methods with which to reduce water usage. This led us on to a definition of site security and different methods of ensuring the safety of your building through interventions such as CCTV and security personnel. We then moved on to looking at the provision of car parking in workplaces and some of the points that you may wish to consider when deciding whether to offer this as a benefit to the staff in your building. We covered a lot of detail around waste management and cleaning services - namely, how to encourage effective recycling in your unit and the considerations to take when implementing a cleaning regime.

Finally, we looked at the importance of office furniture and IT services, with a specific review of the pros and cons of hot desking as a way of working.

In this module, you have learned all about the different types of individual that you will be working with or managing in your role as a Facilities Manager. To begin with, we defined the difference between contractors and subcontractors and discussed the key advantages and also the risks of working with these groups. As part of this, we covered contracts for services, the written agreement that exists between a contract and a client and some of the important clauses that should be included in them, such as confidentiality and intellectual property rights.

We also discussed an alternative to working with individual, self-employed contractors and enlisting the services of a service company with an ongoing agreement for work. Next, we moved on to working with employed individuals, including the key parts of a contract of employment and some of the legal and statutory entitlements that you are obliged to provide your employees with.

We also covered the use of peripheral workers, such as temporary workers and zero hours contracts and when both types of contracts could be useful. Finally, we took a look at your role as a line manager to the facilities team and some common issues that you may have to tackle in this role, such as communication issues or performance problems. We also gave you some tips on how to effectively manage and resolve disputes in the workplace.

We began this module by looking at some common types of commercial occupancy arrangements, namely commercial leases and licences and some of the key features of these arrangements. We then moved on to looking at the important process of acquiring equipment for your premises, both general and specific and three of the most common methods of obtaining it (purchasing, renting, or leasing) and some of the main pros and cons of each approach. This led us on to the area of purchasing and procurement in general and we discussed what a purchasing strategy is and why it ought to be a useful tool for you to use if you are responsible for making the purchasing decisions in your organisation.

We looked in more detail at the main steps involved in the purchasing process and some of the key documents that you are likely to come across in this regard, such as purchase orders and invoices. You also learned more about the important factors to consider when finding and selecting suppliers or vendors to work with and some tips for how to successfully negotiate with them in order to secure the best possible deal for your business. Finally, we discussed some common issues that might arise during the purchasing process and how to mitigate them.

We began this module with an overview of two important legal and regulatory frameworks/bodies relating to health and safety at work in the UK - The Health and Safety at Work Act and The Health and Safety Executive. As part of this, we took a closer look at some statistics regarding the prevalence of accidents in the workplace and the fact that there are some types of accident and injury which are particularly common. After identifying some of these risk areas, we moved onto some interventions that you should consider putting into place, with the aim of reducing these hazards where possible.

We looked at the importance of carrying out risk assessments and provided you with a template framework to follow when conducting risk assessments. Secondly, we covered the key role that staff training has and discussed different methods of training your workforce for maximum effectiveness. We also looked at the role of PPE in the workplace and how this can be an effective way of keeping some employees safer when carrying out their roles. Finally, we covered the ergonomics of a workplace and some ideas for how to reduce the impact of repetitive tasks and manual handling on some groups of workers.

In Module 7, we have focused on an important area of business as usual facilities management - that of system and equipment maintenance. We began by summarising the different types of maintenance management strategies, such as preventative maintenance, risk based maintenance, corrective maintenance and emergency corrective maintenance and weighed up the pros and cons of each approach, from a cost and strategic perspective.

We then provided you with some important information about the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER), a legal framework which places duties on people and companies who own, operate, or have control over work equipment. Following this, we moved on to describing some of the common types of maintenance arrangements that you are likely to be involved in as a Facilities Manager, specifically for HVAC, lifts and escalators and powered doors and gates and gave you some specific ideas and tips with which to manage the maintenance requirements of these systems. Of course, it is important to identify what our premises' maintenance needs are, but it is equally important to effectively track your maintenance plans so that you can ensure they are carried out in a timely manner and are also recorded and analysed correctly and we discussed some ways of doing this, including understanding the lifecycle of your assets and depreciation. Finally, we covered your responsibilities in relation to first aid at work and the interventions that you must put in place, to ensure that you have suitable first aid cover on your premises.

In this module, you have learned all about the principles and practical application of project management as a management discipline, in order to support you in the planning and delivering of facilities projects that you are likely to be involved in.

To begin with, we defined project management in general terms and explained why a solid knowledge of it can aid you in your role as a Facilities Manager. Following this, we looked in detail at the five main stages of a project and the importance of each. As part of this, we covered some common areas of facilities management where projects could occur and an idea of the sort of work that you could be involved with in this regard.

We then moved on to looking in more detail at two overlooked stages of project management - planning and scheduling. From a planning perspective, you learned more about the importance of rigorous planning and setting of objectives and also about how SMART objectives can help your project to succeed. Moving onto scheduling, we covered some interesting strategies or methods to help you to schedule effectively and also took a step by step walk through the main stages of how to schedule a facilities project.

Our focus in this penultimate module of our Facilities Management course has been on your role in controlling and reducing costs in the business that you work in.

We began the module by explaining the universal importance of cost control and gave you some good starting points regarding how to look for opportunities to save costs in your business. We then went on to list, in some detail, some of the more usual and tried and tested approaches that businesses use to reduce their overheads, recognising that the type and needs of your own business will determine your decisions regarding what sort of cost control activity to take, as one size does not fit all.

We then continued to take a closer look at some of the financial documents that you may be exposed to in your role as a Facilities Manager, these being budgets, balance sheets and asset registers - and how to draw them up. Finally, we undertook a review of business continuity planning and the advantages that this can offer your organisation. We covered the basic steps of drawing up contingency plans and also considered a brief case study of how the SARS epidemic affected businesses in China and Hong Kong.

In this module, you learned all about the importance of implementing environmentally friendly and corporate and social responsibility initiatives into your business and the benefits that such strategies can bring about. We began by taking a look at the definition of a green or sustainable business, plus the ISO standards and bodies such as the Environment Agency, who play a big role in this field. We covered the key characteristics of a sustainable business and then moved on to taking a detailed look at ways in which to improve the sustainability of the company that you work for, considering the areas of waste, purchasing, staff engagement, reducing the energy footprint and water use and recycling, giving you lots of tips to try in each area.

Following this, we defined the concept of corporate social responsibility and some of the reasons why it is so important and why you should consider implementing a CSR strategy in your business. As part of this, you learned the key steps in the creation of an effective CSR plan, as well as some general pointers to bear in mind. Finally, we considered a brief case study of The Co-operative group, who have successfully implemented and embedded a CSR strategy into their business operations.