Category: Property Management

Security Updates Coming in 2019

As a new year begins, it’s the perfect time to look ahead. Here are some of the emerging security trends coming in 2019.

Privacy is Key

Privacy will become an increasingly important factor in 2019. Data breaches and server hacks aren’t going away any time soon, so expect an increasingly complex system of privacy laws, programs, and company and international policies this year.

If companies want to keep up with the competition, they’ll have to integrate broad privacy initiatives into their business models and processes. This is especially true in the realm of customer data security.

Out with the Old

Though many companies still use them, Windows 2000 and XP are now more of a security threat than they are an asset. What’s more, Microsoft has stopped providing security patches for both operating systems.

If you haven’t done so already, 2019 is a perfect time to make the leap to a newer OS. Windows 7 is generally well-tolerated in most corporate environments, and is backward-compatible with XP and 2000 programs. The important thing, though, is that Microsoft still provides regular security updates for them.

Security Awareness Training

As the security landscape gets more complicated, companies will need to ramp up their security awareness programs. Every day, new ways of accessing your sensitive data are being invented. That’s why, to protect your information, your employees, your customers, and your reputation, it is vital that everyone in your company knows the threats and how to avoid them.

Want to know more about security trends in 2019? Contact MaintenX today!

Making Your Property Bicycle-friendly

Making your property more bicycle-friendly is a good way to improve your workplace and the health of your workforce. Buildings that are bike-friendly tend to have a better social environment—which means higher-quality work and improved customer service.

Health Benefits

Making your property more bicycle-friendly can lower healthcare costs. Workers who ride to and from work frequently tend to be in better physical condition.

Getting Started

What are the principal needs of your business or organization? Are there bike-friendly streets leading to your property? Do you have many employees who already have bikes, or would they benefit from a bike-share program? Answering these questions will illuminate the bicycling challenges facing your particular facility.

Bike Storage

Your workers will want to know their bikes are safe and secure while they’re working. Position your bike parking area in a well-lit and accessible place. Also make it as close to the building’s entrance as possible.

Think about setting up an outdoor bike rack and/or have an indoor rack and a ramp for easy bike access and storage.

Showers and Changing Facilities

Some employees will want to have the option of showering when they get to work after a long bike ride. If your staff is small to medium-sized, one shower should be adequate. In buildings with many employees, two showers is recommended.

If you cannot provide changing rooms and showers for your workers, think about getting a corporate membership to a nearby gym or rec center.

Want to know more about making your facility bike-friendly? Call MaintenX today!

Tips for Managing Water Damage

Water damage can become a living nightmare for homeowners and businesses alike, and, if not dealt with quickly, the effects only become grimmer. From leaky faucets to hurricanes, water damage can cause damage to buildings and human safety. Below are some tips to help mitigate the damage.

Safety First

If the water damage is substantial, it is very important that you immediately disconnect the power, unplug electronics, and move furniture and other important objects to a dry area away from the affected parts of the building. The quicker you do this, the better the outcome for everything in the flooded area. Pull up all carpets and underpadding. Carpet can sometimes be salvaged, but the underpadding will need replacement.

Avoid More Damage

Water damage should be treated with urgency. Every minute the water remains, the more damage it will produce. It is often the case that a professional service will be needed to properly remove the water and dry the affected areas. Hire a professionally licensed contractor.

Flood Insurance

As floods become more and more frequent, flood insurance is becoming increasingly vital to homeowners and businesses. It is an unfortunate fact that many people assume that their home or property insurance policies cover them when a flood occurs, only to find out after the fact that this is not so. In this way, floods have the potential to destroy not only your property but your finances as well.  

For this reason, it is crucial for homeowners and businesses to:

  • Find out if your property is in an area where floods are more likely
  • Carefully review all property insurance policies
  • If flood damage is not covered in existing policies, get covered for flood insurance

Need more information about managing water damage? Call the experts at MaintenX today!

What Is Remanufactured Furniture?

Facility managers often turn to remanufactured office furniture for its cost-effectiveness. But as companies and customers alike are becoming more environmentally savvy, the “green factor” of remanufactured furniture also makes it appealing. Business owners are also always pleased when a substantial asset purchase is achieved well under budget. It’s a rare thing in business: good for the company, good for the remanufacturer, and good for the environment.

Benefits of Remanufactured Furniture

It’s a sad fact that many people are unaware that old office furniture can be remanufactured to like-new condition. That’s one of the reasons why millions of tons of used office furniture are thrown away every year. Remanufactured furniture:

  • Reduces material demands
  • Lowers carbon emissions
  • Keeps furniture in use and out of landfills

A Greener Solution

Furniture manufacturers often present themselves as green by offering furniture made of recycled materials. While this manufacturing technique does reduce carbon emissions and keeps reusable materials out of the environment, remanufactured furniture has a near-zero environmental effect. There is no manufacturing offset and the only environmental effects are from the shipping of the furniture from the remanufacturer to the client.

There is an almost endless supply of remanufactured furniture. It comes in many styles, colors, and materials and can be used in virtually all business sectors. Did we mention that they’re substantially less expensive than new furniture?

If you’d like to know more about remanufactured furniture and how it can save your business money, call MaintenX today.

2018’s Most Frequently Cited Workplace Safety Violations

Employers must provide a safe workplace under federal and state laws, but as many workers will tell you, companies don’t always follow these laws. There are many reasons for this, from simple oversight to ignorance of safety regulations to more insidious reasons like cutting corners to save money on routine maintenance and inspection of facility systems, structures, and equipment.

This list highlights 2018’s most frequently cited workplace safety violations.

Falls

Although falls are a leading cause of fatalities and serious injuries in many sectors, appropriate fall protection procedures and equipment use are not always followed at every worksite. According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), employers must protect workers from falling from platforms, elevated workstations or into holes in the floor and walls.

Toxic Chemicals

Gas and chemical leaks are the most common problems, though asbestos continues to plague older facilities. It is now mandated that natural gas have some sort of odor so that it is more easily detected, but it is still a deadly problem in many facilities today. OSHA will soon require that some types of facilities have detectors for carbon monoxide.

Training Saves Lives

Safety training is vital and teaches workers important procedures and work habits to stop potential dangers in the workplace from becoming real-life tragedies.

If you would like to know more about workplace safety violations and how to avoid them, contact MaintenX today.

Co-working Spaces Trending Upwards

Coworking spaces have increased in popularity over the past decade. Below we’ll explore the factors involved with this trend and its effects of the modern workplace.

Bringing the Outdoors Inside

Modern offices have become a lot more open in recent years, but they’ve also been getting a lot greener—both in an environmentally conscious sense and a literal sense. It turns out that being surrounded by trees, plants, moss, and flowers perks up employees and increases morale and productivity. Artificial waterfalls, stones, sand, and anything else that replicates nature is also increasingly seen in offices around the world.

Technology

Another developing trend is that facility managers and property renters are increasingly using automation and software in their structures. Coded key cards, facility management software, automated booking systems, employee attendance trackers, and self-regulating smart building AI solutions have all become players in offices, facilities, and factories. As these emerging technologies progress, we are likely to see even more innovation in the field of self-regulating systems and artificial intelligence.

The Loneliness Problem

Recently, remote workers have been on the rise. And many have increasingly had the same complaint: they feel lonely, because they do their work alone. That’s why spaces have been popping up across the country to address this problem. Businesses now host open areas where freelancers, artists, and digital nomads can work together, form personal and professional bonds, and beat the blues that remote working is notorious for inducing.

If you’d like to know more about the current trends in coworking spaces, call MaintenX today.

Tips for Proper Grounds Care

Year-round, climate presents increasingly difficult challenges to facilities and their managers. Getting and keeping properties in immaculate condition is key for a company’s image, and can also be a health and safety benefit to a workforce. Below are some tips for proper grounds care.

Aerate

Aeration, making tiny holes in the lawn of your facility’s grounds, allows water to soak in, stimulating root growth and improving fertilizer absorption. When you aerate a lawn, it soaks up more water, which prevents runoff. Aeration improves the effectiveness of irrigation and protects your grounds from dead plant build-up that can collect between the grass blades and the soil. This will keep your facility’s grounds looking great season after season, year after year.

Watering

For trees and shrubs, ensure you thoroughly soak every 2 days in hot weather and every 4 days in cool weather.

Hire a Groundskeeper

This won’t be a viable choice for every business, but depending on your facility’s size and needs it might be a great idea to hire a groundskeeping service to take care of these issues for you. Some things to consider before hiring a groundskeeper or service:

  • Make sure you’ve carefully vetted your service provider
  • Create an effective set of KPIs to track and measure quality
  • Communicate these KPIs to your service provider and conduct fixed review meetings to discuss and fix issues
  • Make sure that your KPIs directly relate to your business goals
  • Encourage innovation and the use of developing technologies to support strategic grounds care
  • Check for upcoming needs six months ahead of time, and prioritize tasks in order of importance and urgency

If you want to know more about proper grounds maintenance, contact MaintenX today!

Tips to Make Sure Your Parking Lot Doesn’t Flood

Flooding is a dangerous threat to drivers and can also be destructive to your parking lot.

One essential aspect of parking lot maintenance that oftentimes goes unnoticed is its drainage, but it can quickly become the central focus when it rains heavily. The damage isn’t just short-term; even though your parking lot may appear to be in good condition, the water filling it can start to eat away at the sealcoat. This can, over time, let water seep into the pavement itself and start to oxidize and weaken the pavement.

Drainage System

Drainage systems can be constructed beneath your parking lot. Water runs into the subgrade and then drains to a lower gradient, preventing potential flooding before it happens. It’s much easier to prevent structural damage than it is to repair it.

Angled Asphalt

One of the smartest ways to keep water from flooding your parking lot is pouring the asphalt at an angle. By creating a gradient, water won’t pool on your parking lot in the first place.

Need help with preventing your parking lot from flooding?  MaintenX is here to help.

If you want make sure your parking lot has the longest life possible while ensuring the safety of the people who use your it, contact MaintenX today!

How to Make Custodial Cleaning Plans

It’s easy to feel frustrated when trying to create a cleaning plan for your facility’s custodial staff. Business owners and facility managers often don’t know how difficult or time-consuming specific custodial tasks are, and that lack of knowledge can lead to an inconvenient, unfair, or uneven workload distribution.

This can lead to a lot of issues. Custodial staff can feel overwhelmed, under- or over-utilized, or just plain stressed. Thankfully, we’ve compiled some tips to get your custodial cleaning plans in working order.

Organize

Firstly, make a list of all the cleaning duties you need performed and how often. Some will be daily, others weekly, and others once or twice a year. Once you have a full list, then you can begin the next step of the process.

Goal Setting

A custodial cleaning plan needs to include realistic goals. Having a plan allows you to see what can be done, what cannot be, and what’s unrealistic. Additionally, it allows you the ability to address unforeseen changes and to add new tasks into the existing cleaning plan.

Square Footage

Understanding your facilities’ square footage is an important part of a good custodial staffing plan. This will help you to assign specific areas to individual staff members and give the custodians a visual framework of the tasks they need to perform.

Break Rooms & Restrooms

A clean restroom is a requirement of any working environment. It ensures safety while reducing the risk of spreading disease. Kitchens and breakrooms are no different. All of these areas should be cleaned and sanitized often.

Training

Even the most scrupulous cleaning plan is useless without well-trained workers to carry it out. Whether you hire in-house or use an outside cleaning company, you’ll need to do your homework and make sure you hire the best custodians for the job.

Want more information about custodial cleaning plans? The experts at MaintenX are here to help!

 

Tips for Creating Efficient Parking Lots

Getting from Point A to Point B in their cars is something people often take for granted. Arriving at Point B and expecting a parking place is another.

Parking is important, and that means parking lots are important. If your business has a parking lot that isn’t well-designed, you’re going to run into problems.

Let’s take a look at some tips that can help your fix a chaotic parking situation in your parking lot.

Angled Parking

Angled parking is a popular choice, but why? Simply put, angled parking spaces don’t require vehicles to make sharp turns, making it easier for cars to maneuver in and out of parking spaces. They also reduce the likelihood that a car will be blocked if another car parks too close.

Pros of Angled Parking

  • Easy to park
  • Easy to exit
  • Requires less turning radius
  • Less likely to get blocked in
  • Can fit more spaces per square foot

Cons of Angled Parking

  • Requires one-way traffic lanes
  • Can be harder to line up the nose of the vehicle

Straight Parking

Traditional, “old school” straight parking setups allow for more flexible traffic. Straight parking lets cars line up in the parking spot using the front and both sides as guidelines, reducing the likelihood of a fender-bender when entering or exiting

Pros of Straight Parking

  • Allows for two-way traffic
  • Cars can line up vehicle from multiple angles

Cons of Straight Parking

  • Spaces take up more square footage
  • Cars need to swing out more in order to park

Changing your parking lot layout isn’t going to change the world or affect your employees’ commute—right away. But over time, you will notice that a parking lot arrangement more suited to your particular needs will improve morale, reduce tardiness, and prevent accidents in your parking lot.