As a faculty member, have you ever wondered what happens when you request maintenance services at York University? As a student, do you know how to report issues in lecture halls, classrooms and cafeterias regarding temperature or spills? As trades staff at York, do you have the tools to complete your work orders efficiently and communicate with your clients on work progress? 

Through the discovery phase of work with the Facilities Services team, which included quantitative analysis and stakeholder interviews with service providers, community members and management, we found that there is low satisfaction with the current process to request work from Facilities Services. Additionally, Facilities Services management has identified this process as a top priority for improvement.  

Focusing on the specific opportunities for improvement 

In late 2020, an Expert Team (from Property Management and Ancillary Services) decided on focus opportunities for improvement within the request for service process. The selected opportunities are: 

• Creating a progress tracker to inform clients about the status of their requested service. This opportunity will increase communication with clients and transparency into work progress. 
• Providing front line Facilities Services staff remote access to Maximo to receive assignments, record work progress, order materials, etc. through mobile devices. By digitizing processes that are now largely paper-based, Facilities staff will be able to record information in real time to support the client-facing progress tracker. 
• Revising the Facilities Services website and Maximo service catalogue and forms to make it easier for clients to request service.  
• Creating surveys to understand (1) client satisfaction at work completion, and (2) client effort required to submit a request for service. The surveys will be supported by a feedback loop process for responding to client concerns, tracking and analyzing feedback, and sharing the results with the York University community. 

Designing solutions with clients 

For each of these opportunities, we’ve returned to clients and service providers to better understand the pain points and to identify potential solutions. We are now working with clients and service providers to design, test, and revise prototypes to address the identified pain points.  

Stay tuned for updates as the prototypes progress toward implementation.  For more information on the work of the SEP Facilities Services stream, join the SEP mailing list for regular updates or contact SEP.