Ep 22: People, Process, and Property: Facilities Director George Alvarado on Successful Modern Workplaces

I’m very excited to welcome George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services.

Wednesday, December 4, 2024
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  • How leadership skills from the US Air Force influence George’s facilities management
  • Proactive communication methods to build strong hybrid relationships
  • Energy vs. time management: prioritizing activities that boost energy and team morale
  • Focus on the 3 Ps: how facilities managers can upskill in a flexible work environment
  • Innovating with the basics: combining new tools with fundamentals to meet goals

In episode 22, I’m very excited to welcome George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services. C&W Services is an integrated facility services provider that helps clients drive down facility operating costs, increase efficiency, make strategic decisions, and create a positive occupant experience. 

Alvarado previously served in the US Air Force for over 20 years in roles such as Maintenance Operations Center Manager; Asset, Logistics, and Program Manager; Senior Nuclear Facilities Manager; and so many more roles. He was recently named to Skedda’s Top 20 Facilities Leaders Shaping Hybrid Work in 2024, and that’s why he joins us as a hero of hybrid work today.

How Leadership Skills Acquired in the US Air Force Influence George’s Facilities Management

George Alvarado shared his 20 years of experience in the US Air Force, where he gained skills in operational excellence, leadership development, strategic thinking, problem solving, continuous process improvement, business continuity, and facilities and maintenance management. His time in the Air Force exposed him to interdisciplinary approaches to facilities management, including reliability engineering.

Alvarado’s time in the Air Force also made him realize that he enjoyed managing people and leading teams. He now mentors, coaches, and helps frontline employees and supervisors in facilities management. He’s since applied valuable leadership skills he learned in the Air Force—such as operational excellence and people-focused leadership—in his current role at C&W Services.

“The best thing that I learned is keeping capital management. I'm now in the position to mentor, coach, and help frontline employees, supervisors, and managers do that for their teams. That's one of the best skills that I've learned, especially when it comes to facilities.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

Innovating With the Basics: Combining New Tools With Fundamentals To Meet Goals

George Alvarado discussed leadership skills that are important for understanding team dynamics, change management, systems thinking, processes, goals, outcomes, business alignment and impact, and expectations. He explained that technology is often overlooked in leadership, but it is crucial to use it to accomplish business goals and outcomes. 

He also shared that some leaders may excel at people skills but struggle with technology or neglect processes. He believes that managing processes is key in leadership roles and that facilities leaders need to stretch and innovate to challenge established ways of thinking about facility services.

“One thing that we overlook is technology. Some people are not technically proficient, unfortunately. They're great ‘people’ people, but they fail sometimes in considering technology to accomplish their goals.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

George Alvarado also emphasized the importance of understanding the basics and not jumping on shiny new objects or innovations just because they’re new. Facilities leaders need to manage the basics and processes effectively before implementing new tools and innovations. Once they have the basics down, then they can use the new tools and technologies to support proactive operations, reliability in maintenance engineering, long-term systems thinking, and sustainability.

“I've always stressed taking the basics and applying them to newer technologies like AI. If you don't manage the basics and processes and you're not managing the people in a way that's going to be effective, then those shiny new objects aren't really going to help you.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

People, Process, and Property: Opportunities for Facilities Managers To Upskill

George Alvarado explained that facilities managers can upskill in a hybrid or flexible work model by focusing on people, process, and property. Facilities leaders can consider these different categories to help them understand systems thinking, reliability thinking, human centered thinking. Other important people skills include emotional intelligence, change management, conflict resolution, business continuity, and creating a virtual training environment.

“Relationship building is key for creating a positive, encouraging, and effective workplace. Have those conversations constantly to ensure that you align strategically about your business outcomes—and with your people. You want to develop relationships with the employees who are working on your team because they're the ones who are going to deliver the service.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

George Alvarado discussed another new skill required for facilities leaders: facilitating virtual training. Understanding how to facilitate virtual training, use online resources, videos, and job aids can help in a hybrid work environment where physical presence is limited. Facilities leaders should master tools like Zoom, Teams, WebEx, and Miro for engagement and better understand synchronous/asynchronous tools for effective hybrid work.

Alvarado tied in the need for tech upskilling with solving the coordination tax in hybrid work. He encouraged using a singular platform for central communication among team members, aligning expectations and business outcomes on central platforms, and implementing standard operating procedures (SOPs) for consistency and clarity in hybrid work. Ultimately, the focus should be on business outcomes rather than physical location for performance evaluation in a hybrid world.

“Ensure that everybody's on the same page. Use that single point of communication so everyone knows where the official line of talk is coming from. That helps with change communication and upscaling. Have some kind of standard operating procedure and make sure people are following that.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

How To Be ‘Neural-Linked’ to Your Buildings for Better Business Outcomes

George Alvarado discussed the importance of monitoring building management systems and assets remotely in hybrid work environments, and how technology plays a key role. He emphasized utilizing building management systems (BMS) or computer maintenance management systems (CMMS) for tracking metrics remotely. Key metrics he recommended tracking include HVAC, lighting, security, energy management, and space utilization.

“You always want to make sure that you're connected or neural-linked—to put Elon Musk's little system out there—to what's happening to your building in some way, shape, or form. You want to be always in constant communication.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

Alvarado shared that tracking preventative maintenance (PM) is essential to ensure equipment reliability, as careless work habits can significantly impact equipment performance. Being proactive in maintenance and applying reliability thinking is crucial for improving building management systems, while monitoring water usage, carbon emissions, and equipment sensors is important for assessing building performance.

“When it comes to reliability maintenance, something like 84% of defects on a piece of equipment or an asset is caused by careless work habits. Most people don't even realize that sometimes asset performance is drastically impacted by the person who is actually doing the maintenance on the piece of equipment.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

Energy vs. Time Management: Prioritizing Activities That Boost Team Morale

George Alvarado acknowledged the need to utilize technology like sensory systems and automatic lighting for space utilization. However, he shared that understanding priorities for what can be done at home versus in the office is just as important. As a facilities leader, he needs to balance what’s most effective for the business outcomes with the morale of his team. To do that, he must focus on team dynamics, relationship building, and aligning with business outcomes to achieve goals like effective space utilization.

“Understand what your priorities are. Some things can be done at home and actually should be done at home. But here's the issue: a lot of that's subjective. As a leader, you need to align team dynamics and relationship building with the business outcomes.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

George Alvarado emphasized prioritizing activities that give the team energy and boost morale. He termed this as ‘energy management.’ Energy management is an overlooked but important skill to focus on, more so than just time management. Facilities leaders should focus on energy management for both themselves and their team to get more done effectively, stay connected, and engaged.

“You want to focus on energy management. What gives them the most energy? Do they feel like they're most productive doing this type of work in the office versus when they're at home, or do I just force the issue depending on what the client wants?” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

Proactive Communication Methods To Effectively Lead Facilities Teams

George Alvarado shared that the most important lesson he learned from leading a facilities team through the transition to hybrid work is the need for proactive communication and relationship-building. In a hybrid environment, facilities leaders need to discern the appropriate communication method based on the situation—whether it’s in person, over the phone, via text, or virtually. Additionally, they need to be conscious of their tone of voice to ensure effective communication, especially when they’re not face to face.

“In a hybrid environment, you're limited on the scope of what you could talk about because of time and exposure. Being able to discern when it’s best to have a phone conversation, a virtual chat, a text, or actually going onsite is key.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

George Alvarado pointed out that remote work can sometimes be used as a shield to avoid difficult conversations. In a hybrid work setting, intentional communication requires extra effort to make it work effectively. Leaders should try to proactively communicate and develop relationships in a hybrid work environment by putting in the extra effort engaging with team members and collaborators.

“Sometimes we use hybrid work as a means to put off conversations that need to happen. Being remote provides us that certain level of protection. We need to overcome that and make a proactive effort to communicate, because it could be very easy to just stay behind my screen and just do the job in a way that's very ‘anonymous,’ like people don't even know I'm doing it.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

Lessons in Aligning Expectations and People Development in Leadership

George Alvarado emphasized the importance of aligning expectations in business. Whether it's property, people, or assets, he stressed figuring out what the expectations are and managing in alignment with them to achieve expectations. Oftentimes things get lost in translation or there's miscommunication. Aligning expectations on all accounts (i.e., employees, clients, manager, or organization) and managing those expectations clearly is key to achieving business success.

Alvarado also emphasized focusing on people development, including workforce planning, succession planning, learning, and leadership development. In his experience, looking at human capital management to empower and delegate tasks to employees will lead to better results.

“How do you get your people to the point where they're empowered and delegated to do the job, and you can entrust them to do the job? If you don't have someone you can train who can manage those things on-site, start doing that. Start focusing on somebody you can develop professionally. That way, they feel empowered to do the job when you're not around—because you're not going to always be on-site.” - George Alvarado, Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial at C&W Services

References

C&W Services is an integrated facility services provider that aims to raise the value of facilities services. The company helps clients drive down facility operating costs, increase efficiency, make strategic decisions, and create a positive occupant experience.

Speakers

HOST

Jenny Moebius

SVP @ Skedda | Angel Investor

Jenny is a top Go-To-Market (GTM) leader in the Greater Boston area, where she has a track record of building powerful brands and categories, generating demand (for both sales- and product-led orgs), and creating energizing mission-driven cultures of belonging in the B2B tech space.

GUEST

George Alvarado

Director of Service Delivery Training for Maintenance and Janitorial @ C&W Services

George is a people-focused business partner who is passionate about developing leaders and employees, optimizing processes and property, and driving quality productivity and performance. He previously served in the US Air Force for over 20 years in various operations and facilities roles.

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