by Brianna Crandall — December 18, 2015—The British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM), the U.K.-based professional body for facilities management (FM) supporting 16,000 members around the world and thousands more through qualifications and training, recently launched a Good Practice Guide to Winter Maintenance.
The guide provides FM professionals with practical advice and guidance to support them in developing better working practices around winter maintenance.
This latest guide in the Good Practice Guide series was authored by Nikki Singh-Barmi, managing director of U.K. winter gritting and snow clearance specialist GRITIT. It aims to provide FM professionals with practical advice and guidance to help support them in the preparation of developing better working practices around winter maintenance.
Singh-Barmi explained:
We have been collaborating closely with the BIFM over the last three years to gain insight into how well prepared U.K. business is to deal with the very real risk that severe winter weather poses. We know that FMs are becoming increasingly aware of the growing impact of risks, such as risk of lost revenue, reputation and productivity resulting from accident liability claims or shut-downs caused by snow and ice. But almost a quarter of FMs are still leaving themselves vulnerable by not having a winter maintenance plan in place.
There wasn’t really any substantial documented guidance available for FMs. We wanted to share experience and expertise with BIFM to clearly communicate to members, and the FM industry, how risk can be reduced by creating a robust winter maintenance plan that can be embedded at top level to a company’s health and safety policy so that, when severe weather strikes, businesses can be well prepared to meet their duty of care by taking a proactive approach.
This latest guide covers all aspects of winter maintenance from creating a plan and reducing risk to driving safely.
Top tips from BIFM’s Winter Maintenance Good Practice Guide include:
- Understand the FM’s duty of care when it comes to making a site safe for staff and customers during harsh winter weather.
- Realize that planning and advance preparation is critical in keeping the facilities as safe as possible during a harsh winter.
- Ensure the winter maintenance plan is robust through a recognized health and safety management system such as OHSAS 18001.
- Appoint a senior “champion” of the winter maintenance plan for top-level support.
- Document the winter maintenance plan and service activity, fully investigating accidents and recording all details.
- Ensure the winter maintenance plan is based on real-time accurate weather data and agreed action triggers for service.
- Carry out detailed bespoke site surveys and specifications within identified hazardous areas.
- Review winter maintenance plans and policies on a regular basis: at least bi-annually.
- Remember that planned preventative maintenance and condition-based monitoring help businesses cope with severe weather events.
- Share winter risk plans with the company’s broker / insurer.
Peter Brogan, Research and Information manager at BIFM, pointed out:
BIFM’s Good Practice Guides series aim[s] to be a jargon-free, practical guide on specific and diverse subjects for the benefit of FM professionals. The guides provide hints and tips that FMs are able to implement into their working practices with ease. The Good Practice Guide to Winter Maintenance is a brand new guide for the series, and is one of many new or updated guides that we’ll be releasing over the coming months.
The guide is free to download to all BIFM members as part of their member benefits. It is priced at £19.99 for non-members and is available to buy directly from BIFM along with other guides in the Good Practice Guides series.
