For Lasting Resilience, High-Performing Facilities Teams Forge Proactive Partnerships

Today's demanding facilities environment has pushed the traditional break-fix model to its limit. For many FMs, operational resilience no longer comes from faster response times, but from a deeper level of partnership with their clients and contractors. As a result, some high-performing facilities organizations are moving from transactional service models toward proactive, trust-based alliances that redefine partnership by grounding it in communication and transparency.

Jamie McNaughton is a facilities professional with a career built at the center of this change. As a leader in Business Development and Client Success at Siteworks GC & Facility Maintenance, her focus is on forging relationships and finding opportunities to grow with the firm's clients. She says AI and data are helping teams become more proactive, but the real differentiator is how facilities leaders use that insight to prevent problems long before they disrupt operations.

"The organizations that win are the ones paying attention to trends early and acting on them, not just reacting after something breaks," says McNaughton. In an AI-assisted environment, she says, technology can serve as a powerful enabler that sharpens and complements human expertise.

• Augment, don't replace: In her view, the goal of technology is to do more than just streamline the work order workflow. Digitizing maintenance and reliability to surface trends allows teams to anticipate needs in a way that human planning alone can't accomplish. "Rather than taking our jobs, AI is going to help us, provided we learn to utilize it correctly," she says. "It shouldn't overcome the need for a person managing and maintaining it."

• The data dividend: McNaughton says forward-thinking FMs are capitalizing on the abundance of available data, using it to inform proactive maintenance and resilience and multiplying productivity with predictive AI agents. "The data speaks for itself. Use it to your benefit and listen to it. Don't ignore it."

In practice, this proactive approach means a decisive move away from temporary fixes. While something like getting an HVAC unit running again is table stakes, McNaughton says sustainable value comes from identifying the root cause of a failure and offering permanent solutions. "We want to make sure we’re not only resolving the problem, but resolving it for as long as possible. We can fix it now, but we’re also going to tell you what might happen down the road and what we recommend long term." But technology, she says, is only part of the equation. The factor that truly separates resilient organizations from those stuck in a reactive cycle is a willingness to embrace a deeper level of partnership.

• Budget for reality: Succeeding in a partner role requires a willingness to broach sensitive topics, especially around budget. "No one loves talking about increasing spend,” she shares, “but costs are rising across the board, and avoiding the conversation doesn’t stop that reality. Our goal as vendors isn’t simply to recommend more spend; it’s to help clients plan proactively, support their operations, and ensure they have the all the details to respond quickly when issues arise."

• Beyond the transaction: It also means building reciprocal relationships that redefine the traditional client-vendor dynamic. "It's give and take," McNaughton says. "I'm not always calling a client for something to grow my accounts or to bring in money. I might be calling them for their advice, and they can call me and I have no problem passing information on to them."

• The trust cascade: McNaughton advocates for extending the same level of communication and relationship-building to subcontractors. "We put our trust in them to do the work, and in turn, they relay better information back to us so we can transfer that same trust and transparency forward to our clients."

While technical failures are inevitable, McNaughton believes the biggest friction points in facilities management today are of the human variety. "A lot of the challenges have to do with communication, response times, and transparency. I'm finding clients are looking for a clearer vision of what's going on with their work orders instead of vagueness." Closing the communication gap, she believes, requires repositioning the vendor relationship and building personal connections that move beyond a line item on an invoice. "Trust is built through conversation, not emails," McNaughton says. "When clients know they can call you at any hour and speak to someone who understands their business and will handle the problem, that’s what transforms you from a vendor into a true operational partner."