Sarah was hired as an HR manager. She has a degree in human resources, years of experience in recruiting and employee relations, and a genuine passion for helping people succeed in the workplace.
But these days, Sarah spends more time calling HVAC contractors than interviewing candidates. She's more familiar with plumbing supply companies than benefits providers. And she can tell you more about the building's problematic second-floor restroom than about the company's employee development programs.
How did this happen?
It started innocently enough. "Sarah, while you're at your desk, could you get a couple of quotes for fixing that broken door?" Then it was the HVAC system. Then the lighting. Then suddenly, facility management wasn't just a few phone calls—it had become a significant part of her job.
A job she never applied for, wasn't trained for, and frankly, shouldn't be doing.
At Managed Services, Inc. (MSI), we hear this story constantly from businesses across the Twin Cities metro area. Receptionists. Office managers. Administrative assistants. HR personnel. People hired for specific professional roles who have had facility management dumped on them.
This isn't just inconvenient—it's expensive, inefficient, and unfair to everyone involved.
In this article, we'll explore how this happens, why it's so problematic, what it's really costing your business, and how to solve it properly.
The pattern is remarkably consistent across businesses of all sizes.
Here's the flawed logic: "You work at a desk with a phone and computer. You have time to make some calls about building maintenance, right?"
What seems like a small request—"Can you just call around and get quotes for this repair?"—quickly snowballs into becoming the de facto facility manager. Once someone handles one facility issue successfully, every future issue gets directed their way.
The thinking becomes: "Well, Sarah handled the HVAC repair last time. She knows how to deal with these contractors. Let's just have her handle all building stuff."
Suddenly, Sarah's job description has expanded to include responsibilities she never signed up for.
Many small to medium-sized businesses don't have dedicated facility managers. When building issues arise (and they always do), those responsibilities have to land somewhere.
In the absence of a clear facility management role, businesses often default to whoever seems most available or most capable of handling vendor relationships. That's usually someone in an administrative or support role who:
These are valuable skills. But being organized and professional doesn't mean someone is qualified to manage complex building systems.
Facility management doesn't get dumped all at once. It accumulates gradually:
| Timeline | The "Innocent" Request |
|---|---|
| Month 1 | "Can you get quotes for the parking lot repair?" |
| Month 2 | "While you're at it, can you also handle the HVAC maintenance?" |
| Month 3 | "We need someone to coordinate with all our building contractors..." |
Before long, facility management isn't an occasional favor—it's a regular part of the job, consuming 10, 15, sometimes 20+ hours per week.
Here's an uncomfortable truth: delegating facility management to non-facility staff is often the path of least resistance for business owners and executives.
It's easier to say "Can you handle this?" to someone already on staff than to:
So the burden gets passed to whoever won't push back strongly—usually someone whose primary role is being helpful and accommodating.
Having non-facility personnel manage your building creates a cascade of problems for everyone involved.
They can't excel at their actual job. When an HR manager spends 15 hours a week dealing with building contractors, that's 15 hours they're not recruiting, developing talent programs, or handling employee relations—the work they were actually hired to do.
Performance suffers. Try excelling at two completely different jobs simultaneously. It's nearly impossible. Performance in their primary role inevitably declines because their time and mental energy are being diverted.
Career development stalls. How does an HR manager build their career when half their time is spent being an unofficial facility manager? They're not developing HR expertise, not taking on career-advancing HR projects, and not building the portfolio of work that leads to promotions or better opportunities.
Job satisfaction plummets. Most people choose their profession based on interest and aptitude. An HR professional chose that field because they enjoy HR work—not because they want to manage contractors, track repair quotes, or understand HVAC systems.
Compensation doesn't match the work. They're still being paid as an HR manager while doing the work of a facility manager. They're not compensated for the additional responsibility.
Having non-facility staff manage facilities creates hidden costs that are easy to miss but add up significantly.
You're paying professional-level salaries for facility coordination. An HR manager earning $70,000 per year who spends 20% of their time on facility management is effectively costing you $14,000 annually for facility coordination—plus you still have to pay the contractors actually doing the work.
Their primary role suffers. What's the cost when your HR manager can't focus on recruiting and you miss out on top candidates? Or when employee development programs don't get implemented because there's no time? These opportunity costs are real even if they're not immediately visible.
Decisions get made without proper expertise. Non-facility personnel making facility management decisions often:
Vendor management is inefficient. Someone without facility management experience doesn't have the industry knowledge to:
Response time suffers. When facility issues arise, the non-facility person handling them has to stop what they're doing in their primary role, research contractors, get quotes, coordinate schedules, and manage the work. This takes longer than it would for someone with facility management expertise and established contractor relationships.
Most importantly, the building itself suffers when managed by non-experts.
Reactive instead of proactive. People without facility management training typically operate in a reactive mode—fixing things when they break rather than maintaining systems proactively. This leads to more breakdowns, shorter equipment life, and higher costs.
Poor maintenance records. Without proper facility management knowledge and systems, maintenance history often isn't tracked effectively. This makes it impossible to identify patterns, plan for equipment replacement, or document warranty work.
Deferred maintenance accumulates. When the person "managing" facilities is overwhelmed with their dual responsibilities, non-urgent maintenance gets pushed off repeatedly. Small problems become big problems. Efficiency degrades. Equipment life shortens.
Building systems aren't optimized. An HVAC system that's just "working" isn't the same as one that's properly maintained and optimized. Non-facility personnel typically don't have the knowledge to ensure systems are running efficiently and cost-effectively.
Let me share some actual situations we've encountered.
We were called by a professional services firm where the receptionist—let's call her Jennifer—had somehow become responsible for all building maintenance.
Jennifer was excellent at her actual job: greeting clients professionally, managing a complex phone system, coordinating schedules, and providing top-notch customer service.
But over two years, facility management responsibilities had been progressively added to her plate:
By the time we met her, Jennifer was spending roughly half her workday (20+ hours per week) on facility-related tasks.
The impacts were clear:
Here's the kicker: the firm was paying Jennifer's receptionist's salary for time spent doing facility management, then still paying contractors to do the actual work. They were getting the worst of both worlds—expensive and inefficient.
When we took over facility management:
The firm's total cost didn't increase significantly—they just stopped wasting money paying a receptionist to do facility management work and got professional expertise instead.
A growing tech company hired an experienced office manager to handle operations—HR coordination, office supplies, vendor management for IT and office services, and workplace culture initiatives.
Within six months, she had somehow also become responsible for managing their expanding facility, which included:
She was working 60+ hour weeks, trying to keep up with both roles. Projects in both areas were delayed. Nothing was getting the attention it deserved.
When management finally recognized the problem and brought us in for facility management, two things happened immediately:
First, the office manager got her life back. She went from 60+ hour weeks to normal hours because she wasn't managing contractors, chasing down maintenance issues, or coordinating repairs.
Second, the facilities were better managed. We brought dedicated expertise, established systems, and proper tracking that hadn't existed when someone was trying to manage facilities as a side responsibility.
The company realized they'd been burning out a valuable employee by asking her to do two full-time jobs simultaneously—and neither job was getting done well as a result.
This story is particularly telling about the hidden costs.
A professional services firm's HR manager had become the de facto facility manager over time. She was spending significant time each week dealing with building issues, contractor coordination, and maintenance scheduling.
During one particularly busy quarter where multiple facility projects were ongoing, the company lost two excellent job candidates because the HR manager couldn't respond quickly enough to schedule interviews and move the hiring process forward.
Both candidates accepted positions elsewhere while waiting for responses.
The cost? The firm eventually had to hire a recruitment agency (at significant cost) to find replacement candidates. The positions stayed vacant longer than necessary, impacting productivity. And the HR manager was frustrated that she couldn't do her actual job effectively.
All because facility management responsibilities were preventing her from focusing on HR work.
When the company finally partnered with MSI for facility management, the HR manager could get back to doing what she was hired for—and what the company actually needed her to do.
Beyond the business costs, there's a fundamental fairness issue that deserves attention.
When someone is hired for a specific professional role—HR, office management, reception, administration—they accept that position based on certain expectations about what the work will entail.
Gradually adding facility management responsibilities without:
...is fundamentally unfair to the employee.
We've spoken with numerous people who feel stuck:
This situation creates resentment, reduces job satisfaction, and often contributes to turnover, which creates even more costs for the business.
The receptionist can focus on reception. The HR manager can focus on HR. The office manager can focus on office operations.
Everyone gets to do the work they were hired for, trained for, and want to do. Job satisfaction improves. Performance in their primary roles improves. Career development gets back on track.
Industry knowledge and experience. We know building systems, understand maintenance requirements, and have relationships with quality contractors across all trades.
Proper vendor management. We negotiate fair rates, ensure quality work, and know when you're being sold something you don't need.
Preventive maintenance programs. We don't just fix things when they break—we maintain systems proactively to prevent breakdowns and extend equipment life.
Code and compliance knowledge. We understand building codes, safety requirements, and regulatory compliance issues that non-facility personnel wouldn't necessarily know.
Efficient coordination. Because facility management is our specialty, we handle issues faster and more effectively than someone juggling it with other responsibilities.
Professional services come with:
Compare this to hoping an overwhelmed non-facility employee can keep track of everything manually while also doing their primary job.
Instead of your staff managing relationships with multiple contractors:
Your team gets back hours every week that were spent coordinating contractors and chasing down maintenance issues.
Let's do some real math on what misplaced facility responsibilities cost:
Scenario: Office manager earning $60,000 annually, spending 15 hours per week on facility management:
Calculation: (15 hrs/wk * 52 wks) * ($60,000 / 2080 hrs) = $22,620
You're paying $22,620 annually for someone without facility management expertise to coordinate contractors and handle building issues—and you still have to pay the contractors who do the actual work.
Plus the hidden costs:
Professional facility management alternative:
In most cases, professional facility management costs roughly the same (or less) than what you're already paying—and you get dramatically better results.
Identify who in your organization is spending time on facility management and how much time it's consuming. You might be surprised by the total.
We meet with you to understand your facility's needs and develop a service plan that covers everything currently falling on your staff.
We take over facility management responsibilities and become your team's single point of contact for all building needs.
Your staff get back to their actual roles. You get professional facility management. Your building gets better maintained.
Better building maintenance, happier staff, more efficient operations, and often lower total costs.
If you have receptionists managing contractors, HR managers coordinating repairs, or office managers overwhelmed with facility responsibilities—you have a problem that's costing you money and damaging morale.
These valuable team members should be focused on the professional roles you hired them for, not struggling to manage complex building systems without proper training or expertise.
Professional facility management isn't a luxury—it's a practical solution that:
At MSI, we've helped dozens of Twin Cities businesses solve this exact problem. We've taken the facility management burden off employees who never should have had it in the first place, and we've given them back the ability to excel at their actual jobs.
Your team deserves to focus on what they do best. Your building deserves professional facility management. And your business deserves the efficiency and cost-effectiveness that comes from having the right people doing the right work.
If you have non-facility staff spending valuable hours managing building maintenance—or if you're wondering why team performance isn't meeting expectations in their primary roles—let's talk about how professional facility management can solve both problems.
Contact Managed Services, Inc. today to schedule a free consultation about taking facility management off your staff's plates and putting it in professional hands.
We serve businesses throughout the Twin Cities seven-county metro area with comprehensive facility management services including:
Managed Services, Inc. (MSI) is a self-performing building maintenance service contractor serving the Twin Cities metro area. We specialize in providing comprehensive facility management services that free your staff to focus on their actual roles while ensuring your building receives professional care.