Facilities Manager

Description

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The Facilities Manager is responsible for the operational oversight of all facilities such as building façades, plumbing systems, general lighting, lifts, and office cleaning across our 5 Johannesburg sites. This role ensures that each site consistently meets operational, safety, regulatory, and aesthetic standards, while leading a geographically dispersed team of site-based facilities personnel.

A key focus of this role is the optimal upkeep and continuous improvement of all facilities, ensuring they remain fully functional, cost-effective, and aligned with business needs. The successful candidate will bring a balanced skill set of technical expertise, leadership, financial acumen, and strategic thinking to support business continuity and long-term infrastructure functionality and resilience.

OBJECTIVES

1. MAIN FUNCTIONS OF THE JOB

Strategic Facilities Management

• Ensure all areas and assets within the facilities are maintained to Operational and Safety standards
• Implement proactive maintenance schedules and manage emergency repairs promptly
• Monitor and maintain compliance with health, safety, and regulatory requirements
• Standardize facilities policies, procedures, and service levels across all sites.
• Provide leadership and guidance to site-based facilities teams.
• Demonstrate the ability to make innovative and strategic decisions independently, while remaining receptive to guidance and direction when required.
• Maintain consistently high standards of cleanliness and organisation across all workshop and storeroom areas to ensure a safe, efficient, and professional working environments.
• Ensure timely response and resolution of issues to minimise operational disruption

Maintenance Program Development & Management

• Develop and implement comprehensive preventive and predictive maintenance programs for all building systems (e.g. grounds, façade, office and stores related HVAC, comfort cooling, electrical, plumbing, fire safety, lifts, etc.).
• Establish maintenance schedules, checklists, and performance benchmarking across facilities to ensure efficiency, consistency and standardisation.
• Utilize CMMS or other tools at your disposal to track works tickets, asset trends and history, and compliance with relevant industry and regulatory codes and standards.
• Conduct regular site-based audits and inspections to ensure effectiveness of maintenance program and drive for continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with site-based facilities teams, OEMs and/or service providers to ensure equipment efficiency, reliability and lifecycle optimisation.

Operational Oversight

• Ensure optimal performance of building systems including but not limited to grounds, façade, HVAC, comfort cooling, electrical, plumbing, fire safety, lifts, etc.
• Manage preventive and corrective maintenance programs across all locations.
• Active participation in inventory management of all critical spares.
• Ensure that records, drawings and schematics of the facilities under your direction are up to date, accurate and maintained.
• Assist Data Centre Managers with maintaining exceptional aesthetic standards within the data centres.
• Share knowledge and best practices across all facilities by building close relationship with Data Centre Managers and peers.
• Manage escalated support cases and lead appropriate internal resources and/or 3rd party vendors to resolution.
• Active participation in new data centre builds or expansions.
• Ensuring comprehensive Root Cause Analysis are completed for all incidents/outages.
• Foster a culture of collaboration between Facilities Management and all departments within the organisation.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement across all teams.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to interact professionally with a diverse group of clients, colleagues and staff.
• Interact with all levels of the organization in a professional, and tactful manner.
• Competence in team capacity planning.
• Active involvement in physical, network, and cyber security matters.
• Open to provide after-hours support as needed to address or resolve significant issues.
• Monitor compliance with health, safety, and environmental regulations.
• Monitor, measure and maintain compliance with OSH act, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO45001, ISO 27001, ISO50001, SANS and other relevant building codes.
• Active involvement in periodic self-assessment, internal and external audits.

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead, mentor, and manage a national team of site-based facilities supervisors, and assistants.
• Set clear KPIs and performance expectations, conducting regular reviews and coaching with direct reports.
• Defining of personal development plans for direct reports.
• Guide and develop staff by working with HR to ensure skills, training and performance requirements are met.
• Ensure adequate staffing and succession planning across all teams.
• Active involvement with staff onboarding, providing support and adherence to BEE targets when onboarding new resources.
• Develop and implement a skills development and qualification program across all facilities.
• Foster a culture of accountability and continuous improvement within the team

Behavioural attributes

• Demonstrate a mindset of continuous improvement and innovation.
• Continuously and proactively seek opportunities to enhance and streamline processes for greater efficiency and effectiveness.
• Commit to the growth and development of team members.
• Deliver value to shareholders through operational excellence.
• Foster a culture of mutual respect and collaboration.
• Champion diversity and inclusion across all levels of the organisation.
• Uphold the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct.
• Maintain a strong client-centric approach in all interactions.
• Exhibit reliability, responsibility, self-motivation, and enthusiasm in daily work.
• Thrive in both cross-functional team environments and independent roles.
• Stay focused on ongoing learning and personal development.

Vendor & Contract Management

• Establish a reliable contractor base across all regions and facilities.
• Oversee and manage service providers, ensuring service quality and adherence to agreed standards.
• Oversee national contracts for painting, plumbing, life safety systems, comfort cooling, cleaning, general maintenance, and other services which may be deemed applicable to your department.
• Negotiate service level agreements and monitor vendor performance.
• Drive cost efficiencies and ensure consistent and quality service delivery.

Budgeting & Reporting

• Develop and manage a national facilities budget, including forecasting and expenditure control.
• Provide regular reporting on facilities performance, risks, and project progress to senior leadership.

Risk Management & Compliance

• Ensure all facilities meet applicable local/international legal, regulatory, and internal compliance standards.
• Lead emergency preparedness planning and incident response coordination.
• Conduct regular audits and risk assessments across all sites.

Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

• Diploma or Bachelor’s degree in Facilities Management, Engineering, Business Administration, or related field.
• 5+ years of progressive experience in a facilities management role, with at least 3 years in a national or multi-site leadership role.
• Strong knowledge of building systems, maintenance best practices, and regulatory compliance.
• Proven experience managing multi skilled, geographically dispersed teams, complex buildings and intricate vendor relationships.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and project management skills.
• Experience in inventory or spare parts management systems (e.g. SAP MM module) would be advantageous.

  Preferred Certifications

• Higher Certificate in Facilities Management.
• Project Management Professional.
• Health & Safety Certification.
• Green Building or Energy Management Certification.