5 Challenges Faced by Self-Storage Facility Managers and How to Conquer Them

As a self-storage manager, you’re responsible for maintaining the quality of your buildings, ensuring optimal facility performance, and safeguarding customers and employees, all while following budget constraints. You face a host of challenges every day to keep your property running at its best! Here are five of the most common, and some advice on how to conquer them.

Operating Costs

A major challenge all facility managers face is controlling costs. Most companies ask their employees to save as much money possible and still increase profit. Not having a solid grip of operating expenses can give a negative impression to your superiors that you’re unable to run your facility properly. A few simple solutions include conducting an energy audit, inculcating energy-saving practices and negotiating prices with your vendors.

Site Maintenance

Your facility and its various equipment begins to wear out over time, which can lead to breakdowns and downtime. Ultimately, some machinery may have to be replaced; but a proper budget plan for regular maintenance can help increase its lifespan. You can further implement procedures and practices, such as regular HVAC inspections or professional cleaning, that will reduce your maintenance expenditure. Old or badly maintained machinery can increase your energy costs by almost 20 percent.

Create a system to track service and maintenance work. Keeping accurate accounts and records is important to ensure you have information readily available when you need it. It’ll help you to determine when and how your equipment needs to be maintained or replaced.

Pest Control

Pest control is sometimes dropped from a facility’s priority list due to budget constraints, which can lead to infestations. A lack of pest management can have harsh consequences. Pests can threaten the health of customers and staff, and can create negative publicity. It’s best to keep them at bay by hiring commercial pest-control services.

Emergency Preparedness

How prepared is your facility for a crisis? After the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, emergency preparedness became a matter of great importance. Did you know only 70 percent of organizations have a disaster-recovery plan in place? Among those, very few facility managers know they’re responsible for emergency planning. Bringing your company up to speed is a very important task.

Carbon Footprint

All organizations want to make the most of the limited resources they have, and this pressure can be doubly applied in self-storage. With the growing costs of facility operation and the increasing awareness of environmental impact, managers are being asked to do more while consuming less. Eco-consciousness has led to companies seek better ways to manage and recycle their waste as well as limit their energy use.

These are just a few challenges self-storage managers face every day. Look for ways to manage costs, keep maintenance on track, prevent pest infestations, prepare for emergencies and lower your carbon footprint. If you can persuade your supervisors to allocate adequate funds to these areas, you’ll be able to accomplish your tasks and keep your facility running at its optimal level.

Raymond Web is the digital marketing manager for Take Care Termite & Pest Control in Tracy, Calif. He educates people on pest-prevention and -control strategies to help them keep their surroundings healthy and safe. For more information, call 209.832.7300; e-mail [email protected].