This weeks guest is Matthew Erwin, Director of Facilities for the North Syracuse Central School District. Matt has been in the educational space for over a decade, and is currently responsible for 11 different schools.
On this episode, Matt dives into the challenges with managing educational facilities including:
Best practices for managing vendors and preventive maintenance strategies
Integrating custodial teams and technical teams
KPIs to follow closely
Enjoy!
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Welcome to another episode of the modern facilities management podcast. Today's guest is Matt Erwin. Matt, how you doing?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
Very good. Thank you for having me, Griffin. I am the Director Facilities of North Syracuse Central School District. I've been around for about 12 years in public schools, worked both in Cazenovia, New York and now in North Syracuse, New York. Glad to be here.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Pleasure having you on here. And I know, it's kind of goes along the theme with educational facilities management and talking to you. You’re experienced in the space and so I'm excited to dive into a little bit more depth. But before we do, why don’t give us a quick rundown of how you got into facilities management the first place?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
Okay sure. So, just prior to coming back to New York, I was actually self-employed down in Virginia Beach. 2008 2009 was a tough year for business in general. We had some family issues and some opportunities to come back and consider coming back to New York. So conveniently, my brother happened to work with a Director of Facilities wife at a local community college and I heard about an opportunity to work in HVAC for a school district and took a chance and gave it a try.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
So did you have a background in HVAC or was that just you started at the bottom and worked your way up?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
So right out of college, I started in plumbing in HVAC as a union helper on a cogent plant. From there, I went to Glens Falls, New York and worked in HVAC for a small local firm before I went to a corporate firm in Albany and then transitioned down to Virginia to run east coast mechanical for PSEG energy technologies. And soon after, they exited the line of business and I went to work for myself.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Very cool, very cool. And then you worked your way back up into New York as the official facilities management space if you want to use the air quotes on official there. But very interesting. So transitioning over into the educational space, what was the main difference you saw?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
Demand really. Budgets didn't allow for a large enough workforce to really address all of the work that needed to be done. So we transition from a world where you did preventative maintenance and you sold service contracts for preventative maintenance. And demand service was a smaller portion of your work to a space where demand service became the priority and the overarching need. And preventative maintenance was really squeezed in as opportunity to allow for it.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Yeah. And that's something that we had talked about, you know, before we hit the record button was just the limited resources and how that just adds another layer of complexity in facilities management and educational space. So you touched on preventative maintenance, what does that look like having limited resources both financially and labor resources? How do you go about going from fighting fires to having a more established strategic preventative maintenance program in place?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
In the worst case scenarios, preventative maintenance is a philosophy and not an actionable task. In schools where we've done it well, you're utilizing all the resources you have available. So your custodial staff is touching and feeling the equipment and reporting back what feels out of the ordinary. They may not know exactly what they're looking at but they know what it sounds like day to day and all of a sudden, it sounds different. Or it's a little cooler today than it was yesterday. And they're feeding that information back and we're reacting to the need rather than actually proactively preventative maintenance but we're not waiting for failure at that point. So we're getting a step up on it. And that's really the stop gap that we really utilize very well in schools because we have large custodial staffs, we have presence in the buildings 24/7 sometimes, at the very least 16 hours a day. So we're able to get ahead of things in that respect but I really don't consider that preventive maintenance. It's still reactive to an extent.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Yeah, but it's at least getting as you just mentioned, you're one step ahead as you would be otherwise. And so I mean, that's going back to the theme there of getting creative where you do have resources, maybe not as you mentioned more technical resources in that sense but kind of getting them involved beyond just your day to day custodial responsibilities there. And so, as someone that would maybe listening that doesn't have that in place, what are some good steps to take to standardize what that looks like to get your custodial team involved?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
You know, it's getting your head custodian who may have the training to share that with his team. It's using your maintenance mechanics, if you're fortunate enough to have them on staff, to spend some time during the summer training your teams to understand what maintenance looks like. So a lot more schools, the custodians are changing the filters, the custodians are doing the daily management of the boiler system, they're running the logs, they're tracking everything. They're doing your blowdowns on your steam systems. They're touching and feeling the equipment on regular basis but it's usually one or two staff members they're doing that work in the building, it's cross training the rest of the team to understand what they're dealing with. That whole workforce mentality, you know, using everyone at your disposal, not just a couple of experts.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Yeah, and that's a really good point there of we do find that you have that custodial team than you have more hands on technical team but at the end of the day, they do roll up under the head of facilities and facilities department. So in your experience, tell me where that line is or how you separate between the two and where from what I'm hearing you, the crossover needs to occur to have that efficient organization running as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.
Speaker: Matt Erwin
It vary so widely, it's hard to draw a line. The smaller the school, the fuzzier is going to get. Your head custodian might be your maintenance mechanic in a small district. You know, in a large district like mine today, I'm fortunate enough to have individual trade professionals that I tap both on day and night shift. So I've got that expertise that I can send out and we're in the process of building our custodial teams. Our head custodians are very knowledgeable, they've got a lot of depth, they do a lot of hands on preventative maintenance work changing belts and filters and greasing motors and they have their hands on equipment regularly. But the minute they're not present, that challenge becomes, you know, who's there to backfill for them? Do they have the knowledge necessary to step up and make the right decisions or do they need the support? And that cross training is really where we're at today and I’vve been building our teams and everybody's in a different place and depending on your size has their own unique challenges.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Yeah, and you bringing up an excellent point there. And what I see talking with individuals that run the smaller schools as you alluded to and then going up to the, you know, several 100 school districts, that you do have more resources as you develop, mature, but at the end of the day, you have to get creative. And so whenever you're building out specifically that custodial team, because that's something we haven't really touched on in the show too much is that reliance; what are things that you look for in leadership on the custodial side in particular to help from that standpoint?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
You're looking for a dynamic individual that understands accountability. You know, head custodians typically are very dedicated staff members themselves but they're not trained in management; they're not trained in leadership and they're being asked to lead groups of 5 to 15 or 20 people or more on multiple shifts. So it's an area where there's a lot of opportunity for us to improve in the tools and training we give them, that make them good leaders and good managers. And you're looking for the same traits you look for in a facilities director in anyone who manages people in general, you know, the soft skills that aren't taught in the world are really the important skills in that job.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Yeah, absolutely. And going back to preventative maintenance, right, we're tying it all together, where you have the techs going out and doing the pm actions as you have the bandwidth to right, you do rely on outside vendors as well coming in. And so there's a lot that rolls up under the facilities director to determine what is the priority internally versus externally. And so again, going back to that, being creative, limited resources, how do you go about, what are some best practices in prioritizing those pm actions and whether or not you're going to take that in-house or outsource it?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
Number one is know your contract. All right? It's a strong union environment typically in schools, especially here in New York state. So knowing your contract, knowing limitations and restrictions that are there in place. And then really, for our district, we look at our backlog. If our backlog is built up to the point where we're scrambling to keep up with the work orders on the table, we need support, we're going to look to an outside agency for anything that's going to take more than a day to complete. As we catch up on our backlog and we're able to do small project work, we're going to do it in house. We have a robust team, if I need to replace a rooftop unit, I can replace a rooftop unit. If it's time to replace a chiller, probably not going to do that in-house, we're probably going to outsource it. So it's that scalability. You know, if I was in Cazenovia again and I'm a small team of two or three maintenance technicians, I'm not even replacing a rooftop unit, I'm outsourcing that. So those decision points change from school to school based on size, based on the capabilities of your team. You know, Cazenovia, I was fortunate, I could replace and refurb heat pumps in the classrooms all day long because I had a technician who was capable of doing that work. With only two maintenance technicians on my staff, what's the likelihood that if he retired, I'd get another mechanic that could do that work. I'd probably be outsourcing it. Shouldn't be at the point where he retired unless I was able to train someone else. Having more depth here in North Syracuse, I'm pretty confident of the three or four HVAC guys that I have on staff, I'm always going to have that capability.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
And so you mentioned as far as the backlog, kind of going with the data right, inside that goes into important metrics and KPIs that you're tracking there. And so as you're evaluating and where your resources are going both budgetary and labor, what KPIs are important to keep track on and keep track of on a regular basis and that's really your North Stars, if you will?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
We look at completion rates, we look at time to complete is a very critical one for us. Being a big organization, you know, there's probably in the neighborhood have 4 to 500 work orders in our system at any given time. So understanding that, you know, you want a small backlog for every staff member. You know, and defining those metrics is really important for every organization. Really difficult to do in a school environment. There's not a one size fits all benchmark to look at. It's really tracking your data and looking at continuous improvement. It's watching those targets and working toward improving your customer service, being there to support teachers and when they're not comfortable in the classroom, making sure that they are comfortable within a few hours, not a few days. Those are really the critical things to look at a continuous process of improvement, not so much trying to meet the same standards that a private agency might be.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
And going into the client expectations and making sure that in this case, your clients being faculty members around the campuses, how do you interact, how do you track that? How are you getting that type of feedback from faculty members?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
So the work order system we use is open to the staff. They create their own work orders and as a feedback loop built in. So when we initiate work on a request or we enter data on it, certain events trigger a response back to the faculty member to let them know the status has changed. You know, we can send notes back and forth with them to let them know we're working on it, you know that, hey, we fixed it, you know, let us know how it's going. You know, if you have a problem the next few days reply here so it will keep the work order open for a little bit to keep that loop going. So we utilize those types of tools to help us with the communication process and in emergency situations, we ask that they call or email as well so that, you know, we're not in the work order system every moment of every day, they'll give us a little push to take a look and get something in the works for them if there's an emergency.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Yeah, I mean you have to use technology and data as you move forward. And again, going with the creativity that is required in this type of position, you need all the help you could get. And so those types of tools and that information is just critical as you move forward. And last point there, what else you could do with that type of information and tying it back to labor, right? You have to go and make a very strong business case if you do need additional headcount, right. Obviously, we all want it, we all want to be fully staffed and take those 500 Sitting work orders and reduce that to zero in the ideal scenario. So what are important metrics that you follow to go make that business case of hey, I may or may not need additional heads moving into the new year?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
So there's a lot of different resources available. Currently within North circus, we're performing a custodial audit. So we brought a third party agency in to review our tasking and our staffing levels primarily in response to COVID to really make sure that the changes that we've made aren't negatively impacting our staff, that we're treating people fairly and equitably across the district from building to building and from team to team. And we're working on standardizations as well. We've got a few buildings that are a little bit roll that aren't quite on the same page as everybody else that we want to dial in and really just modernize some of our practices there. So as we go from department to department, I run security as well. Our security needs over the last year have magnified threefold just because of the behaviors with students coming back from long absences from school and I'm sure every districts facing that. So in some cases, that the numbers tell a story and in some cases, it's the story itself that justifies the need. And storytelling is really how you make that impact with your cabinet, with your board of education. If you don't give them the background and you don't make it relatable, you know, numbers help support that decision but the story is what sells it. And it's really important to have that piece of it as well. I draw back to our work order system. When I first came here, our backlog was over 900 work orders. We’re down in the 4 or 500 range which seems to be a comfortable spot where everybody has 15 or 20 work orders in their queue and we're more able to get to those urgent work orders in a timely fashion and not let things slip for weeks at a time. So you know, it's a week two week backlog for each individual person on our team and it seems to be a good point. But we're always looking at that and we're always testing the waters to see can we do a little bit better, you know, can work on the 300 and get to more preventative maintenance. You know.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
What tweaks can we make to get to that most efficient, well-oiled machine as we move forward and absolutely love hearing that. But one last question Matt before I let you get back to it. Who or what has had the biggest influence on you and your facilities management career?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
There's a couple of people I guess. I would have to say the first superintendent I worked for as a director, Matt Riley with Cazenovia schools, he really taught me about the community engagement process, really helped me hone my skills as a manager and he left me with one real good piece of advice that I use in almost every meeting I participate in now especially the ones that I lead and that's leave people with three things. Three focal points to every meeting. So I challenge you to come up with your three focal points for our conversation today to leave your guests.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
On the spot huh?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
On the spot.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Well, I think it's starting out just the creativity that's required of anyone in facilities in this role, whether that be getting creative around your budget, getting creative around how you allocate your labor resources, but that being a requirement for anyone in facilities is one of the main takeaways but also the importance of teamwork. You know, you mentioned earlier the technical component as well as the custodial division of facilities and how although you may not have, you know, the staff required as we all would like, you have heads there that they may not be as technical as your technicians out there but they're still to your point, going through each and every piece of equipment as they're cleaning it, they can get a feel for what's right and what's wrong. So using, you know, every area of the organization there. And then as far as different KPIs, just the importance of data and that's really, what I love talking about is the power of technology, automation and just using your numbers to help you out. But to me for putting on the spot, those are the three main takeaways that I've had from it. I don't know if you'd critique that at all. But how'd I do?
Speaker: Matt Erwin
You did just fine. I think that you know, for me, it's people. It's really one thing. You need to know your people, you need to know their strengths and weaknesses and you need to capitalize on them and give them ownership because people that own things, care about things and they're going to work harder for you.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
Couldn't agree more there. Well Matt, certainly appreciate you coming on taking the time to, you know, go through your background, go through your expertise, working in the educational facility space and certainly appreciate it. Looking forward to staying in touch.
Speaker: Matt Erwin
All right well, thank you very much Griffin. Have a great day.
Speaker: Griffin Hamilton
You too.
