Growing as a leader & people manager

January 24th marks International Education Day. In honor of this important but little-known holiday, we’d like to remind you about the great training and continuing education options offered by Fiix. Did you know that your organization can have its very own personalized learning group in the Fiix Learning Management System (LMS)? Imagine having the capability to register your learners, enroll them in courses or learning paths, and easily track their progress, all in one dedicated space. And it’s totally free! Let us be your ally in boosting your maintenance team's expertise.  Access the Fiix Learning Management System  The training materials in the Fiix LMS are designed for convenience, with manageable courses available 24/7. No more scheduling headaches; your learners can access training at their own pace. Tailor the learning experience with role-based paths for Technicians, Managers, and Admins, eliminating the guesswork. Whether you're onboarding new hires, refining skills with recu

June 6th marks National Higher Education Day. This little-known holiday celebrates and promotes the way that continued education improves our society and our lives, both personally and professionally. Here in the Fiix community, we think it’s the perfect opportunity to share with you a great (and free!) resource at your disposal for continuing your Fiix CMMS education. The Fiix Learning Management System (LMS) is an online portal providing a variety of learning paths for the different roles within your organization (administrators, managers, technicians), as well as courses on specific topics, such as Change Management. There are 3 role based learning paths that lead to a Certificate of Completion and managers can even create user groups to assign trainings to their team and track progress. It's like having your own superhero sidekick for training management!   Many Fiix users tell us that the Fiix LMS has been a game-changer for them in adopting Fiix Software. But don’t take our word

Hello Fiixers Community,As the Senior Manager of Training & Education at Fiix, I am excited to announce the release of our latest eLearning series on Change Management.This 2-part series is designed to help individuals and people managers effectively adapt to change and lead others through transitions.The first course in the series is called “Strategies to Thrive Through Change”.  This course is tailored towards individuals who want to develop the skills and knowledge needed to navigate change in their personal and professional lives. This course covers topics such as understanding the different types of change, identifying your personal response to change, and developing strategies to manage change effectively.The second course is called “Leading your Team Through Change”.  This course is specifically designed for people managers who want to lead their teams through organizational changes. This course covers topics such as understanding the role of a manager and learning how to ef

Following up on our last post on the value of tacit knowledge and the three common culprits behind knowledge loss, let’s look at four key strategies for fighting back and preserving your team’s hard-won knowledge. Knowledge sharingSince knowledge retention is first and foremost knowledge sharing, we need to figure out how to ease fears around job security and foster a culture of openness. Kathir Haran, a Solutions Engineer at Fiix, offers this piece of advice: “When you’re building a maintenance program out, make sure you have every single stakeholder, including the person turning the wrench, in on that decision.”  Knowledge retention is first and foremost knowledge sharing. When maintenance professionals of every seniority level are looped into the process of building out a maintenance program, they see information sharing as a gain instead of a loss. Their contribution is more visible to senior personnel, which turns their knowledge into an asset.The same concept also applies to expe

You spend a lot of time maintaining your plant. What about your knowledge? A key team member leaves. A log is filled out incorrectly.A helpful tip is never recorded.  In any of these scenarios, the end result is the same—valuable knowledge is lost. Tacit knowledge is particularly vulnerable to being lost. It’s the often unspoken and undocumented know-how gained from doing the same work in the same place for a long time. It can’t be bought and it can’t be faked. Tacit knowledge is the mechanic who can tell when the oil in a lube pump needs changing just from the smell, or the feel of it between their fingers. It’s the technician who can tell you what’s happening inside a machine just by listening to the vibrations. Or that one team member who knows where every odd part is stored. Maybe you recognize yourself in one of these examples.Tacit knowledge takes years, even decades, to build up–but it can be lost in an instant. With record-breaking rates of employee turnover, cybersecurity thre

You want your maintenance team to feel supported in all the work they do. Providing resources and best practices helps them work more effectively, so you can achieve goals quicker, with less downtime. In this article, we’ll explore a few ways you can help support your team's routine maintenance program: 1. Provide other visual reference materials 📚Having things like diagrams, photos and manuals will help guide operators during routine work.  2. Film a video of technicians doing the work 📹Documenting it as a video in addition to any written guides/notes ensures that work is done well without extra training or job shadowing.  3. Create a maintenance type for operator work ⚙️This can help you quickly spot work that operators might be struggling with and from there you can decide whether to transfer the work to technicians or invest in more training (or both).  4. Make sure all measurements are specific 📏Remember: what you think is obvious may not be obvious to your operators. Don’t mak

People don't invest in projects; they invest in problems, solutions, and outcomes. This includes your maintenance team and as a team leader, you need to stand out from the crowd and get business leaders to buy into your vision for your maintenance project.In this post, we’ll explore the six steps for building the perfect pitch for your next maintenance project, along with storytelling tips and advice on what data points to include.   Step #1: Present a problemYour project is a change, and change is sometimes hard to accept. Find a problem that your project will solve and run with it. How to tell the story:Describe the problem Show what the problem looks like Explain the impact of the problem Examples of data to include: Cost: How much is the problem costing your team? Time: Are you spending more time than you should on a task? Health and safety: Are audit compliance tasks not getting done, or are near misses getting higher? Employee retention: Is it hard to hang on to good team members

Since the launch of our community we have seen such great conversations among our Fiixers. In fact, you are answering each other’s questions over 90% of the time…a stat that puts The Fiixers in world-class community status! So, to continue our 1-year anniversary celebrations, this week we want to shine a light on some of our top contributors who have helped make this space such a great place to learn and grow!@ryanr @htullos @mtperkins @bshafer @MichaelUD @Michelle J @Tdufton @RalfK @cstevens @Tina Brown Note: The more you engage within the community the more points you earn! See where you rank on our full leaderboard here → Collectively these Top 10 community leaders have posted almost 400 times, so odds are one (or more) of them has helped you by taking the time to share their experience. If so, add a quick message below 👇 to say, thanks 🙏.   As we continue to grow our community of Fiixers, we encourage everyone to get involved! Tell us in the replies below if there are topics you

Scheduling conflicts are right up there with hold music and bumper-to-bumper traffic as one of the most annoying things in the world. And when maintenance and operations schedules clash, tensions can run high.The five questions below can help both teams work through scheduling conflicts without either side feeling slighted.While you’re here, have you ever had to convince your peers to give maintenance some time on equipment? What was your game plan? 

Worker safety, and asset integrity, requires a thoughtful process and the CMMS plays an important role.  The pink rectangles in the figure below highlight areas where worker safety and asset integrity can be emphasized.   How to highlight worker safety and asset integrity: Verify requirement for safety plan with all work. Certain job steps require special denotation (boldness or color) to highlight potential for injury. The maintenance technician, before starting job, should assess overall level of risk once at job site; Worker reviews pre-job checklist. HSE manager should be notified of high-risk operations (and maintenance) – and be present. Planner must assign the right skill set to the job; similarly, the supervisor must assign the right qualification. At start of each shift, maintenance supervisor should conduct a JHA/JSA. At end of shift, if job not complete, technician must place job site in safe condition. When updating CMMS, be sure to provide feedback of other h

There can be 3 types of communication: Leadership dictates  Conversation within a department  Conversation between departments (e.g., operations and maintenance) Communication breakdown occurs when there is a lack of trust between the working level and management. Similarly, the CMMS can have KPIs that present the wrong emphasis. An example of this would be KPIs that only focus on worker productivity and nothing on asset performance. It helps to remember that the CMMS is best used as an asset management system and not a people tracking system.The Iceberg PrincipleFor many organizations, problems don’t always get relayed to the top. The reasons could be numerous. The figure below shows the percentage of issues that are known – but not reported. With percentages this high it is important for leadership to find multiple ways to communicate.   Reasons why problems do not get communicated:Operators marked up check-cards (paper) and turned these in, but no one had the time to convert digital

The potential to deliver value is massively increased when everyone is pulling together in the same direction and speaks the same language. Asset management tools and technologies are always important but it is the engagement of the workforce, the clarity of leadership, and the collaboration between different departments that creates best-in-class organizations [The Institute of Asset Management]. Someone once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. This means no matter how well your procedures and work orders are written, if the staff lacks buy-in, the outcome may be sub-standard. The ideal organization will understand the mindset of the working level. They will use the business analyst to make scheduled visits to listen, assist and train. By implementing a defect elimination program, staff becomes aware of attending to even minor problems before they become bigger issues. The goals and objectives of an asset management system begin with the mission statement, asset management po

@kabrams kicked off this session at our user conference, Fiix Forward 2021, by introducing the ABCs of a Fiix Champion and outlining a champion framework that she’s observed at organizations with some of the most successful Fiix programs.  @Joe McVay then discussed other possible scenarios and some of the most common pitfalls we’ve observed with different organizational configurations.  Which ultimately led to a conversion around when and how to grow your CMMS team! So, @delpeachy, the Director of Talent and Diversity at Fiix and a Professor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace at George Brown College, stepped in to help answer some of our questions and explain why hiring for diversity is something we should also consider.  A question from the audience, “Is this right - is diversity a persons, IQ, sex, race, professional education of skilled trade or a persons ancestry? or all of these?” Prompted this response,   “Great Topic, has anybody started this topic in The Fiixer

Every big accomplishment is born from small, consistent efforts to get better. Steph Curry spent thousands of hours practicing his shot before winning a championship. Dolly Parton dedicated decades of her life to music on the way to becoming one of the highest-earning musicians of all time. The same is true for inclusive leadership. There is no three-month plan to be more inclusive. There’s no hack to achieve diversity. Being an inclusive leader means embedding a series of small, intentional practices in your everyday routine as a manager.This post explores some practices to build into your day-to-day so you can establish and grow an inclusive culture in your department and organization. One-on-one meetingsA core concept of inclusive leadership is getting to personally know each employee. This helps you understand their unique background and motivations. One-on-one meetings help you develop this relationship.These meetings are a way to create a dedicated space to talk about work, the e

Whether you're just getting started, you're interested in re-evaluating or re-commissioning, or you're embarking on your next implementation at another site, join @Steve_Ricard and set yourself up for future success. With any new software implementation, there can be a tendency to want to implement as many features and new processes as possible during the initial roll out. After 1000s of CMMS implementations, the Fiix experts from our professional services team have some advice on how to breakdown your implementation into manageable steps.Join this session at our annual user conference, Fiix Forward 2021, to:Fast track the key lessons learned over 1000s of Fiix implementations Understand how to rollout features in a staged approach to achieve the best end result Learn how you can re-commission if you missed some of these steps along the wayFiix implementation strategy: Crawl, walk, runMonday, September 27, 11:10AM - 12:10PM ETREGISTER for this session and more at Fiix Forward 2021 →  �

Every organization, regardless of size, has assets which are operated and maintained. The ability of leadership to extract value from these assets is a key factor in their success. Leadership is also responsible for providing a clear vision of what the goals of the organization are. Asset intensive organizations will use a CMMS to assign priorities, schedule work, and conduct failure analysis. The ideal organization will use the software to support decision making. It is the best-in-class organizations that use this system in this manner to make a difference and remain competitive. Clarification of termsAsset management is the process of maximizing asset value in a cost-effective manner. It is also about worker productivity, safety and process efficiency. Similarly, it is important to work on the right asset at the right time with the right strategy. Key indicators for success include reliability, availability and maintainability. The CMMS provides the technology for documenting work a

Having a reliability team is seen as a strategic role. The make-up of this group really depends upon the organization. Possible roles at the table include:HSE Manager: Safety training, accident investigations, LOTO, management of change Asset Manager: Analytical reports, recurring problems, KPIs/metrics Reliability Engineer: Engineering, issues with assets, RCAs Planner/Scheduler: Backlog trending weekly schedule, PM-job plans, outage planning CMMS Coordinator: Time in status, present reactive, work order feedbackBelow is a list of possible duties for this group:Review bad actor report and drill down on failure mode/cause. Review condition monitoring data trends and exception readings. Talk with craftsman about new CBM work order and suggested deadline. Track cost avoidance savings as linked to CBT discoveries. Evaluate negative asset condition trends. Initiate Root Cause Analysis (RCA) when warranted, i.e., thresholds exceeded; assign lead; monitor status. Perform risk-based criticali

Is your mind brimming with creative ideas for improving your maintenance program, but some of those ideas seem a bit too far-fetched to your colleagues? Ryan Robinson (@ryanr), a Shop Manager working in the agriculture sector, was in the same position a little while ago when he came up with a big idea that would disrupt the old ways of doing maintenance.Watch to hear Ryan’s story on how he was able to get buy-in from management and his technicians to partner with Fiix and drive innovation never before seen at his company. They went from mountainous stacks of binders 📚 to pulling non-existent data from decades old farming equipment 🚜.  Ryan, along with Fiix solutions engineer James Binckly (@jbinckly), share their tips and tricks on: How to introduce new tech to your company, create a business plan, and get buy-in across the board, especially in more traditional sectors like farming How to collect and use data to add value for all key stakeholders across your company Determining w

I recently participated in a Fiix leadership training session on diversity and inclusion. It was incredibly enlightening to learn how leadership is evolving and how to apply these new practices in my day-to-day team management.The session was led by our very own @delpeachy , Fiix’s Director of Talent and Diversity. Dean is also a Professor of Diversity in the Workplace at George Brown College and has spent 10+ years focusing on talent management and creating equity frameworks for organizations. We’re incredibly fortunate to have him on our team to guide Fiix’s leaders in unlocking the potential for all our employees.A single question popped into my mind after this experience — how can I share Dean’s knowledge across The Fiixers community? As it’s an important topic for all leaders to be aware of and I want to create access to these tools to inspire the change we can all benefit from, professionally and personally.So, over the course of the next few weeks, @delpeachy will be posting a s

Becoming an inclusive leader is a lot like planting a garden. Just as plants need to be watered, your team needs daily reminders and examples of what it means to be inclusive and diverse, and why it matters. With consistent care and attention, you’ll eventually harvest awesome results. All of this effort and pay-off starts by planting a seed. When we talk about inclusive leadership, that seed is a commitment. Nothing else is possible without a commitment to building inclusive behaviours within your team. In this article, I’ll explore how to make a commitment to inclusive leadership, how to turn that commitment into action, and how to stick to your plan.  What does a commitment to inclusive leadership look like?There are six key characteristics that inclusive leaders possess. You can check out a list and description of the traits back in post one of this series. Making a commitment is an essential first step to strengthening these characteristics.But what does making a commitment mean?

What the greatest leaders in history got wrongWho pops into your head when you think of a good leader? Maybe it’s a manager you had or a politician you admire. Or even a character from your favorite movie.Whoever it is, they lead with a specific style. And there are a lot of styles to choose from—transformational leadership, servant leadership, situational leadership. The list goes on.No matter the style, this person excelled at taking a group of people and maximizing their potential as a whole. This is probably why you consider them to be great. But it’s also where they likely could have improved.Leaders have traditionally seen the people they lead as one, big group in need of motivation. Inclusive leadership is the exception. Inclusive leaders find the best working style for individuals. Then they create a working environment that allows each personality to shine within the team. As the benefits of inclusive leadership are better understood, people managers and whole organizations ar