The impact of covid-19 pandemic on Malaysian workplaces a facilities management perspective

Abstract

Facilities management (FM) and workplaces have always been two inseparable components for a business organizational entity. The FM and workplaces relation may be described as the conviction of a discipline’s ability to enhance systems for managing workplaces in order to motivate people to offer their best, to support their effectiveness, and, ultimately, to contribute to economic development and organizational success. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has triggered the FM discipline’s critical leadership in becoming the frontliner in the worst of times to create agile workplaces given the still-valid relevance of sustaining physical workplaces and the uncertainties the pandemic carries. This research’s ultimate aim is to gather relevant information on what have been experienced by FM practitioners managing the workplaces in Malaysia during the Covid-19 pandemic by determining the impacts brought by Covid-19 pandemic on facilities management of workplaces in Malaysia and the strategic and/or operational actions taken by facilities management practitioners in Malaysia in response to the impacts. Qualitative in-depth interview approach was conducted with six FM practitioners to gather the required data before inductive analysis of the gathered data was further conducted. The findings showed that all four main elements of FM, people, place, process and technology, are impacted by the covid where in response to those impacts, strategic approaches seem to be more favorable under unprecedented situations. This research presents the recent experience faced by FM of Malaysian workplaces attributable to the pandemic. The act of strategically addressing the impacts by Malaysian FM practitioners has supported the theory of strategic alignment that has become the basis of this research. In the future, Malaysian workplaces will likely continue to evolve given the devastating experience it has encountered during the pandemic. This research has become a practical lens to look at the anticipated changes of FM of workplaces in Malaysia where creating a resilient workplace under unprecedented conditions is very desirable.