What is an SLA in facilities management?
A service level agreement defines the measurable standards an FM contract will be judged by — response and resolution times, PPM completion, compliance status — and what happens when they are missed.
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<img src="https://facilityoptix.co.uk/glossary/service-level-agreement/diagram.svg" alt="service level agreement — diagram from FacilityOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://facilityoptix.co.uk/glossary/service-level-agreement">What is an SLA in facilities management?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://facilityoptix.co.uk">FacilityOptix</a>
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</figure>The most consequential measures are the ones about time: how quickly a priority-one job is attended and resolved. They are also the ones most often measured at attendance rather than resolution, which flatters the figures.
PPM completion and statutory compliance belong in an SLA as absolutes rather than percentages. Ninety-eight per cent PPM completion sounds strong and is unhelpful if the two per cent outstanding are statutory.
An SLA is only as good as the data behind it. Measures that depend on records nobody reliably captures produce reporting that everyone privately knows is approximate.
In practice
An SLA with targets and no definitions.
Response is measured from when a job is assigned rather than from when it was reported, which the supplier's system does automatically and the client has never examined.
What is being measured matters more than the target, and the clock start is the definition that most changes the number.
Both parties can report in good faith and disagree by days.
What goes wrong in practice
- Response measured to attendance rather than to resolution.
- Statutory tasks reported inside a blended completion percentage.
- Measures agreed that the systems in place cannot actually produce.
- No consequence attached, which makes the agreement a description rather than a commitment.