Embedding users in collaborative FM practice for sustainable post occupancy evaluation of higher educational buildings

Facility management (FM) relationship with users and client organizations has been said to be adversarial in nature. For FM to be able to successfully capture post occupancy information of massive constructed facilities the perceptions of the users are paramount. This necessitates the need for a collaborative practice between FM and the users to foster an effective two-ways communication for a sustainable post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of higher educational (HE) buildings. This study proposed an integrated collaborative FM for post-occupancy evaluation (ICFM-POE) framework for HE buildings. The framework is based on activity theory (AT). This study adopted an exploratory literature review of identified factors essential to achieving the ICFM-POE framework. The findings of this study indicate that as a rule, collaboration attributes such as trust, willingness to collaborate and openness in communication are vital to foster a mutual relationship between the FM team and the users. A mobile application is also identified as an FM tool that can facilitate a proactive two-way information sharing between users and FM team during POE activity. The implementation of the framework would foster a sustainable POE protocols and stakeholders’ participation in decision making that would improve existing facilities and future design. Further study needs to be conducted to validate the ICFM-POE framework. Keywords: Activity theory, collaborative FM, facility management, post occupancy evaluation, users.