Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Are FM Teams Carrying The Load Of Risk Management?

• Content
• Opinion
• Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Are FM Teams Carrying The Load Of Risk Management?

25 June 2026 | Updated 24 June 2026

Nik Flytzanis, Growth Market Director at Once For All, looks at how facilities management (FM) teams are evolving into primary risk managers due to the mounting regulatory pressures.

As regulatory pressure in the built environment increases, so do the responsibilities of FMs. With financial risk, performance metrics, ESG compliance, and the all-important health and safety checks, a lot rests on FM teams’ shoulders, especially when managing multiple suppliers and sites.  

FM professionals are becoming the risk managers nobody sees. The amount of red tape they now need to navigate has grown to such proportions that keeping up seems unrealistic. 

I am not arguing that we need to take anything away from hardworking FMs. Rather, it’s time to replace the notion of an all-knowing, all-seeing FM team with a more realistic model of risk management. 

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

Once For All, home to Facilitiesline, surveyed FM leaders to better understand how they manage risk. When asked to rate their confidence in their suppliers’ compliance out of 10, the average score was 8.5. The trust FM teams place in their established suppliers is certainly a good thing, but a closer look at the data suggests the picture is more complex.

Most FM leaders reported that, when it comes to overseeing supplier compliance, their organisations rely on a combination of internal processes, existing relationships, and established ways of working, rather than fully standardised or system-led approaches.

While 75% of organisations conduct periodic audits, the interval between audits can be as long as a year. Whilst a positive step towards managing compliance, these ‘snapshot’ audits create periods of risk in between checks.

At the other end of the scale, 37.5% of organisations we surveyed said they rely heavily on informal and reactive checks, mostly driven by performance issues that are addressed as they arise. This is playing a dangerous game when the cost of health and safety breaches is skyrocketing, senior managers face personal liability and unlimited corporate fines.

One of the Facilities Managers we interviewed explained that “[supplier compliance] is all quite manual at the moment. We carry out checks annually, there isn’t currently a regular process in place for financial checks”. Another one echoed those words, confirming that “it’s very ad hoc and largely depends on the quality of service we receive”. 

In other words, many organisations don’t know what they don’t know. A supplier’s compliance status can change overnight: a health and safety certificate expires, financial issues arise, a sustainability check is missed, and suddenly, compliance vanishes. You can’t wait until next year to spot these crucial issues, and you can’t rely on blind trust to prevent serious breaches.

The Challenge with Multiple Platforms

A positive finding from our survey is that some organisations are increasingly relying on technology to help them stay on track and monitor compliance. The use of multiple internal systems and procurement platforms was mentioned by almost 30% of our respondents, indicating that FM leaders are aware of the risks of manual compliance management and are taking steps to implement a more structured approach. 

However, the risk with managing multiple internal systems is that they also need management. A new regulation is introduced, or the parameters for meeting a certain safety standard change, and suddenly you may be searching for and updating multiple programmes, risking missing something. 

Using technology to support supplier compliance management is certainly the right approach, but managing a fragmented set of systems can create additional work rather than making FM’s lives easier. 

Finding A Way Forward

With regulatory pressure mounting and FM teams evolving into primary risk managers, it’s imperative to have a solid digital infrastructure in place. A single, comprehensive supplier management system can help bring everything together with real-time checks that go beyond basic health and safety and encompass all sources of risk, including financial, legal, and ESG compliance. 

The peace of mind that comes with full-time visibility across every site, at all times, means FM teams can stop worrying about the next emergency and focus on building valuable supplier relationships. It also means that, when non-compliance issues are spotted, they can be tackled there and then, rather than waiting for them to escalate.

As the FM world becomes increasingly complex, it is neither fair nor reasonable to expect FM teams to carry the burden of compliance alone. A digital-first, real-time approach to supplier visibility is organisations’ best defence against breaches and the safest way to build a compliance strategy grounded in reliable data rather than blind trust.

Picture: A headshot of Nik Flytzanis, Growth Market Director at Once For All

Article written by Nik Flytzanis | Published 25 June 2026

Share

---

---

Related Articles

---