International. A survey conducted by the portal facilitiesnet.com revealed that maintenance and engineering managers in the United States spend much of their time monitoring compliance with regulatory standards for buildings.
About 70 percent of maintenance managers who responded to the survey ranked compliance as a high priority among their duties. More than 60 percent said they spend up to five hours a week working in this area, while 18 percent say they spend more than five hours a week dedicated to these issues.
However, sources interviewed by the portal pointed out that the time used in these functions is much greater. "When they count the five hours per week they are thinking about specific actions, such as checking that the extinguishers are up to date or performing the inspection of the elevators, but in reality there are many more activities that have to do with compliance with safety regulations and that surely managers are not counting," they said.
In addition to the above, the survey showed that more than 42 percent of those interviewed expect the time spent on this item to increase next year. The reasons why this increase is expected is the changing nature of many standards and the implementation of new regulations.
Finally, about half of the respondents said that standards related to building protection are a priority. Issues such as fire safety, worker safety, regulations for electrical and air conditioning systems, were pointed out as the most important.
