Facility Services Strategic Plan 2022 | 2026

I’d like to thank the large number of people that participated in developing our plan. We created this strategic plan together. Over the spring of 2021, McMaster University engaged six stakeholder groups, including Facility Services staff and leaders, faculty and administrative leadership, and members of our Steering Committee. Using both surveys and focus groups, we gathered feedback on our team’s strengths, challenges and the desired future transformations to the physical campus, infrastructure, and environment that our stakeholders would like to see at McMaster. Almost half of Facility Services team members from day and night shifts contributed directly to this feedback, shaping our strategic plan by participating in surveys and focus groups. Summary reports that were shared with all of our staff and the others who participated.

Trends emerged from the feedback collected, telling us our strengths lay in our team’s ability to be collaborative, supportive, and responsive. Challenges identified included topics like workload, staff retention, workplace culture, and managing change. When imagining how Facility Services will shape the desired transformation of McMaster’s campus, infrastructure, and environment, trends appeared around topics like sustainability, efficiency and creating human-centred spaces.

The trends from the feedback helped us define our four strategic drivers: Living Laboratory for Environmental Sustainability, Cultivating Human Potential, Operational Excellence, and Human Centric Spaces for “One University.” Each strategic driver has corresponding themes that identify an area for improvement, renewal, or focus. All themes are achieved though objectives and are championed by a member of the Facility Services team.

Facility Service’s strategic plan is aligned with our President’s Strategic Priorities Framework and vision. Facility Service’s strategic plan will bolster other area’s existing plans, like the Teaching and Learning Strategy or the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy. Our plan will be integrated with future planning, including the inaugural campus-wide Sustainability Plan in development and the upcoming Campus Master Planning process.

Our goal was to develop a clear, inspiring, and inclusive strategic plan that reflects the value of  Facility Services at McMaster. I hope every Facility Services team member will see the plan and
know that they will play an important role in achieving our plan.

Together, Facility Services team members will focus on sustainability, engagement, excellence and discovery to support the growth, community and academic mission of McMaster University.