Every campus tells a story, not just through its buildings, but through the people who keep those spaces functioning day after day. Facilities professionals understand their campuses as interconnected ecosystems that require coordination, care, and a deep sense of responsibility.
At AssetWorks Facilities, we’ve had the privilege of experiencing this perspective firsthand. Over the years, our team has walked more than 180 campuses across North America and the United Kingdom. Each visit, whether to a historic liberal arts college or a research institution, offers a clearer look at how facilities teams navigate challenges, solve problems, and keep their communities thriving.
These on-site solution assessments aren’t audits or inspections. They’re opportunities to listen, observe, and understand real workflows so we can better support the people doing the work. And through these visits, several consistent lessons have emerged—insights shaped by the teams who keep campuses running.
One of the most common challenges we uncover on campus isn’t a lack of effort; it’s a lack of visibility. A work request might start in a residence hall, move to a shop, then to a warehouse or approval queue, and somewhere along the way, the context gets lost.
Many of these disconnects only become clear when we’re physically on-site. Walking a building with a technician, standing with warehouse staff during inventory, or watching how work orders flow through a department reveals nuances that dashboards alone can’t capture.
Those in-person conversations give context to the questions teams grapple with daily:
Where is the delay actually happening?
Who needs visibility to keep work moving?
What information isn’t being shared at critical handoffs?
When teams have a shared view of their work, both in systems and in practice, communication strengthens, response times improve, and the “I didn’t know about that” moments start to fade.
Another theme we see frequently is that campuses often have strong systems in place but aren’t using them to their full advantage. It’s rarely due to resistance; more often, the demands of daily work leave little room to explore new features, refine workflows, or refresh training.
A recent campus visit brought this to life. We discovered that the team already owned the Go Work Management mobile app, but only a few of their field technicians were actively using it. With the upcoming rollout of the mobile-agnostic version of Go, they're planning a wider adoption later this year, an upgrade that will better support their technicians and offer value to campuses beyond theirs.
By making Go Work Management accessible across any device, technicians can update work in real time, reduce back-and-forth communication, and close out work orders more efficiently. What looks like a small change in technology access often translates into hours saved each week.
Insights like this emerge when we’re on campus, seeing firsthand how teams interact with their tools. Sometimes, a quick workflow adjustment or a targeted training session is all it takes to unlock the full value of solutions campuses already have, supporting both efficiency and the people behind the work.
Curious what these insights could look like on your campus? Download the On-Site Solution Assessment Datasheet.
Every facilities leader knows the ongoing tension between planned maintenance and urgent requests. Reactive work will always be part of campus operations, but when it becomes the default, preventive maintenance falls behind, creating a cycle that’s difficult to break.
Walking campuses helps us pinpoint where that cycle begins. For some teams, it’s an overloaded approval step or inconsistent scheduling. For others, it’s competing priorities stretching staff too thin. With the advantage of an outsider’s perspective, we can evaluate these workflows objectively, without being tied to a single method or internal history.
Since we partner with a wide range of campuses with similar structures and needs, we can cross-compare successful practices and recommend actionable improvements that have already delivered successful results elsewhere.
Small, achievable steps can start to break the reactive cycle, such as:
Shifts in scheduling and prioritization
Stronger reporting habits that are tied to clear outcomes
Improved asset tracking that supports planned maintenance
Over time, these changes help facilities teams move from “putting out fires” to sustaining a more proactive model. And since these solutions come from observing real workflows, they’re grounded in what teams can actually maintain.
The most important insight from our visits has nothing to do with data or workflows; it’s the pride facilities professionals have in their work. These teams truly care about their campuses and the communities they support, and that commitment shows up in every walk-through.
Our on-site visits strengthen more than operational processes; they strengthen relationships. As Jeanie Caracciolo, Project Manager from the University of Florida, shared after a recent assessment:
“By Thursday afternoon, I think many of us were feeling more confident about our next steps and encouraged by the recommendations provided. [The] follow-up on many of the additional Action Items throughout this week has been super quick, only reinforcing your [AssetWorks Facilities’] commitment to our success. It is refreshing to have such a dedicated and thoughtful Customer Success Manager [Brian Carlson]!”
Feedback like this reinforces why we approach every visit as a partnership, not a performance review. Our role is to support the people who support their campuses through honesty, collaboration, and a shared commitment to long-term success.
What we’ve learned from these visits goes beyond operational improvements. It’s about people: their routines, challenges, dedication, and willingness to find better ways of working. Every campus has its own story, but common threads emerge—teams who take pride in their work, systems ready to evolve, and opportunities waiting to be uncovered.
We’re grateful to every institution that has opened its doors and walked with us. These lessons continue to shape how we serve facilities professionals every day.
Ready to explore what an on-site solution assessment could reveal on your campus? Reach out to our team at facilitysales@assetworks.com.