Welcome back to our latest blog series focused on providing tips for you and your team to help you build an Asset Management (AM) culture.  So, once leadership is engaged and departments are working together, the next step is ensuring your people are given the training, tools, and objectives to drive the behaviors you want to see.

At Roth IAMS, we believe asset management shouldn’t live in one corner of the organization. Everyone has a role to play. That means investing in training, setting clear responsibilities, and reinforcing accountability.

AM can quickly become the responsibility of a few overwhelmed champions. That model isn’t sustainable. To embed a true AM culture, knowledge must be distributed, and ownership must be shared.

Training programs should be both targeted and role-specific:

• Executives need to understand AM’s impact on strategic planning and governance.
• Managers need training on budgeting, lifecycle planning, and performance monitoring.
• Front-line staff should know how their actions affect asset condition and data quality.

Capacity-building doesn’t always mean formal training. It can become part of your day-to-day operations and can include lunch-and-learns, coaching sessions, job shadowing, and/or peer mentoring.

Training will help to build capacity, but to drive accountability, you should also consider:

• Role definitions that include AM responsibilities.
• Performance metrics linked to AM objectives.
• Dashboards that track progress in key areas (e.g., maintenance backlog, preventive maintenance work order completion rates, reduction in Deferred Capital Renewal and Maintenance Backlog).
• Regular check-ins or internal audits to assess implementation.

We’ve worked with clients who start with a focused Steering Committee to get things started and then scale up across their organization once the internal champions have demonstrated success. This phased approach builds confidence, demonstrates quick wins, and helps uncover roadblocks that can be removed in the early days.  

You can’t expect your team to execute on your AM plan or strategy if they don’t have the skills necessary and don’t have a clear picture of how they can help you achieve success.  Give your team the knowledge, structure, and support they need to succeed, and build a solid bench of skilled players across your entire organization.