A work order is the instruction to carry out a specific piece of work, and the record of what happened when it was carried out. In facility management it is the basic unit of everything — the asset it relates to, who raised it, who did it, how long it took, what it cost, and whether it met the service level agreed with the client.
What a work order should contain
- The asset or location it applies to, linked to the register rather than typed as free text
- Priority and the SLA clock that priority starts
- Trade required, and the technician or contractor assigned
- A description written by whoever raised it, and a checklist for whoever executes it
- Parts consumed and labour time
- Photographic evidence before and after, geotagged where the contract requires it
- Completion status, and a separate verification step where the client signs off
Reactive versus planned
A reactive work order is raised by an event — a tenant complaint, a helpdesk call, a fault alarm, a failed inspection. Its defining characteristic is that the SLA clock starts the moment it is logged, so how fast it is triaged and dispatched matters as much as how fast the repair is done.
A planned work order is generated by the PPM schedule before anything has gone wrong. It has a due window rather than a response clock, and it is measured on attainment — was it completed within the period it was scheduled for.
The lifecycle, and where it usually breaks
The standard flow is raised, triaged, assigned, in progress, completed, verified, closed. Two stages are where portfolios lose control. The first is triage: if reactive jobs sit unassigned because the helpdesk is a shared mailbox, the SLA is consumed before a technician has even seen it. The second is verification: if completion is self-declared by the contractor with no client-side check, the numbers look excellent and the tenants keep complaining.
The measure worth watching is first-time-fix rate — the share of jobs closed on the first visit. A low rate usually means the trade was wrong, the part was not on the van, or the description was too vague to prepare for, and each of those is fixable.
Common questions
What is the difference between a work order and a work request?
A work request is the raw ask — a tenant reporting that an air conditioner is not cooling. A work order is what the FM team creates after triaging that request: an approved, prioritised, assigned instruction with an SLA attached. Not every request becomes an order.
What is a permit to work, and how does it relate?
A permit to work is a separate safety authorisation required before hazardous work — hot works, confined space, working at height, electrical isolation. It is attached to the work order but governed independently, and the work should not start until it is issued.
How many work orders should one technician handle a day?
There is no universal figure — it depends on trade, travel between sites, and job complexity. What matters more is tracking wrench time, the share of a shift spent actually doing work rather than travelling, waiting for parts or waiting for access.