District Lead (DL) - Facilities Management

Lessen is the tech-enabled, end-to-end property service provider transforming how commercial and residential real estate services are delivered and managed at scale. The company leverages a network of over 30,000 vetted, qualified vendors serving clients with over 1 million properties and completing more than 3.5 million work orders annually.

What You'll Do:

The District Lead (DL) provides oversight to operational teams managing all day-to-day facilities activities for specific trades within an assigned district. This role is responsible for:

• Strategic leadership: Develop and execute long-term facilities management strategies aligned with company goals.
• Financial Oversight: Manage larger financial responsibilities to ensure fiscal responsibility and operational efficiency.
• Cross-Departmental Collaboration: Work closely with senior leadership across various departments to optimize processes and improve efficiencies.
• Risk Management & Compliance: Oversee adherence to regulatory, safety, and compliance requirements, ensuring all facilities meet industry standards.
• Technology & Innovation Integration: Identify and implement new technologies or automation tools to improve facility operations.
• Manages operational teams servicing specific trades of high strategic value to SMS Assist to deliver results that consistently meet or exceed client expectations in terms of operational and financial performance.
• Closely monitors the operational and financial performance of all assigned operational teams to identify root causes of process, approach, and/or program deficiencies; recommends resolutions to increase the client’s operational and financial efficiency.
• Develops systems and processes to identify potential issues prior to client escalation and works with operational teams to ensure they resolve high-priority issues; escalates only the most severe issues to senior department leadership, and raises them alongside actionable recommendations for solutions.
• Supervises Facility Managers and Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) to ensure they enforce the highest standards for quality, accuracy, and adherence to SMS Assist policy.
• Holds Facility Managers and CSRs accountable for managing spend within the assigned portfolio to the client’s financial benefit.
• Uses KPIs and other quantitative indicators, as well as judgment and qualitative observation, to review and assess the performance of Facility Managers and CSRs; provides informal in-stride counseling and formal feedback at prescribed intervals.
• Mentors Facility Managers to continuously develop their professional knowledge, operational proficiency, and leadership ability to improve performance and prepare them for increasing responsibility.
• Assists in the development of and frequently uses analysis tools in the proprietary database to identify service trends and implement best practice strategies for both internal and client business processes; uses insights from data to identify opportunities and drive continuous improvement.
• Assists department leadership in the development and implementation of data tools to measure, track, and set standards for team performance; enforces adherence to these goals and standards.
• Develops key vendor relationships; collaborates with key stakeholders in markets to devise solutions to client issues.
• Works cross-functionally with other teams to manage vendors in region(s); makes strategic decisions about capacity planning and fulfillment of services.
• Assists the team in managing the complete work order lifecycle from creation to resolution.
• Ensures confidentiality of internal and external data.
• Performs ad-hoc projects and other duties as assigned.

What You Need:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent facilities management experience.
• 7+ years of facilities management experience.
• Vendor relationship management skills.
• 2-3 years of people management experience.
• Experience with managing multiple vendors for day-to-day work order management and small to large capital projects.
• Communication and organizational skills.
• Experience in facilities management, maintenance management, or building engineering, maintenance trades, or related fields is a plus.