MANAGERS TECHNOLOGY

By Crystal Valencia, CMCA®, AMS®, FirstService Residential, AAMC®

The pandemic has radically changed the way that community association management is run and as a relatively new manager in the field it is amazing to see the change in such a short span of time. With legislation allowing hybrid meetings and electronic communication with homeowner opt in, of course, there is now an expectation from clients that managers be tech savvy and provide options for ways to streamline association business. This has made it quite challenging for those of us like myself who are technologically disadvantaged. Connecting to Wi-Fi before the Pandemic was the extent of my technical knowhow but that changed very quickly once the pandemic came into play. We, as managers, have had to adapt to the times and welcome the new technology which is helping to make our jobs easier.

The first and most obvious use of new technology is in hosting web-based meetings. While we are now mandated to have a physical meeting location where people can join the meeting, most associations I work with find that the time went on it was clear that Zoom was the preference for most managers for their meetings due to the ease of use and the ability to control features such as locking the meeting, setting recurring meetings, and enabling/disabling the chat functions which comes in handy for our more boisterous meetings.

In using this technology to hold meetings we have also had to learn how to hold a hybrid meeting, how do we hold a Zoom and a physical meeting at the same time. We have had to adapt by having our management companies provide us with conference rooms set up with the audio/ visual ability to host these meetings. Even more so for Associations who hold their meetings onsite, how do we hold a hybrid meeting? Do we just have a laptop with a camera open? After trying this I would highly suggest you find other alternatives, such as the OWL camera or others like it which connect to Wi-Fi and have a 360 camera that picks up on the sound of the person in the room speaking and allows the manager to just place it on the table and run their meeting like normal. The catch-22 of items like the OWL cameras is that they are quite expensive and for managers with associations on tight budgets, this may not be feasible. This means that it is imperative to have these conversations with your management companies of providing this as an added amenity to your boards for their meetings as either an additional incidental cost or as part of their current management contract. These are all things managers now must consider and be knowledgeable about. With all these meetings and the ability to get things done virtually, the expectations of homeowners and boards alike on communication have also shifted.

The days when the expectation for official association correspondence was that it was to be sent via regular mailing have long since passed. Boards now expect that as managers we have software, we can utilize to communicate with owners almost instantly. I am finding that boards want all correspondence not just mailed but also emailed. They want communication to be instantaneous and this expectation has put a lot of pressure on us as managers and has meant that we now have much more input and feedback on the management software that our management companies are using. Old community management software that looked like it was designed in the late 80’s and run on DOS doesn’t cut it anymore. Managers are now looking to software companies such as BuildingLink, Vantaca, or if you are lucky enough, to your management company’s own proprietary software like Connect, which is the software created by First Service Residential. It is now up to managers to ensure that they can complete tasks such as community wide eblasts, text notifications, email tracking, and live-up-to-date accounting. All these features are things boards are asking us to do daily, so to have clunky systems for any of these tasks makes our job immeasurably harder.

Ultimately, we are finding that as managers today we are having to unite the technology around us with our organizational and customer service goals to maximize efficiency in managing our communities. As a new manager, it is clear to me that incorporating these technological changes in our field is essential, and I would say to any who are resistant to change - technology is our friend and it is here to stay.

Crystal Valencia, CMCA®, AMS® is a Senior Community Manager with FirstService Residential, AAMC® with seven plus years of industry experience. She currently oversees all of the Playa Vista sub-market. Crystal.Valencia@fsresidential.com