Without Professionalism Success is Out of Reach By Brittany Montoya-Taylor
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or various reasons, community management businesses sometimes send out inexperienced, untrained or otherwise unqualified individuals to act as community managers, at least as a stop-gap measure. While this may seem to be an acceptable practice at a time when qualified candidates are scarce, it is never a good idea for the business, the manager or the community. Community managers represent not only their respective management companies, but the HOA industry as a whole. Establishing relationships with honesty, integrity and professionalism is critical to substantiating the vital importance of community management and further developing the reputation of the industry. It is imperative that management companies acknowledge the importance of their managers’ representation and establish set qualifications and guidelines for the role. The importance of training, both inside and outside of the CACM classroom, cannot be overstated. The role of community manager bears great responsibility. Sending unqualified individuals into the field is not only negligent but a disservice to them as they will be set up to fail. While there will certainly be times when it may be convenient to utilize an assistant or other staff member to fill the role of a community manager for a client, it should not be done. Given the nature of the work that community managers perform, it is impossible for someone inexperienced to even grasp the real needs of the client. Even though placing such an individual in the role of community manager may appear to work for a brief period of time, something will inevitably fall through the cracks. Gambling and waiting to find out what was missed is not worth the potential liability, fallout or loss of a client that may result. As the HOA industry strives to establish its importance and professionalism in an ever changing marketplace, management companies must rise to the challenge and exact standards that reflect this mission. Without management companies exercising such practices and standards, success will be out of reach. Brittany Montoya-Taylor, CCAM, is a community manager with FirstService Residential in Las Vegas, Nevada. www.cacm.org | Vision Fall/Winter 2016 47
