Maintenance Matters

Not enough staff. Not enough time. And of course, not enough money.

By CHRIS KING-DYE, Full House Marketing

There have been three reoccurring issues in our residential property management industry for as long as there have been people living in apartments. What’s different now is that these issues are exponentially more impactful due to both quantity and duration. Our most experienced maintenance leaders and technicians are burning out, changing jobs and even industries. This leaves us with a critical void in our ability to maintain assets and retain residents. To make matters worse, by the year 2030 our industry is expected to lose an additional 37% of current maintenance professionals due to retirement. That’s a loss of over one third of the maintenance work force! What goes with facility professionals when they retire or leave for other careers? Their historical knowledge of your buildings, grounds, mechanical systems, processes, and especially important – your residents!

We need a paradigm shift when it comes to property maintenance. The old saying that comes to mind is “the definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results.” We need to think and act differently at every level of our organizations.

Maintenance professionals are responsible for maintaining multimillion dollar assets and are expected to provide an excellent customer experience to residents in their most sacred places, their homes. They want, and truly deserve, to be shown the respect that their knowledge and skills warrant. This is the same story at every level of your organization, from leasing consultants and property managers to regional managers and vice presidents.

Studies have shown that it costs an average of $17,000 to market for and fill an empty maintenance position. So, why not invest those dollars in the growth of your current maintenance professionals by creating rungs on the maintenance career ladder and providing opportunities to grow their knowledge of operation and people management. Things such as administrative skills, strategic thinking, equal inclusion in business and budget planning, and giving opportunities for both professional and personal growth. This stable workforce adds value to the residents and the communities they are a part of. Let’s keep in mind not every maintenance or grounds professional will be interested in career growth, and that’s ok. We need those ‘Steady Eddies’ just as much as we need those looking to grow.

Property maintenance needs to be a career, not just a job. We need to invest in our maintenance professionals by teaching them how to do more than just turn a wrench. Try to expose them to soft skills so they can think strategically, give them the information needed so they can grow their careers, put together and implement preventive maintenance programs and really impact their daily work lives in a positive way.

Additionally, you can personalize career goals by creating a one-year and a three-year development plan for your maintenance professionals. Find their strengths and document them, make a note of challenges they face or any geographical limitations. This will be something that both the associate and the employer share as a responsibility of maintaining over the years.

You can also reevaluate their compensation, offered benefits and the emergency on-call program. Consider paying stipends for those oncalls, not just for responses. You can also start participating in more association events to reenergize and reinforce that they are not alone in this industry. Maybe even provide them with the opportunity to obtain their National Apartment Association CAMT designation. The Certified Apartment Maintenance Technician course will provide administrative and technical skills. This is an opportunity to grow and to add validation to their skills and careers.

There are two workshops being offered during this year’s HAA Avenues Series that address some of these issues. During these workshops speakers will share tips to produce successful contracts, inventory management and shop organization. You can find more information on these workshops at the right of this page.

Lastly, thank you for supporting our maintenance professionals!

Chris King-Dye is maintenance director and presenter for Full House Markeing Inc. You can contact Chris at 248-474-3009 or email chris@fullhousemarketing.com

Join Chris for these Avenues Programs

See Page 22 for details.

Maintenance Boulevard October 6

Creeped Out by Bids and Scopes of Work? Top Tips to Produce Successful Contracts: Avoid Scope Creep and apples to oranges bidding. Learn to write your own requests for proposals and scopes of work. Lead the bidding process to ensure accuracy in scope compliance payment terms and guarantees. Get real tips to reduce change, orders and miscommunication while increasing the quality of work and improving relationships with your contractors.

Maintenance Boulevard 3 November 3

Dude Where’s My Caulk? Inventory Management and Ship Organization: Learn new ideas and revisit tried and true practices on how to avoid the $28 toilet flapper! Leverage your suppliers and word order system to recognize trends and set up a min/max system. Get real tips and learn some best practices to organize a maintenance s hop and get the entire team involved in saving time and money!