Property management staff members are burnt out. We hear your concerns: addressing financial issues, public safety and frustrated residents have added additional stresses to an already demanding job. As property management leadership, you play an essential role in preventing burnout for yourself and others. Leasing agents are discouraged and need your support Social distancing is dragging on and very, very few people are happy about it. Property management must decide how to reopen multifamily amenities and enforce social distancing policies—decisions that are bound to upset people. Additionally, while many employers are grasping for business as normal, others are closed or operating on a skeleton crew. This financial uncertainty is challenging for residents and the staff that tries to assist them. Your staff members need your support and insights. Perhaps once a week at the end of the day, host a meeting that allows staff to share the challenges that they’re facing. This is an especially important time for you to listen as listening reduces the frustration of conflict. To help you get started, we’ve identified a few common pain points that might arise and how to address them: Help staff communicate a fair, consistent message for residents Agents are receiving lots of calls and emails. Many are from residents who want refunds for amenities and services that they haven’t been able to use as expected. Encourage staff to listen and mirror residents’ concerns. Then ensure your staff knows how to address residents’ concerns and offer a fair response. If you will be offering concessions, create consistent guidelines that staff can use. If you are not offering concessions, help staff craft the verbiage needed to explain why. When agents understand your expectations and know what to say, you can reduce the frustration of communicating with...

These days, a capable property manager must carry an extra-large toolbox. An ambassador for the building with an increasing number of responsibilities, they must have an ability to negotiate a lease with a tenant, analyze a profit-and-loss statement, bid and execute a service contract with a vendor, solve problems of every description and lead a multifaceted team. In addition, the team leader must have an outstanding ability to work effectively with a wide variety of people. They must be equally at ease interacting with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and with the crew that keeps the property clean. If an individual “is not flexible enough to interface with that broad spectrum of people, he or she isn’t going to be a very effective manager,” notes Thomas Kruggel, senior vice president of operations for Hines’ western region. That has become all the more necessary as a result of the recession, during which the increased emphasis on cost-effective operations further blurred the line between traditional property management and asset management. “The property manager’s job description has evolved,” notes Marla Maloney, executive vice president & head of property management for Cassidy Turley. The property manager must be able to think creatively about the asset’s role in the client’s strategy, as well as to drill down into the activities that keep the property running smoothly. In addition, warp-speed advances in technology are influencing the makeup of the real estate management team. While the trend does not necessarily stack the deck in favor of Generation Y, executives say that owners and service providers now expect a high degree of adaptability to a world where property managers routinely walk the property and convey a message via tablet or smartphone. Service providers and owners also paint a picture of...

As property managers are increasingly asked to behave like asset managers, their training is taking a unique turn. Third-party management firms and management departments within investment firms alike are coming up with more comprehensive and sophisticated approaches to upgrade their teams’ abilities. One particularly innovative effort is a training facility created by Cooper Square Realty Inc. in its office at 622 Third Ave. in Manhattan. Along with the customary trappings of a property management company’s headquarters, the multi-family specialist is installing a 1,500-square-foot training center geared to the needs of managers and superintendents. Seventeen stations provide working models of boilers, burners, elevator cabs, electrical systems, water tanks and roofs. The facility will come complete with a model lobby desk that provides the basis for a discussion about reception and the role of the doorman. Managers-in-training receive instruction in the different equipment through a combination of presentations from experts and video segments. Candidates for manager positions must pass tests on all 17 systems. “They need to know the working parts of each (system) and each piece of equipment so they can be effective property managers,” declares company founder & CEO David Kuperberg, who is a civil engineer by training. Having trained more than 500 professionals since opening a facility at the company’s previous headquarters in 2004, he notes that “what the training center has enabled us to do is to hire people at assistant levels and promote them through the ranks, all the way to senior managers.” That is perhaps an extreme example, but other companies have come up with other efforts, some more targeted than others. Colliers International’s training is not specialized for property managers, but its New Generation program aims at addressing what the company contends is a chronic shortcoming in commercial real...