Employee burnout is a pain point for many property managers. It’s a major contributor to high turnover, which is costly, time consuming and quickly depletes employee morale. In remote work environments, there are additional risks and considerations. Fortunately, you can fight back. A few industry experts offer tips, tools and insights to prevent and mitigate burnout amongst your remote staff. Why should you keep an eye on employee burnout? Employee burnout is the first step in a downward spiral that you may recognize: an overwhelmed employee cannot indefinitely sustain a high level of performance. Eventually, job performance suffers, and fellow employees are required to pick up the slack. As other team members compensate, their workloads increase to unsustainable levels. Emotions and frustrations run high, morale plummets and then someone quits. Their workload shifts to other employees, which increases the potential for burnout and the cycle continues. In remote work environments, employees may not have a designated home office or coworking space. This means that they are facing professional and domestic challenges in tandem, potentially quickening the burnout cycle. It costs between $5,505.80 and $9,444.47 per turnover to replace an entry-level employee. Harvard Business Review reports that the psychological and physical toll of burnout cost an estimated $125 billion to $190 billion a year in healthcare spending. Eric Garten, partner at global management consulting firm Bain & Company, believes that’s just the tip of the iceberg. “The true cost to business can be far greater, thanks to low productivity across organizations, high turnover, and the loss of the most capable talent.” He continues, “Executives need to own up to their role in creating the workplace stress that leads to burnout—heavy workloads, job insecurity, and frustrating work routines that include too many meetings and far too little time for...

In 2017, only 5.2% of Americans consistently worked from home. This summer, more than 51% of employed Americans transitioned to remote work environments.  This means more time, tasks and responsibilities at home– and necessary updates to their renters insurance policies. Not sure if you need to update your policy? Check out the scenarios below to see if they apply to you. You have more frequent guests than usual Suzanne and her partner, Dave, are a blacksmiths who recently had to close their shop in the city. They hauled their equipment to the garage of Suzanne’s rental. The space is cramped and darker than they’re accustomed to, but things are working fine. Should Suzanne review her liability insurance policy? Yes! Her current liability coverage may be sufficient to cover most incidents in her rental house. Her coworker, however, will be in her rental more often than usual. The increased frequency of his visits along with using high-risk equipment in a less-than-ideal space may call for additional coverage. You have significantly more equipment or materials than usual Leanne is a professional bridesmaid. (Yes, they exist.) With limited access hours at her storage facility, she may have tens of thousands of dollars of wedding supplies or specialized equipment at her rental. Should Leanne review her personal property coverage? Yes! This is tricky, because while she did not pay for the items, they are her responsibility while in the unit. The cost of the items may exceed her typical renters insurance cost, warranting a policy update. Additionally, she will need to consider an actual cash value protection policy rather than replacement cost coverage. Actual cash value plans offer coverage up to items’ current market value. In contrast, replacement coverage replaces compromised items. This time-consuming process may be less...

Our previous article explored key portfolio risk mitigation challenges faced by real estate firms amid today’s uncertain market conditions and the likelihood that future income streams will fundamentally change. This time we’ll examine ways to help businesses that are currently forced to operate in a very different manner and environment for the foreseeable future. The ability of those now working from home to maintain productivity, collaboration, informed decision-making and productive action will be tested to the limit – not the least by kids running riot in many households! Mitigating risks associated with working from home requires: Adopting technology infrastructure that enables collaboration and process continuity. Addressing capital transactions and investor queries satisfactorily. Understanding the impact on reporting when data is drawn from multiple sources and collections systems and processed by multiple people. Successfully transitioning fund raising, normally handled in person by general partners, into a remote undertaking. Reliable and immediate access to key performance indicators from all business operations, from tenant transactions to the investor level. You might also want to consider how working from home now might reshape how you conduct business in the future (e.g., more videoconferencing, less travel, more remote viewing of properties, the potential to reduce carbon emissions). We don’t know how long the pandemic will run and thus delay the return to normal working patterns. Could demand for office space tail off permanently, for example? Real estate investment managers can gain the necessary data transparency, control and understanding of their investment data in a remote work environment just as they do in the office – with a single connected platform that allows collaboration between teams, while centralising all their key financial and operational real estate metrics, even if outsourced, for analysis, reporting and decision-making. Automating the real estate fund...