On June 26, 2024, Property Meld hosted a webinar with LeadSimple titled “From Process Pains to Profit Gains.” The session featured insightful discussions on change management strategies and best practices for process improvements. Here’s a comprehensive recap of the key discussions and takeaways from the webinar.
Or, you can watch the webinar recording.
Data shows that 30-40% of processes are not properly documented. Without this documentation issues can quickly arise with staff training, performance standards, and standardization.
When it comes to work order management, building and documenting standardized processes is crucial to resident satisfaction, team efficiency, and preserving the value of your properties.
Without proper processes in place, work orders can fall through the cracks leading to resident and investor churn, or worst case scenario, leaving you vulnerable to potential lawsuits.
Additionally, process improvements makes work easier for your team. In property management, employee churn is incredibly high, but with better processes in place you can make things easier for your team members and hang on to top performers.
When should you start documenting processes?
The sooner you start documenting processes the better. Even as a smaller company it is crucial to document process improvements as you are building them out. Process is an evolutionary thing, it is constantly changing as your goals change or as you scale.
Again, without process documentation it is impossible to understand which processes are working and which processes need changed to adapt to your current challenges.
When you gain feedback from team members about certain processes not working, that is the best time to understand why things aren’t working and make strategic changes.
“You should always be putting yourself in a position where you understand what your team members are getting out of running a process. If the answer is nothing, that is not going to work.” – Jordan Muela, CEO of Lead Simple
Having a process is the starting point, and there is no way to improve unless you have a documented version one of all your processes.
“We’re gonna model 80% of our processes. Not everything can be systematized so we shoot for 80%.” – Mike Mefferd Bridgesteam Property Management
How Do Processes Help Increase Training Efficiency?
Having set processes in place can also help you increase the speed in which you can ramp up new employees.
Standardized processes ensure all employees are being trained the same and have the same expectations. Without these processes in place, it can take a lot longer for new employees to be ramped up.
“As we continue to scale, we need to have our team and capacity in place. So we are starting to have more conversations about scaling and how we are increasing our staffing and what we expect from our team.” – Mike Mefferd, Bridgestream Property Management
How Process and Goals Align
When building out your processes, it is crucial to understand the goals of your business. For example, in property management you might only work with certain clients. You have to ensure the processes you’ve built align with the clients you work with and the goals you have for your organization.
How To Get Team Buy-in for New Processes
When going through a big process change you have to understand that you may face some resistance in the very beginning. You have to know that it may be bumpy at the start, but you need that team buy-in from the very beginning.
Team members can be scared of change and how it will impact their day to day responsibilities. It is crucial to educate your team members on how these processes will save them time, or make their job easier.
“Emotion is going to help drive people to have more comfort around the change you are asking them to make. Make sure you are listening to their feedback and sit side by side with them.” – Mike Mefferd
To learn more about building standardized processes and ensuring they are properly documented, watch the full webinar above.
