Homeowners associations are growing in popularity. Recent statistics find that 65% of new homes are a part of an HOA community. This growth creates a lot of room for new association board members.
However, the role of board member can be a daunting one. Their relationship with the community association manager, or CAM, is crucial.
Here are three ways a CAM, and the management company that the CAM works for, can help new board members ignore the noise and accomplish their goals of improving the quality of life for residents in their community.
1. Adopt Technology
When new board members start their position, it can be very challenging, and this is a position that normally has a lot of higher turnover. These home board members will likely be working directly with community association managers on a wide range of tasks, from association financials and vendor invoices to violations and maintenance, as well as events and amenity management to create a sense of belonging within their community.
HOA board members need a single access point for all of these disparate tasks if they are going to stay on top of current issues and resident needs.
For example, with software, your board members could send out mass emails to board groups, vendors, residents, owners, or even third parties. They can review invoices as well as architectural requests from homeowners, and move things along in the approval process or ask for more information.
2. Answer Frequent Questions
New board members are going to have a lot of questions, and you can make it easy for them to find answers. When you use technology, then you can add an FAQ section to your mobile app or portal so they can look up these answers rather than sending each one to their community manager.
For example, you’ll want to answer important questions like where they can find the financial data. You can store your approved budget and recent financial reports in one place so everyone knows where to find them.
An app can also put CC&Rs and other association documents in their hands at any point.
3. Give Them Tools to Get Their Jobs Done
The right technology should be built with your board members’ needs in mind. In addition to housing association documents and storing information about community events, it should also provide productivity tools to help them get more done in less time. .
For example, if they need help manage an approval process for a resident’s architecture request, then you can have one tool that makes it easy to view all of the data and then approve, deny, or inquire more about the project.
You can also get tools that will help board members review invoices, manage the budget, and communicate updates to homeowners about maintenance projects.
Discover More Keys to Helping a New Board Member Succeed
These are only a few keys to helping a new board member succeed in their position.
If you’re interested in finding the right solutions to help your community board members succeed, we can help! Request a demo to see how the FRONTSTEPS platform can help you create thriving communities and productive, satisfied clients. https://frontsteps.com/demo-request
