Make your community associations stand out to top job candidates. Employee retention is critical to sustained success, especially in a competitive job market. And competitive it is: nearly two thirds of management companies are hiring for open positions.
Long-term business success can be attributed to employees who feel like their efforts are acknowledged and appreciated. Prioritizing employee retention can foster a winning culture and free you up to growing the number of communities you serve.
Here are 5 strategies for hiring the right talent and limiting turnover:
1) Prioritize Onboarding
Set your employees up for success from the start with a thorough onboarding and orientation process. When you invest time in developing onboarding materials, you’ll empower your new employees to get up to speed faster. They’ll quickly adapt to their new environment, know who to go to for what and will have the tools they need to get started. Facilitating introductions with co-workers is a simple way to make them feel part of the team and build their network.
2) Set Them Up for Success
Give your association managers the tools they need to field homeowner questions online, respond on the go, and provide outstanding service to demanding boards and homeowners. Build stronger relationships with homeowners by equipping your team with a fully integrated association management platform for greater productivity. With dated community management tools, your team can feel left out to dry. Consider a platform manages accounting, payments, workflows, communications, security, and more under one roof. All while delighting homeowners with a branded app that puts community perks at their fingertips.
3) Provide a Path for Advancement
Employees want to develop over time in their role, either in responsibilities or influence, in the company that they work for. Without these growth opportunities, an employee can feel limited in their development. Offer your team a roadmap for promotions and what may qualify them for a merit increase over time. Be honest about their strengths and weaknesses, so they can work to fill any gaps. Mentorship opportunities for new staff members can develop new leaders, while also ingraining good procedural habits for your latest hires. Additional career advancement opportunities are provided through the Community Association Institute, CACM, and a number of other regional membership groups. Conferences are offered nationally and through local chapters, including educational opportunities and new perspectives on serving communities.
4) Recognize Employee Performance
Employees do their best work when they feel appreciated for their efforts. Acknowledgement of their accomplishments makes an impact and drives future performance. This is especially the case when it comes from leaders in your organization. Develop ways for your team to give and get recognition from their peers with shout outs by celebrating successes in a group setting. The recognition doesn’t always need to come from their leader. There are inexpensive methods to celebrate successes amongst the team on a regular basis that can be implemented to lift employee satisfaction.
5) Encourage Open Communication
Open communication is integral to building effective and lasting working relationships. Give your employees a voice that can lead to positive changes in your operation. New employees bring an outside perspective with new ideas that may impact the business in significant ways. Conduct recurring employee engagement surveys amongst your staff to receive feedback on office culture, role satisfaction, career development and pain points. Anonymous surveys give employees the opportunity to share more transparent feedback that they may not have felt comfortable sharing directly with their manager. This can lead to improvements across your company.
