Page 11 - New England Condominium January 2019

NEWENGLANDCONDO.COM NEW ENGLAND CONDOMINIUM - JANUARY 2019 11 preparing a monthly newsletter. Addition- ally, we have a maintenance person, and an administrative assistant who also serves as our concierge. The latter had been working here for three years, but departed in May, af- ter graciously giving us a one-month notice. This allowed me to hire someone prior to her departure, and allowed the board to ap- prove the start of the new hire 10 days before the previous assistant left, thus overlapping payroll. The overlap provided important ini- tial training for the new assistant, who could shadow someone with significant experi- ence in the role. And I continue to work with this new assistant and train her at the front desk position. “We are also currently working on a procedures manual, which will be a fluid document listing all staff position jobs and the procedures which we use daily, weekly or monthly for each staff position. It is im- portant to have this type of manual in place – not only for new staff being hired, but also in case someone needs to step in and do the job of another staff member due to illness or an accident that causes a staff member to be absent for any length of time.” Laura Nicolini, an executive director for FirstService Residential in Lake Barrington, Illinois: “The training for a new employee in- corporates both the management company standards (employee handbook, review of FirstService Global Service Standards, etc.) and the com- munity or building's standards (training manual for position, building compo- nents). What I find to be most effective is an on-boarding check- list that touches on as many training points as possible. This checklist should be divided up for train- ing with the supervisor and also multiple staff members. This not only helps the new employee learn, but also to socialize and meet their co-workers. Additionally, those co-workers are then invested in the success of the trainee and are there to support them in the future. “As the new employee completes their training checklist, the supervisor should follow up and ask the employee to show the supervisor what they’ve learned. This gives the opportunity for reinforcement and to close the gap on any missed train- ing points. Fre- quent check-ins by the supervisor in the first several months are key to setting the tone, expectations, and long-term success of the new hire.” Steven W. Birbach, Presi- dent and CEO of Vanderbilt Prop- erty Management LLC in Glenwood Landing, New York: “We actually don’t have a protocol in place for staff at a building that we take over as management, the rationale being that if a super or porter has been employed for 10 or 15 years, they may not appreciate being pre- sented with a job description noting every item management is expecting from them. Instead, we prefer to evaluate each employee and work with the board to meet their goals. Our first priority is cleanliness. We will eval- uate a porter, super or handyman and make any recommendations directly to them. For example, the porter may have been cleaning the entrance glass every morning for years; we may encourage them to re-clean in the evenings as well, since residents coming home from work or errands may want to en- ter a pristine building, regardless of time of day. We also make sure that all rubbish and recycling is properly managed. If needed, we will prepare a detailed hour-by-hour job description which staff can easily follow to make sure all areas of concern are being ad- dressed. “We also recommend that the super come to the board meetings to discuss main- tenance and operations. The super is best prepared to answer questions on mainte- nance issues regarding specific apartments. The super should also be involved in which “The best way to position a new staff member for long-term success is to constantly train them in – and to reinforce – the rules.” — Joe Urbanczyk continued on page 14