Yes, you read that correctly. Policies and Procedures are the SPANX of property management operations: the functional, streamlining control panels that make everything else look polished, effortless, and successful. Love them or hate them, they are a necessary component of a high-performing property management company’s strategy.

While Policies and Procedures are decidedly unsexy, they provide a foundation and consistency that enable employees at every level to gain competence (and therefore confidence) to perform their responsibilities. They also save dozens of hours per employee per year by defining a standard and expected way of conducting repetitive tasks or processes, instead of having to figure it out each and every time the employee needs to do them.

Unfortunately, the last two years seem to have taken a seam ripper to our collective SPANX. (And I’m not talking about the pandemic pounds some of us have acquired through our endless hours of at-home sourdough baking!)

At the end of 2021, according to the Swift Bunny Index, nearly 75% of property management employees agreed that Policies and Procedures were consistently enforced by their companies. But midway through 2022, that stat dropped down to 69%. Why is this happening, and why does it matter?

During COVID, though Policies and processes changed rapidly – sometimes on a daily basis – companies focused a lot of attention on communicating and reinforcing those updates to ensure all employees understood the expectation. It was challenging and frustrating, but collectively we got pretty good at the “Pivot.”

Now that business is looking similar to the Pre-COVID Era (PCE), it’s a common misconception that employees understand that Policies and Procedures have reverted back to PCE practices.

NEW FLASH: If you have not explicitly communicated what your current Policies and Procedures are, your employees are probably conducting business using whatever Policy and Procedure is most familiar or easiest. And I guarantee that will be different from community to community.

Right now, the lack of consistent Policy enforcement is one of the top frustrations of Regional Managers and Corporate Support Teams. In addition, the problem is only getting worse due to high turnover levels of tenured employees and the lack of formalized training for new hires.

Wait. What about my new hires?

One in five on-site new hires, meaning employees within the first 90 days of employment, are not given adequate time during office hours to participate in required training.  If they are not receiving instruction on how to do their job (i.e. Policies and Procedures), then they are reinventing the proverbial wheel every day. How exhausting! And confusing!

Is it any wonder that new hires are quitting in record numbers in the first days and weeks of their new job? Is it any wonder that On-site Managers, Regional Managers, HR, IT, Training, Accounting, et al are tearing their hair out at the inconsistency and seemingly willy-nilly decisions that create multiplying consequences?

What You Can Do

1. Review your current Policies and Procedures.

Ensure they are not a hodge-podge “stone soup” of PCE and COVID-era policies. Identify those that need clarification or updates, especially if they refer to moratoriums or mandates that have since expired.

2. Schedule time with cross-functional decision makers to update the outdated Policies. Immediately.

Time is money, and wasted time is wasted money. The more your employees have to guess what the expectation is, the less time they have to do the real business at hand, which is leasing, maintaining, and caring for your communities and residents.

3. Ensure Policies are published and easily accessible

If they are hard to find, they essentially don’t exist. The easier they are to access and understand, the more likely they are to be utilized.

4. Implement an ongoing Policy and Procedure Communication Plan

Whether it’s a “Policy of the Week” or an ongoing series of lunch and learns, embrace the fact that it’s time to re-educate your entire workforce on Policies and Procedures. This includes re-educating the corporate-based staff, too. Ensure (don’t assume) everyone understands what the current, approved, published expectation is.

While not sexy in their own right, Policies and Procedures are the shapewear of our operations. If you’ve seen celebrities on the red carpet in their sleek, glamourous gowns and get-ups, you’ll understand the comparison. The fabulous-ness we see on the outside is made possible by the functional composition underneath. Yes, just like SPANX, Policies and Procedures might feel a bit restrictive, but they provide the smooth, streamlined foundation upon which business can thrive.