Topic: Staff Size

Hello,

We are examining whether we are appropriately staffed and I am looking into feedback about the structure of your office staff, how many units per employee, etc. We are 100% affordable and employ Property Managers and Assistant Managers only, and we are seeing increasing problems with keeping up with the required duties. We are trying to determine if it is an issue of being under staffed, or if we just don't have the right people on board.

My questions:

How many units per manager?
Do you have leasing staff also or do your managers handle all duties?

Feedback would be very much appreciated!

It depends on several variables:
1. What type of property do you have ~ Program property ie: Sec. 8, Sec. 42 etc.
2. How many units do you have
3. What Grade is the property? A, B, C, D
4. What is the overall goals for the property and in what time frame

Maintenance:
The standards for some companies are 1 Maint. Tech to every 100 units
I believe the clients needs are better met with a maint. tech with each 75 units.
If you are an A grade you are keeping it to that level on a more detailed level - word of mouth marketing will be awesome!
If you are a B grade or lower property you need more Maint. to take care of the asset that has been ran improperly and ran down with a lot of damages. Build the property back up and get the integrity of the property built back up then word of mouth advertising will be your best friend!

Office:
130 units or less: Manager only
150 units Manager with a second office person possibly part time
230 units Manager, 1 Full Time Leasing and one part time leasing
250 + units Manager, and 2 full time
350 + Manager, 3 leasing, Accounts Manager - all full time

But the total plan has to be made from a budget point of view at any level. What are your over all goals in 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 5 years? Are you in the red or do you have room to grow to be more successful?
As always you must look after the asset, money, liabilities or possibilities of, occupancy, Customer Service.

Hope this helps!

How many units do you have? So do you only have 2 people in the office? Both are doing: Leasing, Resident retention, re certifications, collections, resident issue follow ups, work orders, filing, Sec. 8 Rent change updates, Agency forms filled out for updates for rent changes or assistance agencies' help.
If you have people new to the program documentation requirements and they are doing everything else they will not be able to get everything done. Especially at the level of keeping it occupied consistently.

We utilize the 1 per 100 rule for maintenance and office.

Depending on site size will depend on the type of employees. All sites come with a Manager and on a 200 unit property there will generally be a leasing agent. Due to the nature of our portfolio in secondary markets our leasing agents tend to also act as Assistant Managers and are responsible for some tasks.

Our Regional Managers also run their own property in addition to overseeing their region so their Assistant/Leasing Agent may be more skilled to help fill in when they travel.

My first property I worked for had 264 units but it was spread out and rather large. We had one manager, one assistant manager and a leasing agent. We had two officers. Two maintenance and one groundskeeper. When I left that property and started at another with the same amount of units, but it was not spread out, we first started off with a manager, assistant manager, leasing agent and a part time leasing agent. Two maintenance and one officer. Later we did away with the part time leasing agent and for a while I was the only one there because we couldn't find anyone to fill the positions in the office and actually stay. Eventually there were two of us in the office then we finally found a fulltime leasing person. The company decided to do away with the part time leasing person and add a groundskeeper. The property that I am at now has two maintenance a manager and a part time leasing person. We have 160 units and it is a spread out community. My part time person doesn't come in until noon. The first month I was here it was just me in the office and I was able to handle everything on my own. It was nice having a part time leasing person but now I often find her sitting at her desk doing nothing but playing on her phone or taking care of personal stuff. There are things that she needs to be doing she just doesn't do them until you really get on to her. My regional is aware of what is going on in the office and our performance hasn't suffered. The only thing that has suffered is since she was hired our occupancy has dropped and we have not gotten many new leases, other than that my regional is happy with the work that has been done and the things that have been turned around. I do run the office on my own two days a week and to me it feels no different then when she is here. All of the work still gets completed.