Topic: My heart is sad today. A terrific Service Tech is leaving the property (and the industry) where I have lived since 2007.

My heart is sad today. A terrific Service Tech is leaving the property (and the industry) where I have lived since 2007. He has been with the property for 18 years, almost from the beginning! Why is he leaving. He is kinda fed up with the industry. One call every other week, no recognition, tiny pay increases, turnover in staff, etc, etc! Perhaps it is time to rethink how we treat our Maintenance staff (all staff really) in our industry. Manager's at many companies at least once a year for fellowship, learning & recognition. What do we do for our service tech's? Manager's have access to networking at Apartment Association meetings and events. Do we invite and encourage our Service tech's to attend? Are our service Tech's included in the budget process? Why not? Are they included in Customer Service workshops and training? They see the residents more than the office staff! Our Service Tech's are plumbers, carpenters, electricians, pool experts, skilled in HVAC, problem solvers, customer servie reps, etc. We expect so much from them and seem to give so little. Do we actually VALUE our Service Teach & make sure they know they are valued? Oh yes, we have gotten better through the years, however, I think we have a long, long way to go. God Bless of Service Teachnician!! We couldn't run our properties without YOU!

We have one day a year where office staff goes on property with maintenance to help clean up the property. But to me thats not enough. I tell my guys all the time how amazing they are but at the end of the day that doesn't mean anything when they're struggling to pay rent. I interviewed for a promotion and was asked what I think is needed to have a successful property and i asked for maintenance to get a *good* raise because without them we are nothing. So scared to lose these wonderful humans.

Maintenance guys are typically the worst job in the industry... Think about it, their pay is not great - they are expected to know how to fix everything - electrical, HVAC, plumbing, carpentry - when they could pick ONE of those industries, specialize in just that industry - and probably triple their salary.

I agree! We need to start understanding that without good Service Techs, our properties will start losing money! I live in an apartment because I don't have to call an electrician, plumber or HVAC company!

People need money. Anything else is just fluff.

Money is important ~~ appreciation goes a long way also!

Maybe. I can't pay my bills with appreciation though. We can always show better appreciation through better pay.

I agree!

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS!

 I would also say that on top of better pay, days off, some kind of on call break etc can also help.

We all need a better work/life balance. We've just become so used to working ourselves to death that we literally have no time to live.

Unfortunately no, as an industry, the service staff is not valued. If a service team member is lucky they have a manager that values them, treats them well and does everything in their power to show their appreciation…but rarely, if ever do they get that from the companies who’s very success is dependent on what they do day in and day out aside from perhaps a stated ‘Maintenance Appreciation Week’ where they are given some token gift that they may or may not ever use. They are expected to have the skills of multiple different tradesmen…any one of which is paid better. One good maintenance person saves the company hundreds of thousands of dollar a year over what it would cost to contract out the work yet more often than not, they are paid a wage that wouldn’t even qualify them to live on the property they maintain! Sadly in my over a decade and a half in this industry, the average pay for service team members has stayed nearly the same…despite the significantly rising cost of living. It is little wonder that older team members are leaving the industry in droves to go work for plumbing & HVAC companies and the like for significant pay increases and a fraction of the on call schedule or no on call at all. Also not surprising is that younger workers entering the workforce have zero interest in replacing that experience that we are literally running off because companies simply don’t value them as they should. As a manager, I advocated with our last owners to pay my maintenance lead more than me because I felt his experience warranted it. I sincerely hope that those that can correct this undervaluing of service teams do so before there are no service teams left…but sadly it may already be too late.

It is never too late to make changes. We ALL need to use our voice. Thank you for joining the conversation! I appreciate you comments.

I don’t mean it’s too late to make changes…I mean that the reputation is already out there and has discouraged what should have been the next generation of techs from entering the industry. Although there are a few, I rarely get an application from anyone under the age of 40. Historically speaking a lot of the knowledge was passed from the seasoned techs to the young ones coming up…and then they were the seasoned techs when the old guys retired. But without the green ones coming in steadily as the older ones retire that knowledge leaves the industry with them. Thankfully for me, I’ll be retiring with those old guys…lol. But if they started attracting the 20 year olds now those young ones still won’t have enough time of working with the seasoned ones to be half as good as the generation aging out of the business now.

I always say, Office Team are promise-makers, Service Team are promise-keepers!

I'm a tech and all comments are excellent, unfortunately I don’t think anyone that works in the corporate office will read or get this message. For all people that do thank your maintenance techs, it means a lot to us hearing it.

You are exactly right! You guys need to be appreciated for everything you do behind the scenes. Without the maintenance team the property would not run smoothly. There is so much that goes on that you do not get recognized for. You are push to the limits and then once you meet the goals you are pushed farther. Your employer is blessed to have you on their team.

Leadership matters. Find a way to connect better maintenance to better retention, higher occupancy etc. If the job is value added, show hone office how the pieces and parts connect.

That's an already known measurement. The fact is that corporate employees have no idea what it's like to work onsite. But they sure can make policies about it.

Perhaps as part of training, all new corporate staff, regardless of position, should be required to spend at least one week with maintenance staff and one week in the office

I've been pushing for this for almost 20 years. I don't see it happening unfortunately.

Well I am not giving up!!

We work very hard every day to make sure our guys and gals in maint are acknowledged and appreciated.. reading this makes me so sad!

Pay them better, show appreciation by involving them in decision making, don’t micro manage, and involve them in important meetings and events. Actions speak louder than words, always.

That’s the thing tho , in our industry, the service techs are “replaceable “ but yet with out us , office staff and upper management wouldn’t be able to get the recognition they get.
Maintenance staff in my opinion is the most single important factor in the industry, like stated we are essentially the face of the company , when most of the office staff was working from home the maintenance team was still responding and making sure our homes were still in top shape.
Now while maintenance appreciation week is fun, 1 time a year isn’t really much , it’s like having a pizza party in the grand scheme of it. Now I don’t wanna sound ungrateful because I am lucky enough to have a decent job in the industry but speaking from years of experience in the field , maintenance feels as a very unappreciative job.
We have no real say in anything , that goes on, we ask for certain training , and usually falls on deaf ears, all changes are made with out our suggestions, when most of the changes that are made effect is more so than anything else

I also wanna bring up something that me and some of my friends in the industry ask all the time lately, let’s say the minimum wage goes up to 15 on a federal scale (it’s coming) are the maintenance teams gonna get that 8 dollar increase as well? Let’s say your current level 2 tech makes 17-19 an hr , he can take a 4 dollar pay cut and deal with less stress , as a maintenance tech we are required to work in all elements, know a good amount of knowledge in every trade, know how to use various tools and equipment, have this certification that certification etc…… if McDonalds is paying 15, should they consider paying that tech 2 27hr ???? That’s gonna be a big determining factor in this industry going further , because , rent has gone up tremendously, some might even say it’s ridiculous to rent now , as is down the street from my job McDonald’s is already paying 12 with no experience

A well paid staff is a long term staff

Service technicians have it hard! I was in operations and back when I worked at ZRS, Steve Buck set the example as President and got to know our maintenance team and had an annual conference with Leads and the RM/corporate team. It was awesome and helped us hire and retain the best in the market. My company Austin Magic Makereadies is hiring experienced Tech’s and there is NO on-call! Our team enjoys working together and we have a great company culture.

Let’s. Stop. Saying. It. And. Just. Do. It!!!!! The repeated posts are aggravating! Y’all take care of your people and each other! Just damn do it for crying out loud. Life is hard. This job is hard. Stop talking and take action!

Most of the people talking WOULD do it if they had the choice.

Please know I did not mean that response to sound snippy or mean…tone doesn’t come through online.
Here’s the thing, though many people do not consider this when they post, groups like this often contain people who have influence within management companies…be it ones who are genuinely curious what challenges their onsite teams face that they might could remedy or ones who monitor for employees violating company guidelines and policies in what they share on social media. Regardless of why they are here…they are and they read. By and large the people who make posts like this one about service staff being undervalued are people at the site level…those who can certainly advocate on their service team’s behalf to the company…but not people who can actually fix the issue of the mass exodus from the field and shrinking candidate pools due to the opportunity for them to take those same skills to industrial maintenance or private repair companies and have both better working conditions and pay in most cases. So while you may be tired of reading the posts, if enough higher ups at enough management companies keep seeing posts just like this and a few of them start making a change to value these indispensable employees in order to attract the best of the best that are still hanging in there, before long the majority of companies will have no choice but to follow suit because every property needs maintenance!! So if you’re sick of reading about it, feel free to skip over these posts…but if you are in this industry with the intent of making it your career, it should matter to you too because your picture looks like you are far younger than me so you have a lot more years to go and if someone doesn’t bring awareness of this problem to the attention of management companies while there are still people out there to hire then your job in the office will get harder and harder because without maintenance there is no resident satisfaction, there is no curb appeal, there are no move in or show ready units…and without those things it’s really hard to get renewals or lease apartments. So regardless of whether you are on the office side, the maintenance side or the corporate side…this issue should matter to you.

It absolutely matters. Never give up rooting for your people

I didn’t take anything mean. I preach all damn day almost every day about how important maintenance is. It makes our world go round. Like I said. We have to take care of each other. Advocate for them as their office staff, their manager, their regional and bang on doors, jump up and down. If they are worth keeping. Keep them! Spend a day working with them. Get to know them. If you can’t get anyone to pay them more do everything you can to assist and lighten their load. So yeah we’re all here typing. No ones being ugly no one take it that way. I didn’t mean to sound rude. This is a platform where we can all relate and talk it out. We’re all here for each other.

It will be nice to work for company that appreciates there employees again until then I'll have to appreciate myself

I worked 6 years in the industry and pretty quickly realized how one sided it was. Managers were constantly taken out for lunches, dinners, golfing, etc. While the service side of things got maybe 4 days a year to be included on things like that. Saw so many hard working men & women leave the industry from being overworked and underapreciated. I hope that management companies start treating everyone at the properties equally.