As your property management company grows, your maintenance game has to level up, too. The basic workflows you established early on in your business—which we discussed in a previous post—must now evolve to handle more in-house staff, offer proactive service packages, and leverage advanced analytics tools.
That’s what process solutions consultant Kelli Segretto of K Segretto Consulting told us based on her 20+ years of experience within multifamily, single-family, and LIHTC property management. Read on to learn her detailed strategies for leveling up your maintenance workflows.
Knowing When to Enhance Your Maintenance Workflows
Updating your maintenance workflows can be tricky. However, here are some telltale signs that a change is due:
- Maintenance requests are coming in faster than they can be addressed—and costs are rising without a clear cause.
- The property portfolio is growing—or shifting toward larger, more complex buildings.
- Existing workflows are disorganized or hard to manage at scale.
- In-house staff are being hired to handle work orders.
- Maintenance data is being collected, but performance and trends aren’t being tracked.
If any of these situations ring true, it’s time to revisit your maintenance workflows and adjust them to meet your current business needs.
Strategic Approaches to Staffing
According to Segretto, one of the first things to do as your property management business grows is to hire more staff:
However, expanding your staff isn’t just about handling the extra coordination required by more work orders. At some point, you may want to bring the actual maintenance workers in-house.
In other words, replace some (but not all) of your contractors with an in-house team trained to perform to your standards.
Pivoting to Proactive Maintenance
With more control over your operations, you can also shift from a reactive to a proactive maintenance approach. Instead of waiting until things break to fix them, you can offer service packages that focus on routine upkeep and preventative care.
For example, this might include two annual property evaluations, a gutter cleaning, and water shutoff and turn-on for unoccupied units during cold seasons (to prevent pipe damage).
There’s one big advantage that preventative maintenance has when it comes to planning out your workflows: it happens on a regular cadence. You can schedule recurring tasks in a software platform such as Buildium that eliminates duplicate work for recurring jobs and keeps you up to date with reminders whenever a project or task within a project comes up.
Knowing Your KPIs
Beyond staying proactive day to day, it’s just as important to keep track of key performance indicators (KPIs) that show how your maintenance operation is really performing.
For example, how many callbacks are you getting on work orders? How long do turnovers take? What’s your average tenant satisfaction rating? These are all metrics you can track and set goals for. Over time, you can fine-tune your maintenance workflows to improve incrementally.
This is also where the power of data and analytics comes in. By collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, you can uncover patterns and insights to help inform business decisions.
For example, Buildium’s analytics features let you track key metrics like task volume (which you can further filter by priority, type, assignee, category, and date) and average time-on-tasks (which you can filter by type and staff member).
Where Software Can Help
Managing maintenance efficiently takes the right tools. Purpose-built property management software can simplify the most time-consuming parts of the job. Here are a few to consider adding to your tech stack:
- Property Meld connects property managers, residents, vendors, technicians, and owners on a single platform to streamline communication and reduce the back-and-forth that typically occurs when you’re just winging it.
- LeadSimple lets property managers build automated processes for managing leads and tenants. Choose from pre-built workflows or customize your own to keep workflows from falling through the cracks—even when you’re not around.
- Clyr helps you manage and pay vendor invoices by allowing vendors to upload receipts, automatically matching expenses, and integrating with popular payment card networks.
- Buildium has a projects feature that lets you organize tasks (and their resulting work orders) under a single project, such as a unit turnover, renovation, or repair, and gain a high-level overview of progress on your key maintenance initiatives. Plus, users with select privileges can track project budgets against actual expenses.
3 Common Mistakes When Enhancing Maintenance Workflows
Redesigning your maintenance workflows is a smart move—but without the right approach, it’s easy to make costly missteps. Watch out for these common pitfalls:
1. Getting Too Granular
According to Segretto, some property managers get so excited about creating digital processes that they take them too far.
For example, don’t slow your maintenance staff down by requiring them to fill out too many documents or push too many buttons just to complete a task. Your standard operating procedure (SOP) instructions can be detailed, but following them should be simple.
2. Being Too Vague
By contrast, some property managers don’t go far enough in detailing their maintenance workflows, leaving staff without the guidance they need to succeed in their jobs.
For instance, detailed troubleshooting guides can help technicians resolve issues faster, especially when dealing with market-specific systems that newer or remote staff may not be familiar with. Think swamp coolers vs. radiators or septic systems vs. city sewer hookups.
3. Weak Vendor Relationships
Building strong vendor relationships from day one lays the foundation for reliable, efficient maintenance operations.
Instead, take the time to collect a vendor’s business license, proof of insurance, and other essential documents. Then have them sign a vendor agreement outlining a code of conduct, how they’ll get paid, etc. This helps ensure your relationship will start on the right foot.
The Next Step to Upgrade Your Maintenance Workflows
If you’re ready to take your maintenance workflows to the next level, start with Buildium. Our all-in-one platform can help you assign work orders, schedule recurring tasks, set up automatic reminders, rate vendor performance, and much more.
Sign up for your free, no-risk 14-day trial today or schedule a free live demo. We’re happy to show you how Buildium can put your maintenance workflows on autopilot.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should you invest in more advanced maintenance workflows?
Invest in advanced maintenance workflows when your current ones can’t keep up with rising work order volume, staff expansion, or your growing property portfolio.
How should property managers adapt their maintenance staffing approach as they grow?
Start by hiring dedicated maintenance coordinators. Then bring key maintenance roles in-house to gain control over quality, scheduling, and cost.
What maintenance KPIs should property managers track, and how should they track them?
Track metrics like callback rates, turnover times, and tenant satisfaction using property management software with built-in analytics tools.
What new maintenance software do property management companies need as they grow?
As you scale, tools such as Property Meld, LeadSimple, and Clyr can help streamline communication, automate workflows, and simplify vendor payments. Buildium is a good start for all of the above.
How should property managers change how they use the software they already have?
Use existing platforms such as Buildium more strategically by setting up recurring maintenance tasks and reminders, leveraging its project tracking features, and analyzing performance data to stay proactive.
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