Insanely Great Year

There is no argument I think that what matters most to our business is our residents. And what matters most to our residents is timely and accurate service from our facilities team. I submit that our organizations career paths and operations management are too heavily weighted to our office/sales/administrative teams and inadequate for our facilities personnel.

With project EPIC has come new definition of roles and responsibilities for many positions in the company. Property and Regional Managers no longer spend as much time focusing on financial aspects of the property operations. Instead the focus is on delivering excellent service to residents and managing administrative compliance. A typical EQR hierarchy places the responsibility for this of RM's, who rarely have any facilities background and refines that are spread far too thin to meaningfully impact the service end of each site they are responsible for.

By reducing the number of RM's and expanding the number of refines this imbalance could be corrected. Rather than 8 properties each RM could have 15-20 and serving along side the RM would be the additional refines. This creates a balanced leadership team with appropriate expertise in both the administrative, sales and facilities portions of our business.

A benefit of this change would be the creation of a career path for our maintenance personnel that is currently very limited.

If we have leadership weighted to what matters most for our residents then we will have results for our organization- and the financial rewards that come with.

Prospect can get exactly what they want in their homes by: we are going to online availability, but why not take it a step further? People they want burbur carpet, vaulted ceilings, washer/dryer, accent walls....More $$$, more satisfied applicants/residents.

Master Mind Idea! i think they should put the dashboard that the mangers have that give them the make ready percent and the overdue work orders on there main screen in mri should also be on the Maint supervisors it would save us time by not having to add it up our self.

I have been meaning to get my MM Idea to you so here it is :o)
The marketing department sent each property flyer holders. It was very misleading that they were to hold the floor plans. I have been to many of our properties since then and no one is using them. My idea for a way to put them to good use (as opposed to just "extra paper") would be for the Marketing Department to create a template (see attached) that each property could use to tailor it to them. The template displays all applicable fees and would replace an "information sheet" and also eliminate the need to write down all of that information for a prospect. This would allow for prospects to feel confident in what we were telling them that it is the same across the board, so to speak. An alternative to this would be for each property to submit their "fees" (app fee, Move in fee, pet policy etc.) Quarterly and then printed by the marketing department for each property. This would be easier on the properties but not be as flexible for the properties if something were to change.
The attached page shows all of the information a prospect may ask for at a glance. I think this would be helpful also when an unfamiliar or new associate is at the property; they will appear knowledgeable because the information is right in front of them. It is frustrating to go to a property and not know how much the application fee is because it varies by ~10 throughout the portfolio.

Thank you,
Lori Rodi
Floating Assistant Manager
Portland, Oregon