Mitigating Burnout in the Commercial Property Industry

With many rapidly changing industry dynamics due to COVID-19, unprecedented pressures have been placed on property management firms and landlords. Commercial Property and the CRE industry is a fast changing and constantly moving sector to work within, and the pressure to keep up with intense workloads, new government initiatives, and Health & Safety regulations can lead many employees to be at risk for burnout and mental health crisis’s.

How can we as an industry ensure that we simultaneously take care of our own needs, while also taking care of our clients and tenants? There are many things that you work on as a business to ease some of the load for your employees.
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Guarantee optimal tenant communication to reduce dependencies and enquiries.

Tenant communication can be simultaneously the best and most difficult part of many property management roles. You may find yourself fielding many calls from tenants per day regarding issues that have already been rectified, invoicing queries that should be directed to the accounts department, or for information that may be found within your website or Tenant Hub.
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Excellent and frequent tenant communication is critical as we know, but there are ways to mitigate comms to ensure that you are having the discussions that matter and spending less time on the small niggles.
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Review your tenant contact process. Whether thats a ticket system or a tenant hub, does it have the accurate information and context in this area? For example - does it have prompts of information to be included within their message, does it inform the tenant of the time frame when they can expect a call back or update in?
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Think about your onboarding situation. When a new tenant comes on board - do you take the time to lay out the process of responsisbility and expectations for regular check ins, with them? Do you give them contact details and proceedures in written format for them to refer to as needed? Are they aware of who to contact for different aspects fo their tenancy - aka the invoicing or billling contacts vs the Facilities Manager contact?
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Take note of how often and why a tenant contacts you. Are they contacting you about a reccuring issue that could be fixed permanently for additonal cost rather, than ongoing call outs? Can you offer them a different alternative to an issue they feel agrieved by? Is the tenant contact actually the correct person - if tenant contact is off site often, or is in another location - could their updates or issues be better dealt with by an onsite tenant liasion ?

Streamlining processes for systems management, invoicing, and lowering arrears.

Taking the time to review and audit your end-to-end process will allow you to get a clear idea of areas that can be improved on. Are there certains areas like chasing arrears that result in time wasted and stress around invoicing dates?

Manual tasks like managing maintenance requests and tracking down building information can often create frustration— a key ingredient in the recipe for burnout.

Although management software is great for automating many manual processes, it’s also about providing your staff with the tools they need to get organized and boost operational efficiency. Your employees can’t provide service to the best of their ability when they’re feeling disorganized and unsupported in their regular tasks. The right property management software can make life easier for everyone.

Identifying potential landlord and tenant risks over a time period and how to mitigate these.

By implementing processes like Long Term Maintenance Plans and financial projections, you can ensure that you have all the information needed to reduce any surprise problems in the future. Using LTMP and budget planning, with clear data and cost value analysis to back it up - you will be able to present your clients with plans for their assets that not only reduce high cost urgent risks, but also create a greater confidence in your management which can reduce the need for frequent updates or meetings.
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Periods of time that may present higher risks such as holiday periods where many staff will on call vs regular hours, these are key to assess and preplan as accurately as possible. By identifying all potential risks over that period, you give your staff the reassurance and confidence they need to be prepared if they arise. You also give your clients and tenants the peace of mind that no matter the risk, you already have it covered and the communication is crystal clear.

Ensure adequate staff and coverage.

Nothing contributes to burnout faster than staff that are snowed under with too much responsisbility. This is a common issue within management companies where staff members are in charge of a high volume of assets and tenants individually. Many people are now leaving the industry and new people who enter the industry struggle to cope – shocked by the intensity of their role, they often leave after six months.

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It's crucial to ensure that as your portfolio scales up, you scale your team up with it.
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Creating hiring trajectories in line with porjected portfolio growth will allow you to be prepped and ready to advertise for new hires when needed. You'll be able to work your portfolio growth and your budget for team members into a clear plan for fair and manageable work distribution.
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Think about the types of roles you have within your business and whether your hiring aligns witht he type of roile actually needed. If you have a large amount of Facilities Management work and your current FM's are struggling, then that new hire being alotted to the FM team is logical. If you're only hiring based on where you'd like the team to expand rather on where it is actually needed, your staff can easily become overwhelmed with their workload while others try to help out in an area that isn't their domain.
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Create role distrubution charts and analysis for your team members. By breaking down what staff do on a daily basis and how much time they spend on different aspects of your job, you may find that what they actually do on a daily basis is not what the role entailed. Once you have this data, you can work out which aspects to redistribute to other members.

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Lastly - check in and assess well-being.

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Esepcially as more of us work remotely - checking in on your team on a regular basis to see how they're handling everything, can become the difference between a burnout and a well tuned machine of a team. It's just as much your responsibility to keep an eye on your team, as it is for them to feel like they can bring up issues if they arise.

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Working within the property mangement industry can be atough soemtimes, you may feel like you are surrounded by problems to fix and people to please. It's important to look after your own health and create work-life balance boundaries that fit your situation.

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