Miscalculating Maintenance

One of my first mentors in this industry was Wally Kurka, who was the Facilities Director at Shea Properties. He took me under his wing as I was tasked with documenting and streamlining on-site processes such as the Move-In Process, the Service Request Process, and the Make-Ready Process. Because Shea Properties built and operated its own communities, Wally would take me on tours to review punch lists at our newest developments and point out the dangers of “value engineering” when it came to things like concrete slab and interior fixtures, which would ultimately impact the ability of maintenance teams to replace and repair items in the near future.

I quickly learned to respect the wisdom and experience of the maintenance supervisors who sat on my cross-functional team that Wally helped organize, as we mapped out these processes. What looked good on paper from an efficiency standpoint was often completely unrealistic, and Wally and the maintenance teams helped educate me on how to achieve these goals through curiosity and collaboration. I learned to ask better questions and avoid too many assumptions.

Those immersive experiences with the maintenance leaders during my formative years are the reason I get frustrated when I find stats like these during my employee engagement research at Swift Bunny:

• 37% of Maintenance Team members do not agree the compensation for their job is fair
• 35% of Maintenance Team members do not agree that current performance incentives are motivating

One of the hottest topics at conferences, webinars, blog posts and social media discussions over the last several years has been how to find, hire, and keep maintenance employees. While it’s a serious subject whose success or failure has far-reaching consequences, I often wonder if the industry looks at these skilled professionals the way our country looks at teachers: “It shouldn’t be about the money! You should just do it for the love of the job!”

As with teachers, maintenance team members have bills to pay, partners, kids or aging parents to support, unexpected expenses, such as braces, a surgery, new tires for a vehicle. Mark Cukro famously warns companies away from any more pizza parties for maintenance teams, and I’m sure we’ve all seen memes like these:

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Maintenance team members are the bread and butter of any community. They keep things running smoothly, they solve problems in a very tangible way, they protect the asset in the most direct way a person can. Most likely, your residents know more names of your maintenance team than the front office team. And yet, I read many comments from maintenance employees across the country that express common frustrations like these:

It’s getting old, being talked to like I’m a child. I’ve been doing this job for more than 10 years.

I have a difficult time saying thank you for a 50-cent raise, when health insurance for my kids is now completely impossible with your new benefits plan.

You keep hiring kids who have no idea how to swing a hammer, and you’re paying them the same as my 3-year maintenance tech. How am I supposed to hold on to any of my people who actually know what they're doing?

While money isn’t everything when it comes to finding, hiring, and retaining maintenance employees, it is a BIG thing. An IMPORTANT thing. They are highly skilled professionals who want and deserve to be treated and compensated as such. Think of all they are asked to do, look at their compensation, and ask yourself, “Would I do that job for that pay?”

In addition to the physical labor of it all, there are things like required on-call duty, snow removal or turns on very tight schedules (instead of the option of outsourcing), uniforms that don’t breathe or flex well, unreasonable budgets that cause them to have to make decisions to patch rather than repair or replace. All of these create additional stress, hardships, and internal gymnastics on how to prioritize work and personal life.

If you’re continually losing maintenance team members, or you’re finding it nearly impossible to find qualified maintenance candidates, there are a few things to take a hard look at:

• Is your compensation package truly competitive? (i.e. Can they earn more as a maintenance tech than as a fast food worker?)
• Are your benefits actually affordable for anyone in the company besides director-level and above?
• Do you model and require respectful behavior among ALL of your team members?
• Are you regularly tapping into your maintenance team for insights and recommendations?

If your answer is “No” to any of these questions, you may be miscalculating what it takes to secure an engaged maintenance team.

The best way to find out what your current maintenance team members are thinking is to ask! And that’s something we’re really good at. If we can help you tap into feedback from your employees, please contact us here or message me. We’d love to help.?

- Jen Piccotti