As we approach the end of 2021, you may be starting to reflect on how the year has been for your company and thinking about where you can improve based on leaseholder and resident feedback. The management of repairs and maintenance is one of the most important ways you serve these groups and one of the areas that can have the most significant impact on their satisfaction. It’s also one of the most important ways in which you can ensure that the blocks you manage stay legally compliant. Here are some of the ways in which your agency can optimise these processes.
Who Owns Each Process?
Unless you’re the only staff member in the agency, the chances are that not everyone involved in repairs and maintenance for your blocks has an identical understanding of how things are being carried out. So before you can optimise your processes, you first need to gain an understanding of the current situation.
From scheduling planned maintenance for staying compliant with legislation to communicating with contractors, the head of the department should figure out who is accountable for the success metric(s) of each process. For example, for planned maintenance, the success metric could be the number of planned maintenance items completed compared to the number required for a block to remain compliant throughout the year.
These process ‘owners’ don’t necessarily have to execute the processes themselves, but they have to be accountable for the outputs. It is not unusual to have a ‘key person’ who is highly motivated and is relied upon for many different outputs in a company. Still, we should refrain from assigning too many processes to any individual. The process owner has to, in the future, manage the process on an ongoing basis. Too much work on one person could set us off on a path to failure. Every block management company is different – some directors are very involved in the day-to-day running of the firm while others are not. If you are both the director and the ‘key person’ in the business, you might need to consider delegating some processes so that you can focus on your top priorities in the new year.
Map, Compare and Align
Once we have a list of processes, desired outputs and owners, it’s time to get to work and map out your processes. This step may sound straightforward, but it is often the one that requires the most effort in a process optimisation project!
Not only should the process owner document the process, but they should invite relevant team members to do so individually. Only once everyone involved has mapped out their understanding of how something is done can you detect gaps, discrepancies and room for improvement. This is when the business management buzzword ‘alignment’ comes into play. Ironing out any mismatched understanding now is key to identifying opportunities for optimisation in the next steps.
Use Tech to Create Efficiency
Tech solutions can standardise and optimise processes in one go.
Think about your processes for planned maintenance. How do you ensure that the right risk and safety assessments are made to a building and its common areas when they’re due? How do you ensure assets like lifts are serviced at the right intervals? Identify how these processes are carried out and how tech might be able to help you. For instance, automation and scheduling can be used to ensure no maintenance events slip through the cracks, while the right contractors or assessors can be assigned job tasks without the need for manual intervention.
Your human resources can then be diverted to reviewing assessment reports and any recommended remedial works. Your experienced block managers are trained to ensure relevant processes, especially when a Section 20 consultation is required, are properly carried out and not to administer repetitive manual tasks.
To complete a repair job for a building’s common area usually requires the managing agent to receive the repair request by phone or email, verify the issue with the resident and confirm access, arrange appointments with contractors and then follow up to ensure the job is carried out to a suitable standard.
Using a specialist repairs and maintenance management system, you can automate these manual steps, simplify processes and standardise your entire team’s way of managing these requests.
Optimise Over Time
Business optimisation is not a one-time exercise but a continuous process. But this should not be a reason to change processes frequently and aimlessly. Allow time for your new repair and maintenance processes to become embedded and measure their effectiveness consistently. With the introduction of new legislation such as the Building Safety Bill, client expectations and compliance requirements will not stay the same year after year, so be sure to review your processes regularly with process owners. Consistent control and monitoring will help you make data-based decisions in future process optimisation initiatives.
For more on the latest legal and compliance topics block managers should be keeping an eye on, watch our Quarterly Legal & Compliance Update for Block Managers webinar with solicitor Cassandra Zanelli, CEO of Property Management Legal Services, free on Fixflo’s website.
