Case Study Five: Portfolio Over-Staffs Maintenance Teams
- Situation: Community maintenance staff sizes are at least more than one-half Maintenance Technician higher than the industry-standard, one-Maintenance-Technician-per-one-hundred unit benchmark.
- This case study is intended to serve as a benchmark, and is based on the performance of a 2,000 unit Class B portfolio.
- While not having the resources larger organizations do, the company has a somewhat unique operational approach: consistent with their mission of making apartments “homes” by providing caring, consistent and capable service, the company over-staffs every community with at least one-half extra Maintenance Technician (one-half a Maintenance Technician means one who contributes 20 hours of work per week, provided either by a part-time employee or by one who splits their time between two or more communities).
- The company’s satisfaction scores clearly set the benchmark for excellence, as every year their portfolio satisfaction scores rank first or second nationally.
- The table shows how this company’s scores remain consistently high year in and year out.
- Their focus on service and the unique maintenance staffing plan lead to all service related scores being “superior” or “exceptional” (above 4.00 and 4.50 respectively).
- The percent of outstanding service requests remain low, despite most buildings over thirty years old, due to the resources committed.
- Taking the steps to maximize satisfaction and minimize outstanding requests leads to 62%-63% of residents each year saying they are “very likely” to renew, which is 16-17 points above the SatisFacts Index.
- Their annual turnover rate is as much as 30 points below the NAA Income and Expense Survey national average…this company’s turnover is as low as half the national average!
- The financial reward of this is significant:
- Using one-half additional Maintenance Technician per community, the added cost per community would be approximately $15,600 per year.
- The additional cost for all properties combined is approximately $156,000…this seems like a high figure until you compare the impact this has on satisfaction and ultimately their lower-than-average turnover rate.
- Portfolio turnover is 707 units fewer than what it would be if the company had the same turnover percent as the national average.
- At $3,000 per move-out, this means the portfolio’s bottom line is more than $2 million higher per year than if their turnover rated matched the national average…compared with the added staffing cost, there is clearly a significant return-on-investment!
- These results confirm that regardless of market conditions, sound steps focused on satisfying residents minimizes exposure to costly controllable turnover.
Five Point (1-5) Scaled Satisfaction and Yes/No Questions
|
|
Year 1: Score or % Yes |
Rating |
Year 2: Score or % Yes |
Rating |
Satisfacts Index |
| Apartment - Appearance, condition |
4.30 |
Superior |
4.32 |
Superior |
3.92 |
| Office - Courteous, professional |
4.51 |
Exceptional |
4.56 |
Exceptional |
4.21 |
| Office - Responsive, dependable |
4.48 |
Superior |
4.47 |
Superior |
4.03 |
| Maintenance - Courteous, professional |
4.57 |
Exceptional |
4.58 |
Exceptional |
4.31 |
| Maintenance- Response time |
4.46 |
Superior |
4.43 |
Superior |
3.93 |
| Maintenance – Work quality |
4.45 |
Superior |
4.42 |
Superior |
4.04 |
| Maintenance - Problems still exist |
21% |
|
25% |
|
29% |
| Renewal Likelihood - "Very Likely" |
63% |
|
62% |
|
44% |
| Overall |
4.42 |
Superior |
4.42 |
Superior |
3.98 |