Drive your condo management to the next performance level - How to manage your manager for maximum results.

Is your condo corporation becoming better each year in key areas of condo management such as financials, maintenance, general upkeep, security, and administration? Or is it staying the same, or worse, decreasing in performance? Is your management company taking your direction and efficiently putting them into action? Are they moving too quickly or too slowly? Are they meeting your expectations?  Are you as a condo board that just gets what you get from your Condo Management Company… not what you want?

Professional condominium management is a service industry, and some condominium providers perform better than others. To understand how your condo management company measures up, it is important to know and understand what an excellent, professional management company is supposed to do and then assess whether your condo management company is providing the best results.

Agree on the rules of engagement

Identifying and communicating mutually agreeable goals and objectives with the condominium manager is a critical strategy that will determine and set up the Condominium Corporation and management for success.

It’s important to agree, manage, review and adjust mutual expectations, and work out rules of engagement with your management company. These rules may include:

●       Frequency and method of communication including emergency situations (If the chiller stopped, do you want your manager to send you a text or want to see it reported by email in your weekly report at the end of the week?)

●       Management reporting: frequency and format (e.g., Do you want the monthly management report to start from action items from the previous board meeting?)

●       Board Meeting preparation and processes, including chairing and minute-taking.

●       Addressing urgent issues between meetings and during major projects.

●       The assignment of key liaisons on behalf of the board between board meetings.

●       The use of technology and proper training and communication for that technology.

 To get results, manage the objectives:

Every condominium will have its unique needs and goals which will drive the establishment of objectives. Some may want to focus on utility savings, some may want to focus on improving security and cleanliness. These objectives must be clearly communicated to your management company each year. Take the time to consider and assign priorities to the objectives. Without clearly identified priorities, your management may spend resources on activities and tasks that do not impact all of the community and make little to no difference to the overall performance of the board in managing the affairs of the corporation.

Performance Management and Feedback System

A professional management company will come up with a plan and measurable deliveries. This may be a good foundation for a performance management and feedback system to be used with your Management Company. Periodic reviews of their performance should be done to assess how they’re doing and identify both their strengths and areas where they could use improvement. But, before any of this can be used, the Board must fully understand and accept that the Management Company works for them and not the other way around. The Board of Directors has hiring/firing authority and can eliminate, replace, revise, or renegotiate a contract with a Management Company.

There are many different techniques for evaluating management performance. Some do formal annual performance reviews; some do annual owners’ surveys.

A performance review process should not be an uncomfortable and bossy administrative activity that is dreaded by both the management and the board. If you are generally satisfied with a manager’s performance, it can be informal communication over a cup of coffee in a boardroom. What matters is that the feedback is provided in a positive, clear and constructive manner.

Below are some tips that may be helpful in organizing a manager’s performance review:

●       Be specific, positive and honest

●       Send a copy of the performance evaluation in advance

●       Arrange a meeting in person when possible

●       Be co-operative to help identify areas of improvement

●       Recognize and reward a good performance

●       Create a Performance Improvement Plan

Finally, no one is perfect and property managers are human beings. They do make mistakes too. Be reasonable when minor mistakes occur. Expect that when there are concerns the person in charge should acknowledge the error and take steps to correct it.