PERSPECTIVES
BY BEN LAUER
Tips to Hire , Train , and Retain Great Maintenance Technicians
Whether you are large or small , seasoned or new , those with an in-house maintenance team know it is a critical component to the backbone of your multifamily operation . Sound maintenance will positively impact building upkeep , resident retention and satisfaction , cash flow , and overall asset values . It can also serve as a tremendous profit center for 3rd party management groups and simultaneous benefit to owner clients .
Here is the obvious kicker : creating a great maintenance team is incredibly difficult . The labor market is fluid , training is challenging , and maintenance personnel have less day-to-day oversight than the average office employee . So , how do you navigate these obstacles to position yourself for sustained success ? While I have not unearthed some cheat code or maintenance-hack that will change your luck overnight , over years of trial , error , failure , and success , a few principles and practices have produced noticeable results . Such practices can be organized into 3 categories : Hiring , training , and retaining .
Hiring is easily the most widespread frustration among multifamily operators I interact with . First , make sure you have a strong , well thought-out job description . Bad maintenance technician candidates will base their decision to apply solely on the premise of pay . To frame it another way , let ’ s say you post a job for a Property Manager , with no detail on what an average day will look like , no information about the types of buildings they will manage ,
and no information on the company and culture . If someone applied for that role without questioning anything about it , would you have reservations about hiring them ? Maintenance technicians are no different . There are a variety of skillsets in the maintenance world and differing personalities , each with unique motivations and career aspirations . Those who are great genuinely care about what they do day-to-day , take pride in their work , and understand themselves wellenough to know what specific maintenance work they wish to be doing . By writing a clear , detailed , and honest job description , you will eliminate bad actor applicants and attract good people to the role . Maintenance technicians are not one-size-fits-all , so your job description cannot be either . As you begin to source and find the right talent , the second hiring tip that has been effective is a referral program . Great maintenance technicians typically have other friends in the same line of work . Who doesn ’ t want to work with their friends and get paid a bonus to do it ? By offering , say , a $ 500 referral to any tech who brings in a referral who pans out , you will scale more efficiently and costeffectively . Lastly , offer paid working interviews . You do not necessarily have to marry a maintenance technician from the jump . Establish a working interview period that provides a chance to validate their skills and reliability .
So , now you have successfully hired a good fit for your maintenance team , woohoo ! However , it is very rare that you can simply send that tech into the field without encountering issues . Great long-term techs are not necessarily perfect ; some have less hands-onexperience than they may need , some may require coaching on culture and the standards of , say , your unit turn vs . company ABC that they worked for previously , and some may struggle with technology . Each will need some form of course correction and training , and each will have unique hurdles to initially overcome . Make sure , especially in the first 2-3 weeks of employment , that the tech has a supervisor available
4 | TRENDS OCTOBER 2024 www . aamdhq . org