Onboarding Tips for Maintenance Teams

[Paul Rhodes] First off, those of you driving, 10 and 2. One hand on each side, the appropriate location on the steering wheel. Keep them there as we go through this short quiz.

Everyone else, raise your hand if you have an opening on your maintenance team. Now, raise your other hand if you have an opening in the office. Now, even though current unemployment numbers are down, turnover numbers are high.

So we've got a lot of people working, but there's a lot of job changing going on, not only in the overall industry at large, but also on our properties. Because of that turnover rate, let's talk about ways of helping to prevent turnover. Today, on The Maintenance Mindset.

AppWork is one of our founding sponsors. Much more than maintenance, AppWork is advanced business intelligence. Streamline maintenance workflows and keep an eye on the leaderboard as your service teams enjoy the gamification of maintenance.

Visit appworkco.com and transform your productivity today. So I think the word of the moment regarding on-site employment teams, both on the maintenance side and our office teams, is churn. There's a lot of movement.

I mean, I've read articles from various sources, all both within the multifamily industry and outside the multifamily industry, that talks about the fact that we are over a 50% turnover rate. And by that, that means that one half of the employees that we have on-site, on our properties right now, were not there a year ago. On average.

And that kind of feels right based on properties I'm visiting and discussions of online boards of all the social medias and various chat groups. And it really got me thinking about the process of starting new employees. I mean, one article I read discussed the fact that onboarding practices can help to determine if a new employee stays or leaves.

Coupled with the reality that an open maintenance position for several management companies that I talked with are over a month and a half to fill and almost two months to start. That's a real problem. So, it got me thinking about the onboarding process.

So, just to be clear, we're not today going to be discussing recruiting or the interview process or even the offer. What I'm going to be focusing on our discussion today is the first day for a maintenance associate. This really relates back to a quote that I've pondered a lot.

It is a quote from James Clear. And I discussed it a little bit in episode 22 of the Maintenance Mindset Minute. And essentially what it says is that it's not what a speaker intended.

It's what was received that matters. And the reason why that quote, I think, completely applies towards onboarding is that a lot of our onboarding practices, if we think through them, are all about intention. And I haven't seen a lot of management companies or discussion in what is received or what is viewed by this new employee that we have.

I mean, Mike Brewer had this really, really cool paradigm shift for me in onboarding in a recent episode of the Multifamily Collective, where he talked about onboarding as a new product launch. Do yourself a favor and go listen to that because it really changes a focus on our onboarding practices. So, today, what I'd like to discuss is really that entire onboarding experience.

From the view, well, actually, from a couple of views. But let's start, even before we get into the views, how well are we preparing for that first day? I mean, in some cases, that preparation can take a little bit of time up front.

I mean, let's think through day one for a maintenance associate. And again, I think this could apply very easily to our office associates, but I'm much more familiar with maintenance, so we're going to stay there. What does day one look like for a typical maintenance technician?

You know, it may vary a little bit based on how long the position has been empty. If we go with the numbers I cited, which is just an average of a lot of different articles, to where it takes a month and a half to two months for a new employee to start. If we think about that in terms of maintenance technicians, how many work orders does your community have coming in every single week?

30 days. That's over four weeks. How many work orders are stacked up?

Take that to two months. We're now at nine weeks. How many work orders are stacked up?

And we have this brand new maintenance associate that we've interviewed and we've identified as being able to fill that position, and day one starts. What is that day one experience like? I've actually been on hand on multiple properties where you have a brand new maintenance technician starting day one, and the morning is something like this.

Hi, Bob. Welcome to our property. We're so glad you're here.

We're thankful you're here, but just so you know, we're underwater. We have a lot of work orders. Here's the keys.

Here's how you get access to our residence apartments. Here's what's happening. Now go solve problems.

We'll figure out all the rest of that later. Right now we've got emergencies. We need things to happen.

Go out there and fix it. Get it done. Get it fixed now because we've needed you for so long and we're so glad you're here.

We're glad you're here. We can't believe you're here. Go fix stuff.

What kind of a new employee experience is that? Not a good one. So let's actually back up a little bit for onboarding.

As a matter of fact, I'll go so far to say is that if you are discussing onboarding the day of, you're already too late. A proper discussion of onboarding a new employee really needs to begin before they're hired, maybe even before the position is empty. So for those of you who at the beginning of this didn't raise your hand, right now is the perfect time to discuss your onboarding plan, especially for your maintenance associates, because based on the fact that things break, entropy is job security, when eventually maybe our maintenance associate gets promoted to another property.

Maybe they get to advance their career or learn new skills and we have to fill a vacant position. When we have to fill that vacant position, that is almost too late to begin talking about what the first day is going to look like for that just vacated position. You see, what we're talking about here is looking at who's in charge of onboarding.

We have a new associate. We have Bob that's going to come on or Janet. And these new employees begin on day one.

And if the plan is we're so relieved that they're here, why should they think about staying in a crisis environment? I think it'd be much better to have an intentional environment. Meaning, before day one, start with that question.

Who's going to be responsible for day one? That person needs to really think through what that's going to look like for the brand new associate. Things like, does this person have access to get our new employees' email, access to whatever property management system we're using, sign them into whatever the key or access situation is for the building or the property.

What about ensuring that this person is empowered to set all of those things up for the new associate? I mean, things like, can this person fill out the I-9, that beginning employment paperwork? Can this person explain the benefits to the new associate on day one?

Can this person get our new employee set up to be paid? Notice that so far, I haven't even talked about what the new associate is going to do. These are things that have to be figured out before day one.

If we wait until day one, we're already lost. For larger companies, what was the recruiting and interview process like? How many other people were involved in getting Bob or Janet to day one?

How does it look to hand off Bob or Janet to this empowered person for day one? Every bit of those are viewed by our new employee as, how well put together is this team on joining? If there's a lot of fumbling and day one begins at 8 o'clock in the morning, right off the bat with, and what was your name again?

Or, oh, I'm sorry, you should have been told what to wear on day one. Or, well, welcome, I'm glad you're here, but you know what? We don't have your computer or your access, or I'm not quite sure what we're supposed to do.

What does that tell Bob and Janet about the type of organization that they're about to join? These are things that really need to be sorted out before we do it. We'll even go one step further.

Once all of that paperwork and things are going to be done by that empowered person, is that empowered person going to be the mentor or the buddy for that new employee? Does Bob or Janet have somebody that they can go to when the inevitable question comes along of, ooh, a resident is asking me for this whatever it is, and I don't know what this property's policy is. Who does Bob or Janet go to?

Do they go to the empowered person that they met on day one, or do they go to a mentor? That mentor could be a more senior maintenance technician or even the maintenance supervisor. But there needs to be somebody there.

And not only that, have that person become, if not a friend, at least be friendly with Bob or Janet, our brand new associate. All of these things go into play for our new associates' day one experience. And furthermore, does Bob or Janet know where to park?

Do they know what they're expected to work their hours on day one? What about our property? Is there legal requirements that either our insurance or our management company or our policies or procedures require us to do before Bob or Janet are allowed to interact with our residents?

Some management companies require fair housing training. Others require OSHA awareness and workplace violence and active shooter and safety requirements or just an introduction to the culture of the management company. All of these things are valuable for our brand new associate on day one.

Do we have a plan? Since we're spending a lot of time in maintenance world, what are the apparel standards for day one? What if, just a suggestion here, since I happen to have a microphone and I'm speaking right directly to you, why not go ahead and spend a little bit of your money that is required anyway?

According to OSHA, as employers, we are required to provide for our employees personal protective equipment that is needed for their job. Do we have that one on hand? And two, if not, why not?

Why can't we have it on day one? One of the big examples of that is eye protection. Now, I happen to wear glasses.

That means the eye protection that I need is the kind that slips over my eyeglasses because eyeglasses are not safety equipment. There are other people who are not challenged in this way that they can wear the safety glasses that don't require eyewear. Is that a question in your pre-employment questionnaire?

Does Bob or Janet know on day one that they need to wear a certain kind of footwear? I'm aware of a lot of management companies that do not allow tennis shoes. They want work shoes.

I'm an advocate for at the very minimum having non-skid shoes and maybe even consider requiring toe protection. All of these things we need to fill out before Bob or Janet start in an organized way, hopefully in a non-overwhelming way. Because if you think back and remember your first day at your current job, I'm guessing you were overwhelmed.

We all were. It's a new situation. We're starting something and there's a huge quantity of faith going out as a new employee for my new employer.

It's kind of challenging looking at day one through a different lens, isn't it? As a matter of fact, I tend to look at things from a framing standpoint. By that, have you ever seen a documentary on a movie that's being made and you see the director looking through their fingers, holding them up in a box shape?

Those of you on video, you can see I'm looking through the frame of my fingers. Those of you who are just listening to audio only, if you take your hand and put them in two L's and then hold them together in a box and look through it, that's what I'm referencing here. Why does a director do that?

The reasoning is the director wants to get an idea of what the camera is going to see based upon how tight or how far they zoom in. What I would like to do is for us to change the frame on our onboarding discussion. See, I believe that there are two frames.

There's the frame from our new associate, Bob or Janet, in my made-up examples in the beginning of this episode. And then the second frame is the frame of the employer, the property, the team that Bob and Janet are about to join. So let's begin by looking at our first frame, the frame of our new employee.

You see, I firmly believe that our new employee does have a responsibility beyond just showing up. Now, a part of frame two is going to be setting that frame for the new employee because they don't have a point of reference. This is all brand new for them.

But that does not remove the responsibility from Bob or Janet. Bob or Janet needs to show up essentially with everything that they promised during the interview process. So again, I guess that does go back to frame two a little bit.

Does our employer frame set those expectations? We'll talk about that in a minute. But here, Bob and Janet, it's day one.

They show up on time. If you remember me from an earlier episode, if you're early, you're on time. That means Bob or Janet show up on time.

Show up ready to work, whatever that looks like for the type of property that you're going to work at. Meaning, if you happen to be going to a downtown metropolitan community that is a high-rise, Class A, high-tech, chances are you're going to be wearing a button-down shirt or an executive-looking shirt. That type of attire will look a little bit off if you happen to be working in a much more urban or much more rural setting, away from the downtown to where there's a little bit slower pace, a little bit different environment.

Show up in proper attire. On time. And show up ready to work.

Bring all the tools that your employer, your new employer, has told you, and be ready to meet people. I know for some of us that may be easier than others of us. It's going to come down to personality.

But Bob or Janet, you're the new one that's about to go to join an already existing team. Be ready to meet people. Practice your handshake.

Practice an open stance. Stand up straight. Smile.

Have that extra pot of coffee. Okay, for most other people than me, have an extra cup of coffee that morning. Be awake.

Bring something to write on and write with. There's going to be a lot of information thrown at you on day one. You have the responsibility to make an attempt to retain the most important parts of it, which brings to the kind of second half of that little piece of advice.

Be ready and willing to ask questions. Matter of fact, as a new employee, identify for yourself who is best to ask questions to. For on-site teams, that might well be the property manager, the maintenance supervisor, even the regional for the community.

Whichever type of environment you're in, new associate, you have a responsibility to ask if you have any questions. Bring with you your identifying documents, driver's license, passport, all of the necessary and required information to start an employment. And do yourself a favor, bring a canceled check or whatever bank documents are needed.

Since many of our properties are going with direct deposit these days, be ready to set that up on day one. Also, as a new associate, if your property includes benefits like insurance 401k, have a general idea ready for what you are going to sign up for and be ready to do that when it's appropriate during that day. Be alert.

This is your first day with a new team. Be aware. Don't just hang back.

Be involved. But remember, this is an existing team. They worked or were working in your absence.

Just the fact that you show up today as a new employee, do not expect to change the world with a snap of your fingers. Chances are you're going to encounter some things that you might disagree with. That's okay.

You were hired for your skill, experience, opinion, or willingness. Maybe even for other reasons beyond that. But remember, you're becoming a part of an already experienced organization.

Things will change over time. It's a good idea to figure out where they are right now before going and expecting other people to mold to your work style. Eventually, if your work style works better for that team, just your presence on there and your ability to be more efficient within that environment will begin to adjust.

But it's like turning a huge vessel. You don't do it on a dime. You do it in terms of miles.

And it takes time. Be positive. Go into your first day of work with the best intentions and expecting best intentions being returned to you.

Chances are your first day is going to be tough. I'm hoping your first day is fun. But it's going to be tough because it's a new environment.

And when you finish for the day, My best piece of day one advice is before you go into your house at night, do yourself a favor and review all the notes that you took during the day. Think back over what happened and then leave it alone. This was day one.

Remember, you're going back again for day number two. And what I've found is whenever I have a new experience, if I, at the end of the day, before going to bed, before eating dinner, before going inside, before really shutting down the day mentally, if I take a moment and summarize it in my head and then ignore it for a while, especially ignoring it before going to sleep. I mean, maybe talk with your spouse, talk with your partner, talk with a good friend, go over what happened during the day, but then leave it alone.

Sleep on it. The next morning, I have found I have ideas, questions, things that happened the day before that I need to bring up again. That's where finding that person who is the person that we go to to ask questions, that's where start with that on day two.

That's onboarding through the frame of a new associate. After this short break, let's look at it from frame number two, the frame of an employer. Be right back.

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All of that is involved in our new experience. So for frame number two, we're talking about welcoming Bob or Janet onto our community, and they're about to join a preexisting team. My guess is, and the hope is, that you're not onboarding new employees every day.

In other words, this isn't the kind of thing that you know what to expect because it happened yesterday, and then yesterday was just a carbon copy of the day before that. Hopefully, this hasn't happened in a while. You've had a team that's intact, and the team has stayed together.

Furthermore, I'll even go one step further and say that this vacancy has occurred because one member of your team has outgrown their role, and they are succeeding, and they are advancing, and that's why this opening has occurred. That implies, by all of that together, that we may not remember the last time we onboarded somebody, what worked and what didn't. This is why checklists are a must for onboarding.

Now, those of you who have talked to me offline or in various locations, I have this, you'll be aware, I have this love-hate relationship with checklists. I love them as reminders. I hate them as work-defining tools.

I love them because you get a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. I hate checklists because, quite frequently, we have a tendency to do only what's on the checklist, and when we get finished with the checklist, we consider ourselves done. Unfortunately, there are very, very few things in life that are as neat and clean and pretty as what was included on the checklist.

An employee's first day, just by nature, is messy, and the purpose of a checklist is to remind us of everything that we need to do. I encourage us to have a checklist created and already ready. Oh, and by the way, similar to the first half of this episode, if that checklist starts on the day that Bob and Janet arrives, we've already lost it, because we did not have an item on our checklist to prepare Bob and Janet for day one.

Something as simple as, where is Bob and Janet expected to park their car, if they're driving one, on day one? Or if they're not driving one, if the community is in an area serviced by a bus route, what bus are they expected to take? Or all of those things, just to get Bob and Janet to our property for day one.

If Bob and Janet are stressed, even before beginning the day, what's the rest of our time together going to look like? So, start the checklist even before day one. That's the onboarding checklist.

It begins before. We should be well into the checklist. Have an item of that checklist be the handoff point, from whatever pre-employment looked like to day of employment.

And then, I like to look and think of the tasks that we need to do for employment as appropriate pressure. See, by thinking through it, this particular lens of the employer onboarding experience, with ideas of pressure, we can begin to develop what Bob and Janet's first day and first several days are going to look like. See, appropriate pressure breaks down like this.

There's some high-pressure items, items that we absolutely, positively need to ensure that we take care of for or with Bob and Janet, or low-pressure items. Maybe even no-pressure items. Things that, yeah, low-pressure items should occur infrequently, rarely, and we move into, and no-pressure items, these are items that, for our new associate, they should be shielded from completely, blocked out, so that we can begin to integrate them on the team.

I like this way of thinking because it does apply a sequence of what we need to do for Bob and Janet's first days. For instance, high-pressure, the I-94, filling out the employment paperwork, getting Bob and Janet paid, and reassure them that they are a part of the team. A high-pressure item, getting them swag.

In other words, if your community has hats, or t-shirts, or uniform shirts, or book bags, or coffee cups, those are high-pressure items. That is a fantastic way to welcome people. I actually visited a month ago a property while I was speaking at a conference that I was talking with the maintenance tech there at the property, and he made mention to me.

I didn't even work for that management company, and he's telling me that he has yet to get a name badge. Think about that as a new employee. An item that is, in my view, essential for our maintenance associates that are going into our residents' homes, and yet the only thing he has to identify himself is a shirt with a logo on it.

There's no official identification to our resident that he can put on his lapel or his work wear. What exactly does that say to that brand-new associate if we don't have that on day one? Maybe a part of the pre-employment, we could get a head shot, just an idea, and have that ready on day one or have the capability.

I mean, I know you can go down to your local office supply store, and a lot of them, and they will make it on the spot. Maybe that becomes a lunch outing, but that's an example of a high-pressure item, an item that needs to absolutely, completely, and totally occur as quickly as appropriate. What about setting expectations for your brand-new employee?

Now, if we begin thinking through what we talked about on frame number one, your new employee, I expect them to be awake and alert. Maybe they had an extra caffeinated beverage in the morning. That's going to imply that they're going to need to know where the bathroom is, where the facilities are, where they could go take a break.

If it's not appropriate in your office to take a phone call, mention that, that they need to step outside or depending on where you're at, where it is or is not appropriate to smoke at your community. Yes, I know that is on the decline, but where maintenance is concerned, there are still several maintenance associates that smoke, and they're coming into an unknown circumstance, and if we jump down their throat for doing something that they consider normal, what, again, expectation does that set up for our employment experience? High pressure item, access, the morning of Bob and Janet's first day, they need to have in our modern world an email address, or if the management company is not providing email addresses, they need to have a password, and please, please have an appointment ready for Bob and Janet to talk with IT or whomever is needed to to get them set up in our property management system.

If your community is old school and you still use paperwork orders, be sure that you have somebody there who can explain that process for whatever your file system and paperwork and documentation system is. Those are high priority items. Ensure that whomever is walking Bob and Janet through the day one activities has access to the cell phone ability to set up.

So many of our properties now are using mobile tracking for work orders and devices, and we need to be ready to set our associates up on day one. If your management company is making use of an LMS or another e-learning compliance program, a high pressure item is ensuring that they have not only access to view those materials, maybe a separate computer or a designated time that a computer can be used, but also keep in mind most states require that if training is required for the job, then that training must occur on the job while being paid.

That implies that the high pressure item is not only gaining them access, but gaining them a quiet place where they can review those items. I got an idea, and this is outside the box. Go figure.

The training guy is thinking in training terms. What if instead of plopping our brand new associate down in front of a computer for the computer to deliver that information, what if we had an individual, a person designated eyeball to eyeball to deliver that information to them in a format that Bob and Janet could actually ask questions, make it a relax, not with a test and we have to go through it. Okay, maybe we use e-learning to reinforce it, but I get how liability protections are required.

Some insurances, some management companies, some properties require the new employee to go through and verify that they know how to use lockout, tagout, and personal protective equipment before they begin actually servicing equipment, and that's fine. I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with our brand new employees first employment experience sitting in front of a computer screen for hours when the job of a maintenance technician is up and out and moving.

That does kind of go back a little bit to what we were talking about earlier too. This through this lens of pressure, high, low, and no pressure, the item that goes on no pressure for day one is emergencies. Okay, fire, flood, or blood.

Bob or Janet, yes, they probably will get called upon to chip in or pitch in or help. That would be a little bit of an expectation, but what I'm talking about here is, oh, we had this work order that has been sitting for three weeks that no one here has been able to. Janet, you are the EPA certified technician on site, and this work order has been sitting here for three weeks, and this resident needs air conditioning, and it needs refrigerant.

Janet, today, go fix it. No, that's a no pressure situation. I mean, really?

Your resident's been without air conditioning for three weeks. I mean, let's look at it from a money standpoint. You have not paid for Janet, your new employee's salary for those three weeks.

That at least will cover some of the cost for a contractor to take care of that resident's air conditioning. What kind of experience is it going to be for Janet to go to that apartment and get yelled at by the resident who has been without air conditioning for three weeks? What kind of a new hire experience is that?

Dealing and getting told that your job is to get thrown against the brand new resident that could have been prevented in this made up situation. Just something to think through. By the way, a low pressure item for the very first day.

Low pressure is discussing job performance. Meaning, Bob has just started with us. If we've done a good job of interviewing and validating and skills testing and going through the hiring process, we have an idea of what Bob said he could do.

And we have an idea of what Janet said she could not do. Let's wait on evaluating their job performance for a couple of weeks because there's a lot of uncertainty going on. That becomes a low pressure item.

So, today, we've done a lot of discussion about onboarding. And, I can't remember which article it talked about. I believe it was an article in Forbes that talked about the most important thing that could be done for onboarding new associates.

And that was providing a buddy. When I read the article, I thought back to like museum days in elementary school and that everybody on a field trip, you have your field trip, buddy. You don't go anywhere without your field trip, buddy.

And in my mind, that's what I pictured when I was reading that article and discussing through it. But you know, when we start a new job, regardless of what the position is, those first couple of days, you do feel like you're on a field trip. Having a buddy along for the ride, someone there to hold your hand, as he makes air quotes, for those of you not watching the video.

Having a buddy could make the difference. Somebody that Bob or Janet could ask questions to might very well increase the longevity of our new employee and cut down on the churn that we talked about at the beginning of this episode. Thank you for joining me today.

I hope you have a fantastic rest of the week and I'll see you somewhere. Thank you again to AppWork for sponsoring today's episode. Imagine carrying a digital make ready board in your pocket with work order tracking and maintenance technician leaderboards designed to gamify the process and bring out your team's competitive best.

AppWork offers solutions to headaches that have plagued the multifamily industry for decades. Visit www.appworkcode.com today.