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An innovative leader in property management has said reducing the hours property managers are available has brought a “calmness” over the office that was not seen previously.
MAP Real Estate principal and director Michael Furlong spoke to Residential Property Manager earlier in the year after implementing 10am to 4pm office hours Monday to Friday for his property managers.
MAP property managers still work normal office hours between 9am and 5pm. However, they are only accessible between 10am and 4pm.
In a follow-up interview, Mr Furlong told Residential Property Manager the new office hours have been a success, and he can’t believe he didn’t implement them sooner.
“What I have noticed is there is a calmness that we hadn’t experienced previously,” he said.
“The guys have got more control; they have 10 hours a week where they have total control of the output, instead of being controlled by somebody else.
“As a result of all the preparation work and following systems and processes, we have got fewer and fewer backend problems, and when it is a backend problem, it is a bigger problem,” he added.
Mr Furlong said his idea for reduced hours came when he questioned why the business opened at 9am, as they “are not a bank”.
“I wanted the staff to get in first thing in the morning and rather than be bombarded with phone calls, bombarded with tenancy issues, to get in for the first hour of the day and completely set up and manage and take control of their day,” he said.
“I can now count on one hand our arrears that are seven days or more because we follow up arrears daily.”
Mr Furlong said it is also important that his property managers know he is on their side.
“As a principal, it was a bold move for me to go out and make the change because the only person it was going to backlash on was me,” he said.
“I have really high expectations of my property managers and as a result I felt that it was important for me to support them by giving them the time. And now that I have done it and changed the office hours, I feel a little bit silly that I didn’t do it earlier.”
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