On Site Success Secrets…The Power of Policies and Procedures

In the last two issues of The Compliance Monitor, I have addressed topics that are not normally taught to new site managers – picking a management style that works for you and time management for site personnel. Rather those of us who persevere in this field, usually learn these techniques by trial and error. Some of us never learn them and remain in a constant state of stress and crisis. In this issue, I’d like to take you down a similar, yet slightly different path and talk to you about a topic that you may find rather dry, boring, and well, tedious. Nonetheless, I feel it is necessary to talk about if you truly want to be successfully in operating your Housing Credit properties and/or portfolios.

Ugh, I know. I told you it was something that you would probably find dry, boring and tedious. But, I am serious, when I tell you that to be successful in managing and maintaining overall compliance on your Housing Credit properties, you need to give this dull subject your attention.

Policy and Procedures are crucial for a number of reasons. In general, Policy and Procedures assist in standardizing operations, they help new employees learn their jobs and they force you to think through common potential problems before they happen. Properties that have written Policies and Procedures also are a great deal more protected when it comes down to he said/she said cases such as with fair housing disputes or eviction proceedings. If management can demonstrate that they actually have written procedures they follow, judges are far kinder than in the situation where no procedures are produced or don’t appear to be a part of normal operations.

It is doubly so with Housing Credit properties. The rules are fairly complex, the pressure at the site level is immense and the Program is riddled with gray areas and interpretations. There are also numerous places where individual management companies can decide how they want to address or handle issues such as occupancy standards, waiting lists, and unit inspections to name just a few. Operations aren’t standardized like they are with many housing programs and that is the very reason you need Policy and Procedures to succeed.

Of course, many of you have standard operating procedures for such things as handling rent collections, processing evictions, handling maintenance work orders and completing routine maintenance, etc. But the real question for the topic at hand is … DO YOU HAVE STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES SPECIFICALLY RELATED TO HOUSING CREDITS??

Unfortunately, the answer is probably no. At the very least, I venture to guess they aren’t written down, tested and revisited frequently. Of course, I could be wrong and I salute any management company out there that has written, tested and specific Policies and Procedures in regards to the Housing Credit Program.

Part of the problem is where to begin. For most veteran property managers, it is a no-brainer to know the standard areas that must be addressed. But when it comes to Housing Credit procedures, we usually aren’t sure where to begin. And because we don’t have this list in our head, we tend to put off working on these crucial documents or fail to put the decisions we have already been forced to make in writing for future use. We’re just too busy!

But like so many things in property management, it is a vicious circle that continues to spiral downward. In Housing Credits, though, it is often a double-whammy and can actually set two vicious circles into play. First in deciding how to handle a specific problem or scenario and second in getting your staff on the track to making the series of decisions that need to be made in resolving the problem or scenario. Let me illustrate. You’re too busy to take the time to think through how you are going to address specific Housing Credit management operations or compliance rules which in turn causes you to recreate the wheel when difficult or unusual scenarios arise at the property which in turn causes you to make mistakes or apply your decisions inconsistently which in turn causes you to be at risk for noncompliance or in jeopardy of violating fair housing which in turn adds stress and chaos to the site staff which in turn adds to the problem of high turnover which in turn causes you to be too busy … SEE WHERE I AM GOING HERE?!? As this circle is spinning out of control, so is the site staff themselves. Frantically trying to resolve the issue by trying to track down their supervisors or often-as-not resolving it themselves and without proper guidance and education, causing the property to go into noncompliance.

From personal experience, I can tell you what implementing Policies and Procedures has done for me recently. As a business owner of a small consulting and training firm, I didn’t really think about policies and procedures much. When I first started the business, I actually avoided them on purpose. I felt we were small enough not to need them. I wanted my staff to feel free to come to me and we would resolve issues together. I wanted them to feel part of the decision-making process and I encouraged them to be independent thinkers and to resolve conflicts on their own using common sense whenever they could. Hmmm… All I can say, is it sounded good at the time!

But one day I woke up and I found I had stress, chaos and staff dissention on my hands. I certainly know I was stressed. Constantly having my staff come to me with minor problems that I swear we resolved last month but discovering that none of us (including me) remembered the decision itself which usually resulted in a different decision being made. Pretty soon my staff found themselves so involved with these decisions and their implementation that they couldn’t keep up with their work load so we hired more staff. This, of course, added to the workload because we had to train and manage more staff. As the president of the company, I found that I was completely absorbed in day-to-day operations and had no time to think about the direction or future of the company and limited time to spend on my own Housing Credit knowledge. My staff was also unhappy and VERY STRESSED. To them, it felt like we kept changing the rules. They couldn’t keep up with all the changes and felt like they were always doing things wrong. Plus, the workload kept increasing because they constantly had to determine HOW to do something BEFORE doing the task at hand. You would have thought I’d have learned after everything I went through in property management … but no, I had to learn the hard way.

As I started to get my act together and began writing company policies and procedures, the change was nothing less than miraculous. I’m serious. I went from having 15 staff people that regularly worked overtime down to 7. Each working 9 to 5 Monday through Friday!! The stress level is practically nil. I now find myself with an independent staff that can make decisions on their own and I only get involved if an unusual circumstance arises. I spend the majority of my time looking towards the future, marketing our products and services, creating new tools for my customers and clients to use and refining my Housing Credit education. My budget went down and our profitability went up! And must of all, work was fun again!!

You get the point. Without these policies, we are going to invite trouble on numerous levels. We are going to add to our workload and stretch our staff beyond their limits. In come cases we are going to overstaff because our current staff can’t work efficiently and spend way too much time recreating the wheel and making the same routine decisions over and over again.