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11/10/2008 13:51:23
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Subject: Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Elizabeth Scott
Joined: 10/03/2008 08:08:12
Messages: 206
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Question from Anne Mahoney:
"Our company has just hired an in-house maintenance person to circulate at all of the properties we manage. We feel confident in his skills but would like to present him with a detailed daily checklist to use when he visits the properties. Most of the properties are class "A" properties and we would like to run them as the Four Seasons of office buildings.
Does anyone know of a good "Best Practices" guide for a maintenance person? I have searched the web hoping to find some detailed guide or maintenance checklist but have been unable to locate anything.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I do not want to try to re-invent the wheel, nor do I have time to do it!"
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11/10/2008 13:51:53
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Elsie Hermann
Joined: 09/25/2008 21:54:44
Messages: 202
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Comment from Bill:
"Actually, IREM maint forms are a good start. Avail thru this site."
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11/10/2008 14:02:51
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Jeffrey Laass
Joined: 09/29/2008 08:49:58
Messages: 73
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Anne,
If you can have him check in regularly w/key contacts for each tenant in each building, many maintenance calls to your office can go away. They will become accustomed to seeing him at the relatively set date/time and will hold routine requests for when he arrives. This will also develop a better relationship between you and your tenants and increase the confidence they have in you.
Jeff
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12/07/2008 19:02:09
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Owen Ahearn
Joined: 10/29/2008 19:29:04
Messages: 64
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In the prior post, a comment was made to contact key personnel in the buildings that you are managing. While I agree in principal with the comment, I do have a few concerns. 1) the maintenance personnel may be new to the property and not versed in all of your firms directives and goals, 2) all maintenance work should be received and recorded by the main office or maintenance office (while I admire an open maintenance policy - it is important for the manager to know the maintenance concerns), and 3) the manager should be in charge of the building and be the primary contact, with maintenance working seamlessly together with all other management departments.
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01/02/2009 18:41:41
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Robert Machado
Joined: 01/02/2009 18:30:35
Messages: 3
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I agree with Owen. Your properties should have a centralized system for coordination and determination as to who does the work. That way the maintnenace can be managed instead of it managing you.
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01/26/2009 16:25:54
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Subject: Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Allan Watkins
Joined: 01/05/2009 12:51:20
Messages: 35
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Question from Anne Mahoney:
"Our company has just hired an in-house maintenance person to circulate at all of the properties we manage. We feel confident in his skills but would like to present him with a detailed daily checklist to use when he visits the properties. Most of the properties are class "A" properties and we would like to run them as the Four Seasons of office buildings.
Does anyone know of a good "Best Practices" guide for a maintenance person? I have searched the web hoping to find some detailed guide or maintenance checklist but have been unable to locate anything.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I do not want to try to re-invent the wheel, nor do I have time to do it!"
Begin by investing in a good preventive maintenance software program. You will need a person that is capable of desimminating the O&M specs to create a synopsis of what needs to be done. I could go into some seriously long detail in this field as I am highly qualifed with over 26 years experience. Unless you have some type of tracking mechanism, you will be spinning your wheels.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 01/28/2009 21:20:15
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03/18/2009 20:46:57
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Clemya Matthews
Joined: 03/18/2009 13:53:29
Messages: 1
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I agree, the IREM site is a good place to look for a check list. I would say however, even though all of the buildings that he will manage will have similar needs and so a check list is a good too. It is also important to remember that each building may have a different owner. The importance and the efforts paid to one area over another may vary from building to building and or owner to owner. Keeping the owner happy and the building well maintained is the ultimate goal. So, make sure you list reflects the owners concerns and objectives as well as your own.
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03/21/2009 13:39:07
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Kevin Cort
Joined: 03/21/2009 13:30:03
Messages: 1
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Allan Watkins stated that tracking is key. He also stated that getting a good software program is important. I had done a lot of research on PM and available software. I discovered a company called MicroMain, out of Texas. The one thing I liked about there software was they had a module they could add to their package which allowed maint. personnel to utilize PDA's to input there various activities which would upload to a web-based system allowing complete access by the Property Manager. The great thing about this company is they are willing to give out the source code for their software allowing the purchaser to taylor the offering to their property. I have seen their website demo which looks very good. I have received the trial package and will be doing some hands on testing shortly.
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03/23/2009 13:35:26
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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John McDuffie
Joined: 03/23/2009 12:08:15
Messages: 17
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If i had a dollar for everytime someone wanted me to create a checklist - i could retire. There are no checklists. Sure I can generate one or you can buy one but they won't work. The best practice, if you have confidence in his skills, is to let him visit each property as he sees fit. After a few visits i'll bet he will be able to identify properties that need lots of help and ones that he can just drop by on occassion.
I used to have my staff do checklists for everything from end of the month to daily maintenance. After studying the results I found that all checklists were good for was wasting time.
Say an hour to walk a property then two hours to write a report on it? Doesn't make much sense. If you have to give him a checklist the he isn't the right person for the job.
Having said that, you should provide him with a list of key contacts and known or recurring issues on the properties. Let him work out how to monitor everything and when to go visit and so forth. It will work better. I've proven it time and time again. If it doesn't then you need a new "floater" not a checklist.
Almost forgot, I do agree with Allan Watkins to an extent. Tracking is key but not through commercial software not designed specifically for your properties. All that software is is a database that generates spreadsheets. Use Microsoft excel or Open Office to track. They both have database software and spreadsheet programs. You can tailor those databases and spreadsheets to fit your company instead of having to work with what some software company tells you to work with.
I design databases and web applications for property management companies through a company I started with some friends. I also have over 15 years of experience in property management and am currently VP of the company I work for. We manage and consult so I have a clue.  ok, off my soapbox
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 03/23/2009 13:40:44
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04/15/2009 11:03:46
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Allan Watkins
Joined: 01/05/2009 12:51:20
Messages: 35
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John, you could probably retire..
I on the other hnd believe the intent of the conversation was to create a maintenance checklist to check off on what is to be done during a maintenance of a piece of equipment. Many software prgrams are avialable that will have basically everything you need but it will still have to be customized to fit your particular property.
I agree about the walk throughs. I spend at least 2-3 hours per week doing walk throughs of spaces and then another 2 hours writing the reports about what I found. It would be much simpler to say, here is a floor I checked and why was it in this condition. I also agree if I continue to find the same items out on every floor, then I have someone that is not perfoming their job and needs to shape up.
John did bring up a good point though. Microsoft Access or Excel can be customized to create a checklist and thus save monies rather than buying a program to create a checklist. If your maintenance staff is doing their homework, the basic list of maintenance requirements, frequencies, and procedures are available from the manufacturer and /or supplier. This wold only require an additional step to input it into a schedule.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 04/15/2009 11:06:54
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06/17/2009 21:17:31
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Bree Slavik
Joined: 06/17/2009 20:37:03
Messages: 1
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First of all, I agree IREM has a great detailed maintenance checklist one could use as a guidline. In my opinion, rather than using their form verbatim, I think it is should be used as a tool to create and personalize your own to-do list. I believe it is always important for someone to have a guideline/checklist, however, if you are overseeing more than one property you need additional training.
It takes a lot of organizational skills to juggle the maintenance details at one community let alone multiple. In my experience, you might have to start off with a checklist and see how everything evolves. There might be other training involved, ie. organiztional skills, blueprint drawing courses, etc.
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06/18/2009 23:06:01
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Jeffrey Laass
Joined: 09/29/2008 08:49:58
Messages: 73
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Good post John. It's evident you've done this for awhile too in knowing you don't put a green maintenance tech on a Class A property unless you plan on NOT managing it soon after. Of course the PM needs to be very involved with the property, but delegation some of the basic maintenance tasks is part of managing a property too. I also appreciate your take on forms. There's a need for organization, but if we were to spend all of our time polishing the perfect form nothing would get accomplished.
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08/04/2009 20:19:01
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Christopher Mellen
Joined: 09/16/2008 11:19:56
Messages: 46
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The forms in the publication section of IREM First are excellent. You can use the maintenance forms to put together a maintenance manual for your employee.
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09/29/2009 14:11:15
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Dionne Bishop
Joined: 09/29/2009 13:43:02
Messages: 2
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The new employee should be educated on the Company, the properties he will be working on and the owner goals. You need to create a system to determine who performs what duties and or task. All maintenance request should be taken at one central location. All request should be recorded by date, time, apt. number and the problem. I would have the maintenance personell to check in regularly with the manager. The manager is the one in charge of the property and he or she must be involved in all maintenance issues.
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10/01/2009 16:05:12
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Subject: Re:Best practices for maintenance personnel
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Jeffrey Laass
Joined: 09/29/2008 08:49:58
Messages: 73
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Any success with this program Elizabeth? Please report back.
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