Remote Workers

INTRO: It's time for HOA Solutions Today. This is where you'll find news, tools, and trends for condominium and association leaders.

(00:08) ROB BUFFINGTON: I wouldn't call it a positive event, but I do believe it has had a positive effect on our industry in that it brought us forward ten years. Other industries have been doing this for decades, literally.

(00:22) SPEAKER: And now. Here's your host, Paul K. Mengert.

(00:27) PAUL K MENGERT: This is the HOA Solutions Today Podcast. Our topic for this episode is Remote Workers. I'm pleased to have Rob Buffington as our special guest today. Rob is the founder of Gordian Staffing, a remote staffing company located in Omaha, Nebraska, but working throughout the United States. He is a remote staffing consultant, previous HOA manager and knowledgeable about HOA vendor services. Rob, welcome to the podcast.

(00:57) ROB BUFFINGTON: Thanks for having me, Paul.

(01:00) PAUL K. MENGERT: Let's jump right in, Rob, and discuss. How did you get started with remote workers?

(01:06) ROB BUFFINGTON: I always tell people I was my own first client. I owned my own HOA management company, but I hired my own staff remotely because I was in the Bay Area, and I was struggling with retention, and I was struggling with salary expectations. And we were a younger company, and it just wasn't working. So, I hired my first remote team member out of Mexico who's actually still with me, and that was April. And by August I had ten. And then a year or two later I had a friend ask me like, hey, that sounds really cool. Can you help me do that? And I said, Sure. And then he told somebody who told somebody. And five years later, here we are, 300 employees, strong.

(01:45) PAUL K. MENGERT: Very interesting. Well, I know the whole world seems to have been changing and evolving since the COVID pandemic. Do you think this has been something that's positively impacted the industry?

(02:00) ROB BUFFINGTON: I really do. Of course, it was, you know, COVID was not something I wouldn't call it a positive event, but I do believe it has had a positive effect on our industry in that it brought us forward ten years. Other industries have been doing this for decades, literally. And not just outsourcing, but also automation, doing things remotely, zoom meetings, all of that. And I feel like COVID shook us out of our lethargy and forced us to adapt.

(02:31) PAUL K. MENGERT: Right. I think a lot of management company and association personnel have worked remotely during the pandemic, and some of them have continued to work remotely, whether they're local employees or from far away. One of the things I have observed is that it tends to make the employer, whether that be the association or the management company, a little more focused on the exact procedures and maybe results they want.

(03:00) ROB BUFFINGTON: It absolutely does. It's growing pains. It it's not what we're used to. But exactly like you said, it forces us to question the way we do things and move to a better way of, well, if they're getting the job done, then what does it matter? Well, in that case, what is the job? What do they need to get accomplished? Well, they need this, this, this. And it has led to a much more structured and consistent operation among most companies.

(03:30) PAUL K. MENGERT: Yeah, I know, I know. We all think of remote workers, like with a call taker. That's very hard to understand.

(03:37) ROB BUFFINGTON: Yes.

(03:38) PAUL K. MENGERT: Where, where are your remote workers, or where are remote workers from in the HOA industry? Where do you think they tend to be most, most from?

(03:46) ROB BUFFINGTON: Without question, the two major places that we recruit from as an industry are Mexico and the Philippines. And I agree with what you said. People hear remote workers, they tend to think of that call center, a difficult experience, perhaps, but and that's why we personally stay away from the term VA, virtual assistant. We call our team members, Remote Team Members, RTMs, because we want people to understand these are not entry level people reading from a script. These are skilled workers that just happen to work somewhere else. But those two countries have a very high English literacy rate. The infrastructure in Mexico particularly is very strong and there's a shared culture. The Philippines has been used literally for 20 years by the insurance industry, software companies as call centers. But I believe that Mexico is where most positions are best suited because of that shared language and culture, the shared construction, knowledge in terms things like that, same time zones.

(04:51) PAUL K. MENGERT: Yeah, I know one of the conversations we had about this before was that in some cases there's an opportunity to drive down costs. But I recall that you emphasized the opportunity to really drive-up performance and intellect and, you know, have a more skilled, more trained, more focused worker.

(05:13) ROB BUFFINGTON: Absolutely.

(05:14) PAUL K. MENGERT: And what do you think leads to that?

(05:17) ROB BUFFINGTON: Because the price is lower, we can be more selective. So, I always tell people we're not offering an inferior product for an inferior price. I will put my employees up against any employees that you're going to hire locally because we pay very well, and we offer full medical benefits. So even though you might only be paying nine or $10 an hour, that person is going to be living a much better life than somebody in the Carolinas making $16, $17, $18 bucks an hour. And we're not recruiting from the ranches and the middle of nowhere, we have offices in Guadalajara and Mexico City that are 5 million and 25 million people, respectively.

(05:58) PAUL K. MENGERT: Interesting. Well, I know that, you know, my, with our company and with friends of mine in the industry, it's just it's really hard to hire people. So, you know, it's not a matter of not wanting to give local folks a job. It's just sometimes there aren't local folks available.

(06:14) ROB BUFFINGTON: Absolutely. And I tell people, if you have somebody locally who wants to do the job, by all means hire them. But we assist people. People don't call us out of cost savings. They call us because they're desperate. And so, we help them to do that.

(06:31) PAUL K. MENGERT: Well, it's time for our HOA Solutions Newsbreak. Thank you, Rob. We are going to take a HOA Solutions Today newsbreak.

(06:38) SPEAKER: And now it's time for your HOA Solutions Today Newsbreak.

(06:44) NEWSBREAK: Scottsdale, Arizona City Council has ruled that HOAs cannot require homeowners to overseed their lawns. Overseeding occurs in the fall when warm weather dormant grass is planted. By not overseeding, homeowners can save thousands of gallons of water a year. The plan to reduce Scottsdale's water usage footprint has received praise from both homeowners and HOAs alike. To read more about this story and let us know what your thoughts are, please go to HOASolutionsToday.com.

(07:17) PAUL K. MENGERT: Rob I know it seems like it's always a challenge for associations to meet people's expectations with how things look and meet environmental standards and goals, and also to maybe please somebody who doesn't care as much how green their grass is.

(07:34) ROB BUFFINGTON: Absolutely. And I think that's the other side of the coin that we need to take into consideration. We do not need to get back to where we were. We need to get ahead of that because client expectations have changed. Their expectations for responsiveness, their expectations for our expertise and our communication. All of that is much stricter than it was just two or three years ago. So, we have to find a way to meet this new demand.

(08:03) PAUL K. MENGERT: Yeah, boy is that the truth. I mean, expectations have really shifted since COVID and I think probably for decades to come, there's going to be the before and after COVID kind of benchmark in our in our thinking. Well, Rob, what are some of the struggles and challenges that you've seen with remote workers and perhaps there is someone listening today that's thinking maybe this is a solution for them. What is, what should they be looking out for?

(08:35) ROB BUFFINGTON: Well, as with anything, it. There's no perfect solution. Just like when you get a great software that you roll out, you have to put the work in up front. You need to be prepared to train somebody. Our industry in particular has always led with the apprenticeship model. Follow me and ask questions. And that's how you're going to learn. That doesn't work as well with remote staff. You need to have training plans and videos and scripts put together ahead of time. However, that ultimately makes the company stronger as they begin to get a more consistent answer. Many companies I go to and do consulting, they're not one company, they're five companies because each portfolio is run differently. So, this provider and then when a manager leaves and the show is go to another manager, there is a mismatch of expectations that leaves everybody dissatisfied.

(09:31) PAUL K. MENGERT: Yeah, I've heard it said that one of the reasons people like McDonalds is because every McDonalds you go to, it's exactly the same. So, you know what a McDonald's cheeseburger is going to taste like. It's not a surprise that is apple. But I think your point is exactly well taken. You know, people will call me occasionally and say I'm with ABC management company. And I say, well, you know, I know that to be a very fine company. And they say, well, that hasn't been our experience. And unfortunately, in a people services business, if you get the wrong manager or wrong assistant manager, you could have a bad experience with a very good company. So, I think the push towards standardization, you know, we want to have custom solutions, but we want to make sure it's done in a way that meets certain standards is very important. So, taking this back to a remote worker, you're talking about having scripts and protocols that they can roll out. And I think this would be an opportunity for a board of directors where they could more likely say, hey, this is exactly how we want this handled, and even help write that, write that script.

(10:50) ROB BUFFINGTON: Yeah, it's about making sure the hamburger turns out the same every time. Inconsistency and exceptions lead to mistakes, which leads to frustration, which leads to loss of revenue and loss of property value. So, bringing in remote workers, it can force you to level up because it leads to a culture of transparency. And I've always said you're not paying for 8 hours for the back of somebody's head. You're paying for the output, the work that they do. And so, moving to a remote culture, whether that's across town, across the country or across the world, it leads to a shift of you are tracking people's work product and their satisfaction rates and their metrics as opposed to just yeah, they showed up today. Nobody yelled at them. That must have been a good day.

(11:39) PAUL K. MENGERT: Wow. How many times have I seen that as the as the barometer and, you know, always have to coach managers and board members to make sure you judge your failures based on who's telling you about them. Yeah. You know, not all, not all evaluations should be treated equally. One of the things you may know that we've done over at AMG is over the years we've tried to get evaluation of the whole membership. And often boards are surprised that 95%, 98% of the people are very satisfied. But the 2% or 3% that are dissatisfied tend to be the ones that call up all the time and talk to you a lot.

(12:23) ROB BUFFINGTON: It's the vocal minority and that's why we help companies implement things like KPIs and metrics, email response time, customer survey results, things like that. And you can even hire somebody to do that. You can hire somebody to do any number of things that wouldn't make sense on a domestic salary, but make perfect sense when you're paying that $9, $10 an hour.

(12:44) PAUL K. MENGERT: Well, Rob, I've got a few more questions about that, but it's time for another HOA Solutions Newsbreak. So, hold that thought just a minute. We'll be right back after the HOA Solutions Today newsbreak.

(12:58) SPEAKER: And here's another HOA Solutions Today Newsbreak.

(13:02) NEWSBREAK: In Valdosta, Florida, an HOA, and a homeowner went to battle over items that a woman has been keeping in her driveway, yard, and garage for over 20 years. A neighbor complained that the items had slowly grown over 20 years to the point they currently resembled a landfill. A judge ruled that the HOA could go into the woman's property, clean up the area, and then charge her for the issue. If you've been dealing with a hoarding situation like this, please let us know at HOASolutionsToday.com.

(13:32) PAUL K. MENGERT: Rob, we dealt with a hoarder one time and the association went through the process of fining the person and lo and behold they came into the office and paid about $2000 or $3,000 worth of fines but didn't clean up the property. So, these are the kind of things that leave managers scratching their heads sometimes.

(13:52) ROB BUFFINGTON: Yeah, it's a crazy business. And every time I think in nearly ten years, I've seen everything, something new comes up.

(14:00) PAUL K. MENGERT: Yeah., boy, I've seen that, too. Every day is a new and exciting day in this business. Well, I want to go back a little bit to your comment about metrics and see if you could just tell me a little bit more about some of the metrics you've seen used as a result of implementing procedures and protocols and maybe remote workers, how they helped with that?

(14:25) ROB BUFFINGTON: Sure. And it's going to vary by position, but you just want to go, and we have lists that we can provide if anybody wants to contact us, we're working on a master list that we have by position and by department. But it can be things like if it's an AP Clerk, number of invoices entered per hour, day, months, week, number of mismatched GL codes, things like that. For a customer service rep, it could be average missed call rate, it could be customer satisfaction rate, it could be first call resolution, which is very under looked. How many times did they did they solve it on the first one? Because when you roll out metrics of how long were you on the handled the call for handle time, people start to get off the phone quicker rather than putting in an extra 5 minutes to get it done. So, first call resolution can be very important. Companywide, you can have things like a direct labor efficiency ratio. A DLER, basically a ratio of your payroll costs to your revenue. Anything that can be done can be measured. And as I said, people are welcome to contact us, and I can send them the full list. But just ask yourself, what is it that they're doing? How many of them are they supposed to be doing? And what's the best way to measure that?

(15:45) PAUL K. MENGERT: Very interesting. And I'm glad we've had an opportunity to feature you on our podcast, because I do see this as one of the new things in our industry, part of a maturing industry. I've been around the community association business for several decades and you know, this is one of the things that, you know, 10 or 20 years ago would have had very little traction. I'm not saying it had none, but very little. But I was recently at a group of CEOs of management companies. And I would say now two thirds of them have some kind of remote workers. And I would have to think ten or 20 years ago it might have been one or two out of the whole group. So, it really is something that's changing. Tell us, what, if you've got your crystal ball to look into, what do you see down the road as it relates to remote workers?

(16:44) ROB BUFFINGTON: I mean, the first thing to be crystal clear is that this is here to stay. This is not a COVID temporary situation. People like working from home. They're not going back without big incentives to do it. So, people need to make peace with that. And again, that could mean across town, working from home, people living out of state or people living out of country. It can mean any of those. But when you go to recruit people for whatever position, the first question is going to be, is it hybrid, is it in office, etc.? And it's important to note there are always going to be positions like an inspector, handyman that will need to be in person. But I'd say the other thing to take into consideration is that job roles are being completely redefined. Historically, the community manager has been the ‘jack of all trades, master of none’, responsible for doing everything. But we're very quickly seeing a shift to what I call the account executive model, where they're responsible for communicating with the board, managing expectations, and they have the support of an ACAM, a maintenance coordinator, customer service rep, and an accounting rep who work across multiple portfolios to ensure consistency. But they do the bulk of the heavy lifting. This ensures that as a portfolio grows and changes or a manager gets reassigned or gets promoted, that there's that consistency of service, which is ends up being good for both the community and the management company.

(18:15) PAUL K. MENGERT: Yeah, I really do see our industry maturing and setting more standards and more benchmarks and more measuring, which frankly makes the job a better job because when you're judged by the last angry caller you had, that's just not a good way to judge the, whether the person's doing a good job or a bad job. And frankly, I think the kind of the proverbial angry caller can run some good folks out of the business because the feedback they get, rather than being analytical feedback, that they're doing a very good job. The feedback is just the last guy that called up that was upset about dog poop when really in the scheme of the whole job, that was 2%. I'm not saying it was of no importance, but it probably wasn't a merely the significance of having a good reserve study for the association. So, I think all these things are leading to us having higher and better-quality managers and support staff.

(19:12) ROB BUFFINGTON: Yeah, and it's absolutely vital to know that this results in better retention of better managers. I mean, what board hasn't been heartbroken to hear that their beloved manager is leaving because they got a better offer that promises, you know, less late nights and things like that. When I hired my remote staff, burnout dropped, retention went through the roof. It was good for everybody. And technology has made it much easier to track these metrics like work order, turn time, you know, stuff like that. And there's always a crazy one. Like, I remember getting a bad Yelp review on my company. I've been calling this company never calls you back, blah, blah, blah. And I had to go look the guy up because I had never heard of him. And I called him, I said, okay, you know, look, I'm looking at our call logs. I have no record of you. I'm very sorry. What? Who did you talk to? Well, I never talked to anybody. I called when I get off work at seven and nobody ever called me back. And it's like, did you leave a voicemail? No. What?

(20:19) PAUL K. MENGERT: Yeah. It's kind of hard for us to just call people back with your random caller ID numbers. Well, Rob, this has been very, very interesting and thought provoking. We have one final HOA Solutions newsbreak for today's episode, and we'll be right back after the newsbreak.

(20:40) SPEAKER: And now our final HOA Solutions Today newsbreak.

(20:45) NEWSBREAK: An HOA in Houston, Texas, reportedly promised that their community would have two guard shacks and two gates. This promise reportedly sold some of the first houses. 13 years later, the community has just one gate, one guard shack and the back inside entrances are unguarded. Community members are complaining about having to pay an extra $200 in HOA fees for a service that they have not been given. The HOA says that they owe no duty to a promise that the builder may have made, and they have no plans to fix this any time soon. To read more on this, please go to the news break section on HOASolutionsToday.com.

(21:21) PAUL K. MENGERT: Welcome back folks I'm Paul K. Mengert here discussing remote workers with the founder of Gordian staffing, Rob Buffington. Rob, we really appreciate you being here today. I think you've given me some great ideas and I'm sure listeners will have some real thoughts, thought provoking, I’m sure you've had you've served as a thought provoker for some of our listeners today, and I thank you for doing that. Do you have any final words you'd like to say?

(21:51) ROB BUFFINGTON: Just to emphasize that this is regardless of what company or location or position you use, remote work is here to stay. And you can either fight it or you can embrace it and see the benefits. And I would challenge people to look at it with fresh eyes because it can be very good for the community. It can be very good for the managers and good for the remote workers as well.

(22:15) PAUL K MENGERT: So, Rob, I really appreciate you being here. I'm going to add one kind of final thought from myself to this. Rob, I think focuses on remote workers that are abroad and there's certainly a place and a need for that. And I see it as very much a growing sector of our industry. I think also I'd like to point out that there are remote workers that are from more rural areas, but not abroad, and that that also is an opportunity where companies are hiring remote workers, where it would have been too far a commute. Maybe it's only 75 miles away, not across an ocean, but the whole remote abilities that come from Zoom and other electronic things that are available today really are expanding the base of where we can attract workers from. And as Rob has said, which is one of the most thought-provoking parts of this segment for me, is it is leading to better metrics and better modeling of the performance and results that are desired and expected. And Rob, for that and all of your comments today, I'd like to thank you very much.

(23:31) ROB BUFFINGTON: Thanks for having me.

(23:32) PAUL K. MENGERT: Thank you, everyone, for listening to our episode today. And a special thanks to our guest, Rob Buffington, for speaking with me about the remote workers that are playing a larger and larger role in community associations. I'd like to sum this up by saying I see three takeaways from my discussion with Rob today. Number one, remote workers are gaining a stronghold in the customer service industry and the community association industry across America. Number two, I think they're here to stay. You're not going to see remote workers go away because we need workers more and more in all, in our industry and in all industries. Number three is that remote workers provide an opportunity for better metrics, a better follow through and tracking of exactly how things are handled, because it forces the owners of the companies and those who are managing the workers to be more formatted and more disciplined in how they roll out their service delivery. Rob, thanks again for being here today. This is the HOA Solutions Today podcast. For more information on HOA news, tools, and trends, please visit the HOASolutionsToday.com website and subscribe to our series. I am Paul K. Mengert, and we'll see you next time.

(24:48) SPEAKER: Thanks for listening to HOA Solutions Today. Find more information on today's topic online at HOASolutionsToday.com.

(24:57) SPEAKER: This podcast is a production of BG Ad Group. Darren Sutherland Executive Director. Jacob Sutherland, Director. Matt Golden, News Director. Jen Reason, Director, Producer. And Jason Gentle, Roller audio producer. All rights reserved.

Key Notes:

• Remote workers are gaining a stronghold in the customer service industry.

• Working from home is a trend that is here to stay.

• Utilizing remote workers provide excellent opportunities for better metrics and follow-through for companies.

Scottsdale City Council Passes First Known State Code Amendment Regarding Overseeding

Scottsdale, AZ’s City Council approved a code amendment stating that HOAs cannot mandate homeowners to overseed their lawns. Overseeding occurs in fall and is the practice of planting seasonal grass over the dormant, warm season grass. This new code gives homeowners the ability to now choose to not overseed, which is an effective way to save thousands of gallons of water per property. The results and efforts to reduce Scottsdale water footprint has received extremely positive responses from both homeowners and HOAs. Let us know your thoughts on overseeding by leaving us a comment.

Hoarding Nightmare Plagues Val Vista Lakes

Residents and HOA in Val Vista Lakes, FL have waged a two-year battle to have a homeowner rid her property of countless items she has been storing in her backyard, on her driveway and other areas in front of her home. A neighbor across the street from the homeowner reported the junk slowly crept in over 20 years until it began to resemble a landfill. The HOA’s suit stated the owner broke the covenants of the CC&Rs by not maintaining her property, calling it a nuisance and hoarder house. After she failed to respond to the suit, the court filed a default judgment giving the HOA the right to go onto her property, fix the violations and charge her for the cleanup costs. Let us know how long it would take before you took similar action by leaving a comment.

KPRC 2 Investigates Years-Long HOA Debate Over Security Guard Gate

A HOA in Houston, TX reportedly advertised in their brochure a community with two guard sheds and gates. This sold many of the first homeowners to build in the community. Now 13 years later, the community still only has one gate with a guard shed at the main entrance and a regular gate at the middle and back entrances. Homeowners are expressing their frustration on having to pay $200 extra in HOA fees all this time for luxury they have never had. The HOA claims they did not make these promises and have no plans or guarantees to build this structure in the future. Click on the link to read the full article.