People

Today we’re going to talk about personnel management. I have seen many different teams in action, working in many different specialties and types of business, and I have seen just as many different cultures, team structures, degrees of commitment, and levels of morale.

When I evaluate businesses, it always surprises me how few managers set progress goals for their employees, or monitor their output in any substantial way. No one wants to be a micromanager, but I have seen what happens when that mentality over-rotates toward the extreme in the other direction.

Setting performance goals is a hugely important tool for providing direction to your employees while also allowing space for them to creatively achieve those goals. It can be very easy to not set goals: having the follow up manager/employee conversations can be awkward and difficult especially if the goals have not been met. It can also be difficult to quantify performance goals so far in advance, but a good manager will help define achievable and easy to understand goals consistent with a business plan.

Without goals and follow up, job scope can begin to creep. This is where the efficiency of an organization breaks down.  Scope creep can start as something positive such as an employee proactively identifying an area of the business that needs attention, or fulfilling several tasks that simply fell off the radar of senior management during a personnel reorganization.

Without a doubt, that kind of initiative is great. In extreme cases however, it can grow into something else where employees vacuum up random tasks that were never in their original job scope, to the point where their daily responsibilities become disjointed journeys through several unrelated disciplines.

Usually, that kind of irregular job growth is at odds with efficient organizational design. Moreover, it can substantially disadvantage the employee because chances are it wasn’t being monitored and cultivated by senior management, and as such, may not fit into the vision of the organization and areas they are looking at for employee advancement. I have seen job descriptions that look like amalgamations of five different positions, and it was very tough to assess how to grow and advance those employees, because they had their hands in a little bit of everything.

And this ties into our October 2 blog post about measurement. Having tangible goals for employees relies on having budgets, business plans, and a repository of data key to your business. Measuring data can enable any manager to define clear goals for their employees and preserve the efficiency of the organization.

As a manager, although setting goals for your employees and sticking to them can be uncomfortable, it is in your employees’ best interest to do so.  They will know what is expected of them, they will have a clear path toward recognition and advancement, and they will channel their initiative in ways that contribute to the organization’s broader goals.  For help with personnel assessments and designing a performance metric system, please contact us at julian@jdfmc.com.

Trends & Themes

This week we’re going to build off our first post and offer some more themes and trends we have noticed in the amenities business. Residential amenities are constantly evolving so it’s always good to take a step back as often as you can and see where the sector is going. From time to time we will post more themes and trends as they emerge from our projects.

1. Live/Work Balance

More and more owners are implementing amenities that combine social/personal and professional elements. More residents are working from home these days and are mobile thanks to new technologies and flexible professional expectations. With the potential for more residents to be spending more time on-site, owners are making bets that residents also want avenues to socialize on the property as well, for a more cohesive living experience. 

In response, owners are building new common lounges with professional necessities such as wi-fi, work stations, and conference rooms.  Several new firms in the amenities sector are focusing on creating premium on-site experiential events, in order to promote social interactions amongst the residents. The thinking behind this is quite simple:  if you can get some work done in the lounge and become friends with your neighbors, you will be a net promoter of the property and are less likely to move out.

2. Inspiration

There has always been a connection between amenities in residential properties and college housing. Just in the past 5 years, amenities in both categories have been dramatically upgraded and diversified.

But whereas historically developers of college housing have looked to the residential development market for amenities inspiration, to see what the “grown up” market was producing as tried-and-true services, now it’s trending in the opposite direction.

Residential developers are realizing that college students are becoming accustomed to some very fun and dynamic amenities, and what better way to sell a seamless transition into their first post-college apartment than by offering those same amenities (or as close as possible) in their own buildings. Of course, the lazy river pool may not be suitable for a Manhattan skyscraper, but let’s call that the anomaly. The sources of inspiration tend to be around communal spaces, social interaction, work stations, and social amenities such as golf simulators and virtual reality.

As amenities become an ever more important point of differentiation in residential housing, look for residential developers to continue to look toward college housing for ideas that will resonant with their potential future residents.

3. Off-Site & On-Demand

Just a few years ago, most of the amenities being offered were physically on-site: a fitness center, a self-storage, laundry rooms.

Those core amenities are still in use today and are still very valuable, but recently amenities providers have developed unique amenities that are off-site or on-demand.

In order to achieve this, certain amenities providers have brought in skill sets traditionally outside the amenities industry and have become experts in logistics and operations.

There are some very creative offerings out there that won’t impact your physical footprint at all day-to-day but will provide valuable services to your residents.

For example, storage now can be off-site.  Fitness classes can arrive on-demand. Cooking demonstrations can arrive on-demand. Event programming can be coordinated at venues around the city. Residential amenities have truly benefitted from logistics planning and operations expertise.

And what we see out there today is really just the first generation of amenities that have benefitted in this way. You can bet that in the coming years new technology and further integrations with mainstream logistics infrastructure will generate even more creative amenities.