Setting objectives
For any type of employee incentive program, your property management team must feel the goals are attainable and realistic. An incentive program should also fit into your company’s overall business strategy and be easy to measure. Using targets such as revenue growth, occupancy, resident retention and NOI, are some of the ways to establish incentive objectives. In addition, the ideal incentive program will allow each person in your company to feel they have an opportunity to win.
Tip from the coach: To build a powerful incentive program, plan a brainstorming session with a few of your key resident managers and property supervisors so they can share unique insight about ways to make the program a giant success. Listen to their input, as they will lead you to the gold!
Developing a strategy
Be certain your objectives are simple and well defined. Then, do everything possible to ensure your company goals can be evaluated fairly and objectively. For example, the occupancy at a property or the number of leases renewed each month can be easily measured. Once you have outlined the goals to be measured, then build a specific schedule of how frequently you are going to report the progress of your incentive program. For instance, if your incentive program is going to run for three months, then plan on announcing the rankings every two weeks, to keep top-of-mind awareness. Lastly, clearly outline the rules of your incentive program in writing and define the specific time period to be measured.
Tip from the coach: When building your strategy, be certain to focus on win/win. Also, consider what will happen to morale if many participants within your property management company don’t-or can’t-achieve their incentive objectives.
Establishing awards
Start by establishing your budget for this incentive program by defining the projected number of awards to be given. Then, consider the people-profile of your property management team to develop appropriate awards that will be memorable and the winners will take pride in receiving. This is another great topic to brainstorm with a few of your key resident managers and property supervisors. Given an open forum, they will tell you exactly what is important to them and to those they manage.
Tip from the coach: Your team will be most inspired if they feel the incentive rewards are meaningful enough to justify their efforts. Some award ideas, a nice dinner with the president of your company, education/training classes paid for by the company, a paid day off with cash for shopping, a special plaque to reward top performers, special recognition at your next company meeting, or a trip to a vacation resort.
Evaluating the results
Bravo. Your incentive program is completed and now is the time to evaluate the results and to justify the success of your program. Start by getting feedback from your property management team by surveying them and asking for their feedback. Ask them if the incentive program made a difference in their performance and ask for any suggestions they have to improve future programs. Then, evaluate if the program helped your property management company achieve its goals while consider any improvements you would make for the next incentive program.
Tip from the coach: When evaluating the success of your incentive program, look for any side benefits you didn’t expect, such as a new spirit of enthusiasm, reduced turnover or increased teamwork.
Author: Ernest F. Oriente, the coach
