Tips for Longevity, Sanity, Happiness and Some Success as a Community Manager

How do we last; stay sane; are we really happy and how is success measured in community management? Aren’t they the $64,000 dollar questions?

Are we measured by the amount of clients you manage, your Board of Directors, your company or co-workers? In an industry full of Boards who are ever changing and moving the bull’s eyes, how do you know when you have success?

Is client retention success? It would appear that the longer you have a client, the better you must be, right? Well not always, so the first tip is not to become complacent. You must always approach your clients with fresh eyes, being pro-active and looking for improvements or that next project coming around the bend. Try not to be lulled into thinking you know everything about your communities because you have been managing them for years and years.

Anticipate questions. What questions, additional information, contractor or background can you bring to a Board meeting in anticipation of what is on the agenda? Take that extra step. How satisfying will it be when you hear, I guess you didn’t think to bring, and you open your folder and hand over the additional information?

Know your Boards. Yes, easier said than done. Does your Board like to streamline or long drawn out reports; once a week communication or once a day; email or phone? All of these seem simple, but mistakes are made when we don’t recognize the wants and needs of our Boards. Or when we don’t listen to their direction and think we know what is best for them, even if they don’t. Yes, we must always give the proper advice or recommendations, quote laws or acts or be the conduit, but if your Board still wants to take the slow boat, after you have tried and tried to show them the speed boat, then it is our job to gas up the slow boat. Each Board is a mold and our job is to figure out that mold and then work as best as we can within it.

Don’t just do your job, do your job well and do a little bit more than your job requires you to do each day. If you only do what is necessary to get by that is how your career and job will go also. The perception of you as an employee will be someone who does not have initiative or is not willing to take the additional steps to get the job done. Your work product will suffer and be average at best. Provide the extra report, make the additional phone call, write the letter, and meet your residents. Continuing to enhance all of your skills and job knowledge will make you a well rounded, pro-active manager.

Communicate, communicate and then communicate. Tell your Boards and committees what you are doing. Put it in the newsletter or on the bulletin boards. We do not give ourselves enough credit for the amount of work we do each day. How many calls, letters, emails and problems do you address and fix in a day? Rhetorical, I know but your Boards should know that you are fixing billing problems, account issues, working with contractors, inspecting your communities, responding to residents and completing items from the Board meeting while attending to their requests and so on.

Create a professional buffer zone between you and your boards. This is so very important. These are Board members and not family members. If they were family, you could actually tell them you don’t want to hear about their last operation or marital issue. Keep you interaction friendly but at a professional distance. Remember Board members are your bosses. Can a personal relationship with a Board member ever work? Sure there have been a limited number of success stories but they are few and far in between. In this instance, a professional relationship will be more rewarding than the personal one.

Rely on co-workers for support and laughs. Who knows better every day what you are going through than your co-workers? They are in the trenches, I mean work place right next to you. Use them as stress relief. Hang up the phone, go into their office and let loose, they will understand and commiserate. This will be some of the best advice and medicine you will ever receive. It will also help establish and then build the work relationships you will come to rely on.

Take mental health days, you deserve them! Remember we are in a service industry. And serving the public will be the most rewarding, exciting, disappointing and never ending job you will ever have. Know yourself and know when to say you need a day to decompress. Stress builds up and will expose itself in many ways. Are you having trouble concentrating and completing assignments? Are you snapping at people and not just at work? Has your sense of humor gone away? Are people avoiding contact with you? Listen to these signs and take that Friday or Monday off. A three day weekend every now and then is just the thing you will need to become yourself again.

Lastly is… your sense of humor! This is the most important characteristic that a community manager must have. Keep it, cultivate it, expand it and protect it! Some will try to take it away. Do not let them! Your continued ability to put your sense of humor into place when needed will be your most important tool. You must be able to laugh at the crazy, off the wall, eye opening things that will happen to you almost every day.

At the end of the day, happiness and success are measured within each one of us by our own barometer knowing that we are educated, professional, pro-active people providing our clients and companies with a job well done.

Paula Santangelo, CMCA®, AMS®, PCAM®
Vice President of Operations
Mid-Atlantic Management
Plymouth Meeting, PA