PM Collective - The ART of property management
The ART of property management with Ashleigh Goodchild is a leading platform supporting collaboration not competition through an online community and events throughout the year with one purpose: to create happier property managers. She creates connections for property managers looking to create momentum in their careers and personal life. Join Ashleigh and her guests as they discuss challenges, struggles, mental health, mindset and give advice to property managers and anyone in the industry. To get the support in your property management career, join our PM Collective Facebook and Instagram community.
PM Collective - The ART of property management
Mastering Large-Scale Property Management Teams with Alicia Leckey
What if you could crack the code of managing a large property management team and expertly navigate the challenges ? That's exactly what Alicia Leckey, the head of department at Longview, has accomplished with her innovative pod-based system. With 22 years of experience and a team of 35 dynamic property managers under her wing, Alicia, our esteemed guest on this episode, shares her journey and the intricate working of her team spread across Victoria and Queensland.
She unveils the levels of leadership within her team, from inspiring team leaders to the crucial roles of ICs (second in charges), and how they handle a portfolio of 160-190 properties. Listen in as we delve into the importance of regular team meetings, training sessions, monitoring KPIs, and safety protocols - all necessary cogs in the Longview machine. And yes, we'll discuss the elephant in the room - selecting quality tenants and how you train a large team to have trust in each other when it comes to suitable applications.. Alicia shares her insights on the necessity of understanding how to pick good renters and ensuring the safety of her team. Stay tuned, this episode is a goldmine of property management wisdom!
www.longview.com.au
Insta - alicia_lecky_property
Linkedin linkedin.com/in/Alicia-lecky-a83617123
PM COLLECTIVE - GUIDE AND SHAPE AN ENJOYABLE FUTURE
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Welcome to the PM Collective, a dynamic hub designed to empower business owners, property managers and BDMs to excel in their careers Through access to intimate conversations, cutting edge of video training, mental health support and unparalleled motivation. Our community is the ultimate destination for individuals seeking to elevate their professional lives to new heights. So sit back, relax and enjoy our next conversation on our weekly podcast, the Art of Property Management. So today I'm super excited to have Alicia Leckey join us for the podcast. She is the head of department at Longview. Welcome, alicia, thanks so much. Now, for those that don't know you, can you give us an intro as to who you are, your history and how you got to where you are now?
Speaker 2:For sure So, many, many years ago, and I won't give away my age. But I actually grew up next to a real estate agent with just my mum and I And somehow when I finished school I was like what am I going to do with my life? I decided dance teaching would be an exciting thing to do. But, as we all know, it's not a lot of money to be made out of dance teaching unless you're an absolute superstar. So I kind of fell into real estate And that was 22 years ago And I don't know whether I should say unfortunately, but unfortunately I'm still in real estate and I'm still in property management And it's been 22 years and I still love it The same way that I started 22 years ago now. So it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I've always worked in property management, predominantly in Melbourne. So I've worked in places like Carnegie, worked at some big companies as well as being, you know, one man band and working in a small agency where I've started a rent roll from scratch. So I've kind of done a lot of it in property management. Where I am now at Longview, i manage a team. I've got about 35 property managers here. We manage 4,500 properties across Victoria and Queensland in Brisbane and we're expanding, so it's a really exciting place to be. But obviously, being a large business comes with, you know, some challenges along the way too, and I understand that there's other people in the industry that go through the same challenges as we all do each and every day.
Speaker 1:Now, i know that we weren't going to talk about this because our topic today was, you know, managing a team when it comes to managing the quality of tenancy and applications and things like that. But I've actually just got some curious questions because so you've got 35 team members that you're managing, just out of curiosity. Is that a number that is manageable for one like one person headed department, or do you and I don't actually know the answer, but I do. I think it's a topic we should talk about more Is it like because I always thought that around 10 or 12, 10 or 12 team members per sort of manager looking after them Do you guys have a bit of a rule as to what that looks like? that department?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. So we were working a pod based system, which helps me a lot in what I do every day. So in each pod we have five pods down in Melbourne where we have our 35 pms Each pod has a team leader. That team leader still manages the portfolio of about 100 properties, but they're also responsible for the KPIs for their team. They run team meetings weekly, for example, and it's like a mini department for them. So within each team you have your team leader, your two IC and a team of four to five senior property managers So they manage.
Speaker 2:A standard portfolio for us is around 160 to 190 properties. We are across 153 suburbs across Melbourne, so those properties can be spread from here to there and everywhere, including suburbs that I have to Google the names of because they seem to be made up once every single day. But we have a lot of support here as well. So each pod or each team also has what we call a PMA, so property management advisor, and that is basically an assistant for the team. So they do 50% field work, 50% office work and they're really there to support their little pod in their day to day management of their properties.
Speaker 2:We also rely heavily on our VA team. So we've got a team which we call the gold team. They name themselves the gold team and we love them. We have a support team of about seven VA's in the Philippines. They are phenomenal. They are incredible, incredible ladies and we could not do what we do without them. We're really lucky that we fly them over once a year and we celebrate a week with them in Melbourne and show them all the sites and work in the office together as well.
Speaker 2:They do an incredible job for us with a lot of our repetitive admin tasks. Something else that we have at Longview, which we're very lucky to have, is we have a VCAP specialist. So I know other states have their QCAP specialist or whatever it may be, but we have a VCAP specialist in-house And I haven't heard of anyone else in Victoria that offers this for their team, and we introduced this about two years ago. Unfortunately, as you know, victoria suffered quite badly during those COVID times, which we all would love to forget now. Renters became more and more across the legislation in Victoria especially, we also had introduced new legal requirements in terms of minimum standards as well as compliance for a lot of our rental properties, and this in turn, meant a lot of VCAT hearings, whether it be renters taping landlords or landlords taping renters And so we introduced this.
Speaker 2:We found that a lot of PMs were either quite intimidated by VCAT or just didn't have the experience and the knowledge around it, and to provide our owners and our renters with the best possible service that we could and the most knowledge, we created this role, and I'll tell you what it's had the most amazing response, because as soon as clients here that we've got a VCAT specialist, they just go. Well, this is incredible. This is amazing. And our PMs don't have to be terrified walking into that VCAT hearing completely alone, because they do have that VCAT specialist there. So our PMs can either choose to do those hearings by themselves and prep the cases themselves, or they can choose to completely hand the case over to our VCAT specialist, who will then roll with it from go to why was I called it? We've got a lot of assistance with our team and I'm really sorry, because I just went off on a tangent there and gave you the whole spiel about it. So I'm sorry. No, that's really good.
Speaker 1:I actually have to just backtrack a little bit. And again, i think podcasts for me are sometimes like they're just also really good learning exercise as well, so I take a bounty, talk them. So just going back to that pod system, so you said I see, i'm sorry to be so naive, i'm assuming inspection consultant for our DNA. You said to IC.
Speaker 2:Yeah to IC as in second in charge for each pod. So say that again A second in charge for each pod. So it was a second in charge. I was sure if that's what it was, or if it was an inspection consultant. So to IC is really a stepping stone for people who have some interest in leadership.
Speaker 2:We do have that to IC role as that stepping stone there into that TL role. We do a lot of training with our two ICs. We do fortnightly training with them in terms of how to run the team meetings. They run their team meeting once a month. We train them on KPIs how to read the reports. They will step into that TL role if their TL is on leave for any reason And they'll also help with some training with their assistance within each team as well. So it kind of gives them a little bit of insight and thought into whether they would like to progress into that TL role down the track. And they still have a smaller portfolio. No, so our two ICs manage a full portfolio. Still It's just our TLs that have that smaller portfolio because they're dealing with a lot of the escalations.
Speaker 1:Got it OK. so, and how many properties did you say in that whole pod system?
Speaker 2:In each pod look at varies. Each pod usually has around about 800.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really interesting. I mean long view and I don't know the history of the business but it always had like long term plans to be a very large number.
Speaker 2:We're only six years young, so we're fairly new in business terms. We've done a few acquisitions along the way over the past few years but I'd say over the last 12 months we've really just consolidated And we've really made a focus on a client service and staff retention and all those exciting things. that why you're in the growth phase. It's really hard to focus on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i am going sort of back to my original thought with it all. So I have now got a team of 12, and it's only been recently that I've actually thought to myself do you know, this is actually a full time job managing the 12, just little things, and they're actually really my team, are really great teams, so they're really low maintenance, but it's just the whole coordination And you know when people are on holidays, ok, who's going to do this, who's going to do that, and then keeping them happy. You know, it's actually is quite. I feel like I'm quite busy, i feel like it's just about another whole position. So that's why I was just curious, with the 35 team staff members that you've got. So then I guess, ultimately you as a head of department, would you then be working with the team leaders mainly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the team leaders really are my direct reports. And then we have obviously skip meetings when I'm with the two ICs or when I'm with the PMs, for example, i do a lot of training with the TLs and we go through, you know, the KPIs. We have weekly meetings, but I also train the team as a whole. So we have fortnightly team meetings as an entire department where we will run through, you know, new procedures. We'll run through KPIs, we'll run through you know the monthly results. We'll do team prizes, etc. Etc. And also little challenges for the team as well throughout the month. But we also do fortnightly training on the. You know the weeks that we haven't had that team meeting. So each fortnight we set a training session for the team and sometimes it's compulsory and every team member has to attend, whether it be you know a new process that we roll out or you know, something to do with the software or the programming, whatever it may be, but sometimes it's optional as well.
Speaker 2:You know, we may be training on application processing or we may be training on what the market's doing at the moment and bits and pieces like that, and it's purely up to the team whether they feel that they could benefit from that training at that time or not. And more often than not we have a really good attendance rate at those training sessions, purely because I think people are wanting to engage with the rest of the team.
Speaker 1:We've got a really special culture here at Longview and we try and make it very inclusive And is it something that has always been done when it's come to those team meetings and the training, or is it something that develops more strategically as the team grew?
Speaker 2:Definitely something that's been done strategically as well, because we've just noticed that as the team gets bigger, there has to be more focus on process. Otherwise, people tend to do their own little things, which is fine And we encourage that as well. But in terms of reporting, we have to make sure that certain things are done a certain way so that we can track it. These are entered a certain way, which is why, when we bought on our VA team, a lot of those processes were incorporated with our VA's to make sure that we don't arise and cross our teams on the way.
Speaker 1:So I have just done a product review. So, for those that like watching my product reviews, they're like teasers of products available to look at And if it's something that you think you might be interested in, then you can book in a full demo. And I do them with lots of different types of products, and the one that I just did recently was with a company called Work Metrics. I don't know whether you've heard of that or whether you have got a system that like an online platform that you actually use to manage your training, or do you just sort of manually, like calendar invite OK, everyone trainings Tuesday at nine o'clock Like how does? how do you? is it manual, the way that you're sort of booking it all in, or is there an?
Speaker 2:online platform. So at the moment it is me being very manual with my outlook calendar and sending training invites out to the team, with a little bit of help from Excel as well. We use Mondaycom for a lot of, a lot of our tracking in terms of our processes and bits and pieces, and I'm sure even just now, when you've said that, i'm sure a lot of it, a lot of the training scheduling I could do Friday, monday, which I haven't explored And when I get a second I'll look into this for sure, because it's just sparked something in me. But we don't use, you know, a system as such to track our training at the moment. But definitely something that I probably need to look into, sorry.
Speaker 1:Yes. So I want you to look it up and my product review will be out next week anyway, i think So, and it's called work metrics And I think you are going to be amazed by it, because I am thinking now, like I said, at about 12 people now I feel like, ok, i need to put maybe a better system in place to plan for that growth And what it does is. I really like the idea. Like you know how you've got inductions when you've, you know, first starts. but this also is promoting regular induction, so you can have it set up for every three months, six months or 12 months so that every employee gets that reminder that they have to re-induct themselves, which is good, and it's just like a good refresher about you know office policies and bits and pieces. It also tracks all the driver's license or their registration certificates and sends the team out the reminders when it's due to expire and then red flags the head of department or the boss when you know when it's when it's expired and they've got a follow up.
Speaker 1:But one part of this program which I really love is the training side of things. So what it does is you can have it set up. It's like your own platform So you can have and I know you actually don't have sales reps, but you can have sales reps, body managers, va's, whatever it might be And then you can put your training videos in there and the team can actually have somewhat like a type of course that they do over 12 months with training. But also you can put your training videos in there. You can sort of allocate that and go, okay, this is the training this week for the VA team or this is the training this week You manage team, so it holds all your training videos so that people can access, or you can. You can allocate that and even things like maybe there's a bullying and harassment reminder and you might want to send it to I don't know Sally Jones or a certain person Hopefully there's no Sally Jones that works in your office But and you can just send it to them as a reminder. But it's also got incredible things like where you've got all your contracts and all the like, a bullying and harassment checklist sort of thing, where they can actually initial and actually have to view it and check off that they've read it and they've seen it.
Speaker 1:So it's really, really amazing and I reckon I'm going to love it. So, yeah, you'll see that product review for anyone. Just keep an eye out for that, because it will be something I probably. I guess I wish that I had considered it or seen the product when I was maybe at you know, even three or four employees, because then I could have had it all set up. So now it's sort of like a daunting process, but I might as well do it now and, you know, have it all planned for that growth. So, yeah, anyway, really I know it's a sidetracked, but I think you'll love it, so I definitely jump on.
Speaker 2:We have a lot of training videos that we use, but it'd be great to have them all in one spot.
Speaker 1:This sounds fantastic. Yeah, just an easy access hub So your team, they can log in to it, they can access it whenever they want and if they feel like there's something compulsory they've got to watch, then it does it all. You can see who's watched it, who hasn't, and they can get certified. So they can get certificates when they've completed it, which might be a nice thing in your business to have as well.
Speaker 1:We have podcast recordings for a reason, and I think this was the reason why we recorded today is so that you know about that. Now, i know we have gone off the topic a little bit, but it's really great to hear how offices are set up in different ways, because I think we just can go through life just assuming that the way we're doing it is the right way, and it's just good to hear the inside workings of some businesses as well and, naturally, as human beings. We don't get on the phone and say you know, i would call you up and say, hey, alicia, can you tell me about your department? Because I would feel like even though you don't mind, i would feel like I'm being nosy, but it's a safe place on the podcast to ask those questions, and I love it.
Speaker 2:I will add, though, that recently we've been looking at you know org structure and how we can do things better, because I am the first one to say things aren't perfect. No one's perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect business, but I'm not one of those people that goes well. I'm not going to ask anyone questions and I'm not going to ask for help, because I'm not one of those people. I am the first person to go great, who wants to come in and have a look at this and tell me if there's a better way to do things, because I'm all about working smart and not harder, And I always say that and promote that within the team as well. So I definitely would love to encourage everyone to reach out to those other leaders in similar-sized businesses to yours, because, you know, in the last couple of weeks I reached out to a couple I won't say the names, but a couple of businesses in New South Wales.
Speaker 2:I reached out to one in ACT and had a catch up with them, another office in Perth and also another one in close to us in Victoria who I'm good friends with and just had a one hour really open and honest discussion with them and said how do you run your business?
Speaker 2:What's working well, what's not working? You know what's your geographical spread like. What fees are you charging, how do you set your org structure? And it's been great from both sides of the conversation, because I think what we're doing is trying to take things from each other and work out something that we're not necessarily doing but the other person may be and it's working really well, or vice versa, and I don't think it's something that we should be scared of doing. And I know there's so many people that I've seen it before on those property management chats on Facebook where they ask for advice on there and you get certain people go yes, yes, yes, i'm happy to reach out and help you, but we shouldn't shun away from that because there's so much opportunity. We're not enemies in the business or anything like that. We should be definitely reaching out and helping our fellow comrades here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, 100%. I mean it can only make for a better business at the end of the day. Totally, totally. It's really, really important. So the topic that we were going to discuss, which we're going to actually know the answer to, was we were going to talk about, you know, the red flags, i guess, with applications and controlling that quality of tenants. So we'll use this question as an example. Now that we know how your offices run and how you can manage that quality, it's probably compliments the segue into it nicely is that you've got people doing viewings. they might be young, they might not have the maturity yet to see these red flags and all that. How do you go about making sure that your team are all making the right decisions based on their experience, which I think you're probably doing through the training, but then that's quite generic as well. So how do you control the quality of everything from tenant selection, red flags with owners, maintenance, sure, So we do things two ways.
Speaker 2:So our property managers and our PMAs for our assistance go out and do open for inspections and show people through privately.
Speaker 2:We also have a leasing team. So we've got a team of 20 casuals who do all the open for a lot of the open for inspections for us, especially on Saturdays and Sundays, because we offer open seven days a week for our clients. But that's a full set of not a lot of challenges in terms of casuals because it's not their primary role. But we're sending them out into the field and saying, can you go open this property? And they're putting themselves, as we all do. We put ourselves in quite vulnerable situations, opening doors to vacant properties or sometimes rented properties to these random people that come through. So we do a lot of training with our team. Firstly, when it comes to how to be safe in the field. Our team have recently just done a self-defence course, in office as well, around how to protect yourself in the field if something does happen. One of the best things to do if you are in a really awkward situation in the field. Who do you call? How do you get your phone out, how do you deal with the person in front of you, because I think that's the number one thing that you know we're sending not only young people out, but vulnerable people out to these settings. You know you hear these horror stories where things have gone badly and opened for inspection or a routine inspection and the poor property manager has been traumatized for it. We definitely don't want that with our team either. So we give our team a lot of support and guidance around this, whether it be our casual team or our full-time team. Both are just as important. So our casual team do a lot of training with us after hours. So we normally get them in and do a nice dinner and blah, blah, blah and do some training around open for inspections, how to be safe in the field, et cetera, but also what to look for.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned a really good point where they're. You know you you come to an open for inspection. How do you pick a good renter out of a bunch of people that turn up? and you know it can be difficult because, as we all know and I'm sure everybody listening to this has had before, you can get the most wonderful person on a piece of paper and then six months down, through their tendency, they turn into an absolute nightmare and you can't get them out and you're tearing your hair out and then you've got the owner turning around to you and going, why the hell did you put this person in? and you know you're saying to your leasing person where, maybe what on earth did you see in this person? and only then, when you start to go back through their application, do you start to see the holes in it. But at the time it looks amazing.
Speaker 2:So we've done a lot of our team, a lot of training with our team, both in small groups and in a larger team environment, on applications, especially how to look at an application and how to pull it apart, basically, and really look for the holes in it. So our team have been trained on how to look at fraudulent ID. That's a big one these days and you know I'm not saying we're perfect at all. We've had it in the past where we've had renters in properties not often, thank goodness, but we've had one in the last three years where they had actually fraudulent ID and it was one of those ones where you looked at it on face value and went, oh yeah, it's fine. But then a couple of years later, when something actually happened. You look at it and you go, wow, that's not okay. So we've done a lot of training with the team since that. What to look for and there's certain things on a driver's license, for example, is the font all in one line.
Speaker 2:You'll notice that font down the very bottom of the ID and a lot of them with their fraudulent they're actually on an angle doesn't have the holograph in it correctly, does the address? in the same font is the name, because on the fraudulent ones the font on it is actually slightly different. Isn't it the same size? compared them a lot of the time to your license. Is it the same format as your license? because I can guarantee you you just take it as face value and go, yeah, it's fine. But if you put a fraudulent one that's slightly fraudulent next to yours, it looks very different. And the same goes for passports, for example. If it is the ID number at the very bottom on an angle, is it straight? has someone rubbed it out and put a different one in there? because you can usually tell when you look at it properly if it's not ideal or if it is actually a fake. Same with the photo is there.
Speaker 2:But the main one is to look at the names. So if you're looking at the names and it says Bob Smith and I hope there's no Bob Smith here, but I always use the name Bob, but if is there a Bob Smith there, okay. So let's look at the ID. Does it match up? does the address match up? let's look at their pace lips. Are the pace lips correct? first of all, the details correct the name, address, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. But is it on proper letterhead or is it and we've all had them before the print out that you know you and I could have done from our home printer, where there's got no other details on it, and they go yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the right pace. Look and you're like no, it's not. I've done this at home.
Speaker 2:So we need to make sure that we're looking at all this information correctly. Do the addresses match up? is there a random address? and I've seen this a thousand times is there a random address on their license that doesn't actually appear on their application form? because a lot of the time I've noticed people go oh yeah, it's the same name, it's the same photo, yeah, okay. Well, how come the address on their license doesn't match up with any of their former addresses on their application form?
Speaker 2:we need to ask the question with this. If they've been, you know, a owner, occupier of a previous address, let's look it up on our pdata or price finder or whatever it may be, and check the ownership details. If it has a totally different name on it, okay, we need to ask for proof of this because it doesn't marry up here. So we need to ask for a rates notice or something with that name on it, or have they been just subletting from that person? So we need to do a lot of these checks across the board because, unfortunately, renters are getting desperate for properties.
Speaker 2:I don't know what it's like in other states at the moment, but I know, particularly in Queensland and Melbourne, renters are getting desperate because it is just a shortage of rental properties. So unfortunately, people are doing whatever they can to secure a property And if this means they will falsify some information or some pay slips to make their application look better, that's what they're having to do. But those owners are relying on us to define the holes in the applications and make sure that we put the best possible person in their property.
Speaker 2:And as I always say when I'm speaking to owners, it's in my best interest to put the best person in, because if I don't, i'm going to be the one that has to deal with the problems later on. And as soon as I say that to owners, they go oh yeah, that's actually right And I go well, i don't want to have to deal with the problems later on. So it's in my best interest to make sure we get all the holes out and pick the first person. So we do a lot of training with our team around it. Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1:I know that with picking up the address that's not mentioned on the application from the driver's license is definitely a big one that I see quite a lot, but I'll be honest, i don't know whether I've actually ever compared the driver's license like with mine, just to check that it does look hygienic with the format and things like that. I mean, fortunately I've been very lucky with tenant selections in my whole career, so it's very rare that I have issues with them. But I think that that is an amazing like training to have with your team is, with the fortunate idea and how to pick up on it And even, like we said with the passport, if the number's on a little angle and things like that. So they're really really good reminders for people like myself if we're not going to that extent that you know. Just that's really really important And I've actually just written myself a little note that I'll I think that I'll do a video inside my PM club on the Fortuner ID and making sure people are checking that just as a reminder.
Speaker 2:Yeah. something that we created for all our PM team, though, is, if you can, if you just go online and you Google you know fake big roads license, or you know fake drivers license, fake passport it will come up with the some examples of fake passports, and if you put those out and you put a you know a photo of a current or a valid driver's license or passport next to it, each one of our team have that printed off and laminated on their desk so that they can easily compare when they're going through that application.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really really good tip. That's so good, alicia. Thank you so much for your time Each. I'm glad we actually spoke about how the department was set up first, because that then does show how you can still monitor these red flags and processes and systems, even with a large team, which I originally thought how the hell would you do that? But you do it so well and and it's really good for people who also have bigger teams to see sort of that is. It's actually all about training. I mean, you do a lot of training and it's like it pays off for you as well. So you know, well done to Longview and the team for sort of having that structure in place.
Speaker 2:Is it just ensures you get buy-in from the team, so it is great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of that valuable knowledge, and if anyone wants to reach out to myself or Alicia, we've both are open books, so feel free to reach out And I appreciate your time. You enjoy the rest of your day, thank you.
