Last modified on January 9th, 2023
By Megan Eales Monroe

What can you do to set your property management business up for success in 2023? 

We sat down with two senior leaders at AppFolio Property Manager to hear their thoughts on how operating businesses can streamline operations and ensure a successful new year. 

Keep reading for insights from Lisa Horner, Senior Vice President of Marketing, and Daniel Waas, VP of Product Marketing, or listen to the full episode of The Top Floor now.

Articulating the value your company brings

Leaders in every industry, especially property management, must be able to articulate clearly the value their company brings, including value to customers, residents, and team members.

Lisa explored this idea in more detail. On the resident side of things, she said:

“In order to attract residents, [operators] need to have something that seems uniquely great for the resident, something they’re investing in and building for their residents.”

However, while most leaders can speak at length about the value they bring to customers, fewer are as focused on the sense of purpose that working for their companies brings to their employees’ lives. With The Great Resignation causing staffing issues across many industries, investing in employee satisfaction and retention is as important as ever. Team members who do not feel that their work is rewarding or provides any larger sense of meaning to their lives are more likely to look elsewhere for new roles. 

To attract and retain talent, Lisa advises leadership to articulate the company’s vision and values in a way that helps teams understand how their work contributes to this purpose: 

“I think that’s the message that lots of employers have received is that people want to work for a company that they believe in.”

According to Lisa, employees want to feel “part of something that is really valuable to people, and that’s changing people’s lives.”

The importance of company culture

Another way to improve employee satisfaction and retention is to focus on building a great company culture, which is steered by the mission, vision, and values of an organization. And while it’s important to make these things the cornerstone of your company culture, don’t forget your team’s individual values and personalities. Company culture is influenced by the organization and the employees who make everything happen.

Lisa likes to define company culture as:

“A group with a good way of life. It’s expressed in the habits, the rituals, and the activities so that we can all flourish together, each of us individually, including our customers.”

Improving company culture also has ripple effects across the business. Happier, less stressed, and more supported team members are better able to serve customers,  which in turn can impact your organization’s overall success for the better.  

In other words, good company culture isn’t just nice to have. It’s integral to property management success. 

Empower your team to do their best work

Organizations — no matter the industry — are empowering their teams to perform at their highest levels by strategically investing in technology

Technology can make our jobs easier. Automation helps to remove tedious processes, like data entry, for example, from our day-to-day roles. As a result, people have more time to focus on higher-value tasks.

It can be difficult to feel a deep sense of meaning and purpose in a job if it consists of repetitive, time-consuming tasks that technology could do faster and more accurately. By implementing technology in areas where tech works best and leaving human workers to do more of what they do best, you can help employees feel more valued in their roles. 

As Daniel Waas explained: 

“The people on the front lines are really what matter to the profitability. So why is that? The more we can remove barriers for our team to be able to focus on the work that is meaningful to them and that drives value to the residents, the better.”

How to use tech effectively

With so many tools, management systems, and automation processes at our fingertips, it’s important to be selective about which technology to use.

Choosing the wrong tech could end up causing more friction and frustration in day-to-day operations.

Organizations need to find tech that can integrate seamlessly into their current systems and make things easier, not harder. As Daniel explains: 

“You’re buying the technology because you want it to help. And depending on how smoothly it integrates, it can help or hinder. So, I think that’s one thing that we’ve been trying to figure out for integrations and how we’ve stacked our integration marketplace is to make sure that the integrations that we do offer are really deeply integrated.”

Applying technology in a way that truly makes sense for your organization can significantly improve your team’s experience, reduce stress and busy work, and show them they’re valued. It also helps free up their time to work on higher-value tasks, including more personalized customer service for residents and owners.

For more ideas and insights on how you can set your property management company up for success, tune in to the full podcast. Be sure to check out our previous episodes for more insights on property management, staffing, company culture, and more. In the meantime, stay tuned for future episodes of The Top Floor podcast.