Successful property management is like juggling three balls at once – time, cost and quality. Turbulent building stages in property management quickly affect the costs and quality of projects. Since the recent regulations designed to combat COVID-19, thousands of people have required to stay at home and can’t travel. As a result many businesses have had to switch to partial operation or have had their facilities shut down. The work processes of many companies are now being tested on their resilience to crises. However, mobile property management processes work even in uncertain times and this article explains why.
The effects of COVID-19 are far-reaching, making them increasingly noticeable in the real estate industry.
Far fewer services are being commissioned. The best example of this is the falling demand for cleaning, catering and repair services. In order to save on services and expenses, companies have to get creative in order to react quickly to lost sales. There are calls to reopen businesses before mid-May to make up for lost revenue but it’s not yet clear whether the UK government will give in to these requests. It also looks like construction sites across the UK are being allowed to open on evenings and weekends to make up for previous weeks of closure. These extended opening hours might also apply to other businesses when regulations are eventually loosened so even if a facility is empty now, it might be twice as full as normal once it reopens.
For the purpose of ensuring space requirements for social distancing, building owners have been forced to postpone the opening of shops, restaurants and other businesses or at least put them on the back burner. In many places, companies are eagerly reviewing their contracts with project partners and to what extent they are allowed to partially or fully cancel services that are no longer needed.
However, just because public spaces and offices are emptier than usual because of social distancing rules, it would be wrong to assume that this comes with fewer facility management tasks, and that owners can automatically expect cost savings as a result. Even if partial operations lead to less wear and tear of equipment and cost savings in cleaning and catering services, that doesn’t mean that technical building equipment no longer needs to be maintained and that necessary repair or renovation work can just stop. In fact, this quieter time might be the ideal period to get to those tasks which might be difficult to do with people around.
Related reading: Discover how PlanRadar can cut costs and create efficiencies for property managers
Here’s how you do it
This is how you can get a perfect overview using PlanRadar. The dashboards let you easily identify problem areas and strategically work them through:
1. Property management app with up-to-date statistics for faster decision making
Despite the challenges of the moment, there’s no time like the present to get tasks done.
It’s even easier when you can get a project overview with PlanRadar that’s simple to understand. Whether you need to look at a specific project or you need a summary of all of your projects, you can get to the dashboard you need at the push of a button.
For instructions on how to access statistics and build your ideal dashboard, check out these posts:
READING TIP: All functions of PlanRadar at a glance
2. Avoid work overload – Concise overview for a fair distribution of tasks
The menu option “User metrics” allows you to go even further into the details of your project. Check which team members might be overburdened with assignments and proactively distribute them among other project members. This is especially important when having to deal with fewer staff or smaller teams. Delegating with PlanRadar helps you to be efficient and proactive under pressure.
To do this, follow these simple steps:
Step 1: View user metrics
Switch to the “User Metrics” menu and click on the team member in question. Use the drop-down menu to select which metrics you want to be displayed. You can immediately see the current key figures (e.g. how many tasks they’ve completed in the selected period and how many are still open) and can subsequently control your resources in a targeted manner. As a result, you have the data to decide which team members have too much or too little to do and then pick which tasks need to be reassigned to another team member.
Step 2: Change assignee
To change the assignee for a ticket, switch to the ticket view and simply add filters until you have all the tickets you need (person responsible, contractor, type of service, etc.). You can change the assignee for multiple tickets at once.
Tip! With PlanRadar you can create your own custom filters. This saves you time and provides great overview
Step 3: The project members concerned will immediately receive an automated push notification.
The ticket screen lets you get a clear overview of the circumstances that hamper project progress and other possible project impediments. You can easily view a list of tasks which are open past their deadline, helping you to see if there are any team members or kinds of tasks which are consistently delayed. Having this information will allow you to develop a strategy to eliminate these problems in the future.
Staying in the loop
Owners, landlords and tenants alike are interested in continuing to maintain the safety and functionality of their buildings. In order to comply with health and safety regulations and to maintain the required building standards, you should always keep an eye on the following systems:
- Security technology
- Building control systems
- HVAC systems (ventilation hygiene, legionella control, etc.)
- Fire protection systems
If you have any further questions about how you can use PlanRadar to effectively manage your properties in the coming weeks and months and maintain maintenance plans efficiently, then simply contact us at [email protected] or call us on +43 720 517 135 for a free personal demonstration.
