#workorder

Managing communities comes with the great responsibility of organizing work orders that come your way.  Your ability to keep detailed records and communicate with your community members in a timely manner makes a big difference in maintaining a happy, clean, and safe environment.  In our last blog post, we highlighted five best practices to streamline your work order lifecycle process and pipeline.  Investment requires a great deal of research, resources, and time.  In this blog post, you\’ll learn about the benefits that an HOA work order software provides to your team.  

1. One platform to organize all work order information

   When doing an internet search for a work order management software to invest in, create a list of all the features you already know that you want.  Cross-check those features with your existing processes, what you already do very well at, and what aspects of your process needs improvement.  Ensure that the functionality of these features will allow you achieve your set objectives.  You can avoid purchasing multiple applications or switching between multiple browsers at once.  Don’t settle for less than being able to keep all your information secured in one place. 

2. Detailed tracking

   A work order software enables your management to create and keep detailed records of your service requests, whether it was submitted just yesterday or a few years ago.  A well-designed software allows for easy access, extensive search capabilities, and for different types of files to be attached to a ticket.  For easy viewing and tracking, all information should be detailed in one screen.  

3. Assign and schedule with ease
   

   Once you have created a ticket for the service requested, you will want to ensure that a resolution is found and implemented.  An all-inclusive work order system will support assignment and scheduling of a ticket to a vendor or contractor.  The vendor should also be notified of when he or she is scheduled to come in.  Eliminate confusion on accountability and enhance reliability. 

4. Simplified monitoring with report generation

   How long does it take on average for each resident-reported issue to be resolved?  Are we spending more time on a specific phase of the work order management lifecycle than we should be?  Reporting is no longer a luxury, but a necessity when it comes to monitoring the efficiency of service request fulfillment.  A multi-functional software will also enable you to print out reports to hand to vendors.

Investing in a work order management system or software helps you maintain an organized maintenance pipeline, polish follow-up communications with vendors and residents, and monitor the performance of your workflow.  Improving the management of your premises is one essential factor that leads to improved residents\’ perception of your brand.  The higher quality your WOM (Work Order Management), the more WOM (Word of Mouth) referrals your brand will be positioned to receive.

The indoor and outdoor environments of residential communities must be maintained on a regular basis to provide a comfortable living experience for your residents, maintain a safe and clean environment on your premises for everyone, be in compliance with regulations, and enhance brand integrity of your community management.  To deliver on those goals, it is essential to keep track of all issues so that nothing falls through, no matter how big or small the issue is.

Any issue tracked goes through a work order lifecycle process:

Thus, community managers have the challenging task of making lifecycle process more efficient. Here, we emphasize on five best practices you  as a manager can implement to make the work order process smoother and completely in line with company objectives.

1. Educate your team and residents on how to identify problems

   Make sure that your personnel understands how to identify problems, classify problems by level of urgency, and take the appropriate action.  Schedule a training program as part of new staff on-boarding.  Additionally, hold regular training sessions for your team, preferably before each season starts.  Likewise, residents also need to be informed on how to identify problems before they escalate.  To help your residents spot problems that cannot be identified easily, you may opt to write short articles and upload them to a knowledge base your residents can easily access.

2. Maintain an organized system for the entire work order lifecycle

   When service requests come in abundance from your residents, it is important to create and maintain an organized system for filing in those requests and seeing them through fulfillment.  Ensure that the system you use for filing work orders permits you to input the most essential details and allows you to move with ease from one phase to another.  Also, ensure that your work order management software provides reports for both stale work orders that fell through the cracks as well as new ones. 

3. Assign a company personnel, vendor, or contractor to resolve the issue
   

   When creating a work order ticket, assign a company personnel to track the ticket from identification to resolution.  Then, based on the type of service requested or problem identified, select your preferred vendor and schedule them to come in.   

4. Keep your residents in the loop

   Communicate with your residents on the status of the service request throughout the process.  Implement a process for keeping them informed either through a web portal, email, text, or phone call. 

5. Monitor efficiency of work order process/resolution and revise workflow strategy

   Create a goal to monitor the efficiency of your work order lifecycle process from problem identification to problem resolution every six months or once a year.  Use the data and feedback you receive from your monitoring efforts to revise the strategy and update your workflow for better results.  Take a look at the guideline below for how you can gain feedback to further analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of your work order lifecycle.