I'm interested in hearing about innovative and new ways of handling "on-call" for service teams.

I'm interested in hearing about innovative and new ways of handling "on-call" for service teams. Ways to make it better for those on-call or creative ways to make it irrelevant. Thanks!

i'm a firm believer that one of the reasons we are struggling in the multi-family industry for quality maint employees is the current environment for going on call - we need to do everything we can to make going on call less intrusive in someone's personal life - and when they do go on call , pay them MORE money just for being on call - in addition to being paid for actually responding to a call. Whether you call it a stipend or whatever - pay them a per diem for the days they are on call. Don't pay it as a bonus which is taxed at around 47% for most people.

Megan Goodmundson I feel that way about all bonuses

Megan Goodmundson I agree...I also think the things we consider an "emergency" needs to be reconsidered. AC not working, lock outs, ect are not true emergencies!

Alysha Lorraine agree!

I am a service manager and there is no way to lighten the load for on call personal. It is a tough week or 2 depending on the rotation but it’s a must. I do feel like a pay for being on call should be looked at. Your putting a persons life on hold like it’s a pair of handcuffs. I have been doing this for over 30 years and the pay is the only way to make it better for us.

James Clayton actually I was on call for years so I understand fully! I disagree because more $$ is not the only issue. As you stated, you are basically putting your life on hold. Is there really any amount of money that is worth that? Being paid well is important, BUT, more importantly is redefining what is considered an emergency! If you lock yourself out...call a locksmith. Be responsible for yourself. If your AC doesn't work, that's a bummer, we'll get out there on Monday and look at it...after hours should be for true emergencies...Fire, Flood or blood. That would take the stress and pressure off being on call.

James Clayton I agree. We do pay extra for on call and have made our emergencies fire, flood, or blood.

as the manager, I take all after hours calls. I speak to the resident and triage the situation for a real emergency versus inconvenience. sometimes, I am able to assist the resident (like changing a battery in an hvac thermostat or checking filter for air flow) - empowers the resident, gives my guys their personal lives back, and keeps me informed of any maintenance trends that may be developing. if there is a legit emergency, then I call the team member to go address it. in the last year, the most calls we have had is maybe three in a month. Houston, tx for a property built in 1983 - 200 units. have really good customer satisfaction scores and maintenance team not dreading being on-call.

I agree with others that we need to go back to true emergencies only. But also, my company has a two hour minimum for on calls. So even if they’re there for 15 mins, they get paid for 2 hours. While I think that’s a nice little bonus, I still think the guys tend to get called way more than they should.

Structure it in such a way that people compete to be on call. Once you’ve crossed that threshold then you know you’ve appropriately compensated for that burden. If you don’t have that then you are putting good people on borrowed time.

Miles Scruggs Great idea. Have you seen a program that does this?

Jim Collins yes a few different places. You do need to craft some safety measures in place so staff doesn’t collude to drive up rates. It’s a very rational system. They are in the position in the first place due to financial incentive. Why wouldn’t you structure on call in the same way?

I pay my service tech 150 for each weekend. He is on call that is whether he comes out for service or not.

Pay well for on call & make it worth their while! We pay overtime (as long as 40 reg hours are met 1st) from the time they get the call until the time they return home. Have the on call parameters set/stated/understood.

Make the inconvenience items wait until normal business hours. Take the on call phone.

I also think providing educational information/ materials about basic Maintenance issues would be helpful to tenants. As a Leasing Agent, I responded to an "emergency call" on a Saturday about a toilet. I was working that day, so I was already on property. The Maintenance guy couldn't get there for a little while, and insisted that the tenant was overreacting and it wasn't actually an emergency, and the tenant was blowing up my phone freaking out about the toilet issue, so I went to check it out. There was an issue with the chain in the tank. I apologized for the inconvenience, explained to the tenant what the issue was (he had no clue and had never seen the inside of a toilet tank), how to manually adjust it for right now, and advised that Maintenance would be out first thing Monday morning to fix it. The tenant was appreciative and was fine after that. I followed up with Maintenance right after that, and on Monday to ensure things were taken care of.

At the risk of being ridiculed...I believe a big part of the issue is that EVERYTHING has become an emergency. We wear the guys out infringing.on their personal time! Back "in the old days" an emergency was really; Fire, Flood or Blood.....period. I propose an internal agreement on what an emergency is, research a year worth of calls, redefine an emergency. Publish the new rules! 1st Goal...reduce calls by 50%. AND raise the on call pay!

Jim Collins YES!!!! THATS 100% ON TARGET!!!!!

Jim Collins been following that my entire life. Our guys vary rarely go out. Maybe 1-3 hours OT for a week if that. work/life Balance

47% tax on bonus? Something wrong there. If the bonus comes with your regular pay, you'll be taxed at your regular rate - no change! If it is a seperate check, 22% flat rate. Talk to your payroll department. I could be wrong if there is some weird rule out there, but not by much!

Min 1 hr paid even if it takes them 30 min to complete is our policy

Great topic. Following.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! Follow up question: If you're using a call service (and like them) who is it?

Call center services save maintenance teams! Have a call center pick up your emergency calls and pre-diagnose whether it's actually an emergency and only escalate to the on-call when it is. This saves your teams from being woken up by non-emergency calls and nonsense. Emergency means fire, flood or blood. Some Call center services can even schedule maintenance tickets on behalf of residents for the next day so the resident will be taken care of quickly but won't disrupt your on-call 24/7

Brooke Nuber-Soldate do you have a call center you would recommend?

Angie Figg Entrata has this service and it works well for us

Adrian Ciprian Danila is a treasure trove of info here! Follow him on LinkedIn especially!

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Christi, after reading your post, it's clear that you are an outstanding manager and leader, going above and beyond. Kudos to you - your team and company are lucky to have you as a leader!

James is hitting it directly on the head !
Thanks James.
I too pulled the on call duty for many, many years and although I did not cry about it ever myself and my self and family HATED it.
Money is nice and some people are more driven by this but after many years of putting your life on hold the money doesn't cut it.
Cutting down on what we have to respond to as an emergency is key if we could just get upper management to agree.
There are vendors our there now that will handle this service for you like Abodea where they use contractors to handle emergencies but the cost is not cheap.
If something is not done about this situation soon we will not have a pool of maintenance techs to employ as it is easier than ever for these guys to jump ship into a different type of business because all of those businesses are desperate for employees as well. We have lost maintenance techs to businesses like HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Commercial Mechanical.
Im not sure what the BEST answer is however, one needs to be found soon.

@54558:contact:Becca Ramati This is such an interesting and timely question. I have to share what Happy Force, a service by HappyCo is doing to help in this area of the industry! We have experience maintenance techs, remotely available 24/7/365 for residents to be able to talk to! Its been a game changer! We answer the residents request within 10 minutes, and if they want us to assist with fixing the service request via text, facetime we will help. We are able to optimizes the onsite team, increase resident retention through maintenance service. 80% of residents want to try and fix something themselves, they don't have time to put their animal up, stop their work call, fear of COVID still and much more. We are really changing the game when it comes to a resident experience, We are available at night and are giving back the onsite team their sleep and personal life as well. Love to chat more if interested, for anyone

On-call is a necessary evil in the industry, unfortunately. I have always had on-call jobs and my generation (baby boomers) are used to it. The younger ones are (understandably) more about work-life balance. So am I at this age.

Some things I have done at our property to minimize after-hours calls are:
Educate residents on preventing lockouts. It's easy with our door hardware and the number one call we get. We have also just begun charging for them which is a deterrent.
Update smoke alarms to 10 year battery type and maintain.
Identify recurring issues and find permanent solutions, i.e. large scale replacement of problem components.

My community director and I are also pushing for an additional weekly bonus ($50 at least, $100 preferably) to the on-call tech for having to be available 24/7.

Same! I also paid 1 hour minimum, and then matched the hours worked for an emergency call with PTO to be used at their discretion.

Great thoughts here... Here's some more:
• Begin with move-in. Include a personal introduction to your maintenance team so the resident sees them as human instead of a robot or an underling.
• Schedule a time for a maintenance team member to teach/show the resident common misused or misunderstood equipment in the apartment. (example: blinds with no chords) This can occur after move-in day.
• Review a “this is a true emergency” list with the resident and provide examples of what is/isn’t considered urgent.
• Have a printed policy that all work orders received before a time (2:00 pm?) will be responded to the same day. The office will call the resident before the office closes and ensure the resident knows that the request is on the “to-do” list for ASAP. (Phone call instead of text or email is critical to de-escalate non-emergency requests)
• Institute a preventive and predictive maintenance plan that isn’t self-defeating due to bonus structures. (Example: not replacing a water heater in vacant apartments because it’s not leaking even though it’s over 15 years old. When asked why we don’t do that, the manager said, “If it breaks, the damages and the replacement will be covered by capital funds that don’t come from our bonuses.” True story from more than one community)
• Twice a year, inspect every apartment in the same way make-ready maintenance is done. Initiate repairs instead of awaiting residents to report them.
• Have a “swing shift” make-ready technician. This way, make-ready maintenance is performed overnight, and someone is at the community to respond to emergencies. Rotate this position if the team is willing/available.
• Provide a flat rate stipend for being on call.
• If the tech responds after hours, honor that time. Example: Pay the 1.5 times hourly rate for after-hours response EVEN IF a total of 40 hours of normal time isn’t worked that week (vacation, holiday, sick). If the property has a "no OT" policy, then for every 1 hour worked, they go home 1.5 hours early instead of a straight swap which doesn’t honor the time (4 hours on-call means they go home 6 hours early).
• Create documentation standards for "Why the tech Responded" type information. Periodically review this data and problem-solve to reduce call-outs.

Awesome thread, Becca!

I would love to chat with you Jennifer about how you may be able to help us.

The best thing to do is take better care of the community M-F and truly fix somethin that is broken, don't do temporary repairs. Then respond only true emergencies that can cause harm or damage to the property/person. We have approx. 5-8 calls a year needing to be responded to and we get about an additional 15 calls a year that can wait until the next business day. Our last emergency call was a bused pipe on Christmas, it was -10, haven't had a call this year yet.

We are looking to make on call changes though. Thinking to offer a bonus for volunteering to be on call weekly to see if someone wants to step up and take them all.