Revamping our bonus structures for leasing, maintenance and regional manager positions

My company is looking into revamping our bonus structures for leasing, maintenance and regional manager positions.
a. I’d love to know the current amounts you offer per position/lease/etc.
b. What is your criteria for each?
c. Do you wish you could change it in someway? If so, how?
Thanks all.

Leasing Commissions = half a percent x rent amount divided by lease term - rent concessions
All team members share renewals at $100 a renewal but only if your GraceHill training is at 80% or higher
I would rather leasing commissions be a flat rate $100 per lease and the renewals to be $25 per employee flat rate

leasing - $100 per person
renewals -$100 each on 6 mo or more divided among all office and maintenance
quarterly incentives- based expenses, income, noi, online repx score, occupancy, kingsley scores, completion of team training

My simple answer is less is better. Put everyone on the same measure criteria basis so everyone has exact same goal(s)
One simple measure NOI GROWTH.
Any operating metric should be a lever to influence NOI growth.
Better maintenance happier residents less turnover higher renewals.
Better resident satisfaction overall customer service...more of the same above
Better marketing tours close rates, Better occupancy and ability to raise rent roll.
I could go on.
If it doesn't help NOI directly indirectly, why use it as a performance criteria ?

Leasing agents $125 per lease. Manager NOI $1,550 per month. No renewal bonus.

Our NEW 2024 Program!
RMs: 20% of pay potential annual - broken out with quarterly payout potential based on core business initives we’re focused on.
Leasing: $150-250 based on individual tiered performance
AM: $500 monthly: based on delinquency and file accuracy
Renewals: $200 each, pooled all associates, including maintenance
Maintenance: $200 per week on call bonus, MM $500 qtr, Tech $250 qtr: after move-in work orders, turns, no Google star ratings less than 4 stars related to maint and curb appeal
PM: $1000 mthly: occupancy, NOI and compliance
Happy Research!
Class A. I'm hiring: Wesley Chapel FL, Fort Lauderdale, FL. PM Me!

Pay well and don’t do bonuses. That way your staff is helping people find the right home for them instead of thinking of the $ they get for pushing them into a unit. I love that I don’t make a bonus because I am not pressuring people to rent a unit I know isn’t right for them. Plus, regionals shouldn’t be making bank. Everyone should be paid well. My old boss used to get like $10k Xmas bonuses and all she gave us was $300.

That’s a big question with lots of big answers. This will be a good discussion. It’s only my opinion, but the entire comp structure in this industry needs to be completely revamped.

I think my former company had it right so I’m working with my current CEO to implement something similar.
Bonuses based on 8%-10% of total salary for site teams, 20%+ for Rpms.
Split into quarterly bonus payments.
KPI’s slightly different depending on relevancy to job duties.
Manager’s KPI’s include:
Income to budget
Controllable expenses to budget
Social media ratings compared to prior quarter.
Training completed (Grace Hill etc)
Scores for monthly asset walk and quarterly inspection.
List of competencies such as meeting reporting deadlines, effectively filling vacant positions, dealing with property and staffing concerns, DA’s completed on time, invoices processed on time etc.
Then the majority of the KPI’s scores role up as a region to the RPM.
Not like I enjoyed missing part of my bonus because a property didn’t meet a requirement but it really did teach me to pay attention to so many aspects of the expectations for site team performance. It also meant my team members kept their eyes on it all for their own bonus but the bonuses of their teams and my bonus.
Very effective.
Just my thoughts.

Well said!

THIS IS AMAZING ELLIE!!! LOVE IT!

Great topic, Emily! Here are my thoughts:

Our first priority should be taking great care of the residents we already have, so the first place I would look at revamping is renewal bonuses. With turnover costs soaring, it makes more sense to me to focus on keeping our residents instead of incentivizing new leases. Because of that, I would keep leasing commissions smaller than renewals.

First step, calculate your turnover costs from 2023. Not just the contractor costs, but the hourly costs of your employees, vacancy loss, supplies, and utility expenses. (This will take a bit of work.)

Next, divide that number by the number of move outs in 2023. That will give you an average turnover cost. I have seen reports of this amount varying from $3000 - $6000!

Divide that number in half and that is your bonus amount, which should be split equally among ALL employees, since taking care of residents is everyone's responsibility.

I know this might be a "hard sell" to the property owners, but do your math, and be prepared to demonstrate the actual NOI improvement by reducing the turnover.

Next, for property managers, maintenance supervisors, and regionals, they should have an additional salary percentage bonus based solely on NOI. One program I really liked was to take the annual percentage and divide it by 5 instead of 4 quarters. The last 20% is used at the end of the year as a "crawl back opportunity". For example, if something happens in the second quarter that is out of the control of the PM, say a major pipe break that hits operations instead of CAPEX, they have a chance to crawl back some of the lost bonus amount at the end of the year. It can also be used as a "great job" kicker if they make NOI all year long. Same amounts, just split into 5 instead of 4. Use the same program for the regionals.

This is a great conversation! Thank you for posing the question, Emily.

When I was on the direct PM side, employees were paid for leases and at a higher dollar value for renewals. The amounts varied per team position, but everyone had bonuses available for leases and renewals. The bonuses were confirmed for payout based upon completion of certain campaign duties and educationAl courses.

The education requirement was 85% of specific education goals—and Manager bonuses were dependent upon their meeting this mark AND everyone in their supervision as well—ensuring everyone on the team was given the time to complete their courses and that everyone was being similarly developed.

On the company campaign side (Submetering work, insurance work, some screening duties) all had to be verified for bonuses to be paid as well. Adding these campaign steps to the bonus structure ensured everyone stayed on top of new or on-going campaigns and worked the verification of successful completion of these tasks right into the bonus payment process to keep this overall effort streamlined.

Have a great New Year everyone!!