The BS is coming! Budget Season!! It's July and budget season is right around the corner, if not knocking on the door. When management teams get to the grind of outlining costs, expenses, projects and projections for the upcoming year, are you including your onsite teams?  Both in the planning and investing in them?  

Most industries include all of the key players when making goals, setting expectations, creating plans. But it seems that a lot of multifamily management teams eliminate the key players when planning, budgeting and forecasting for the upcoming year. Leasing teams are not included when determining leasing, occupancy goals and projections. It's typically done by upper management. Which is great, but why not include the folk responsible for making these goals happen? Why is this? They are key players of making these numbers happen, yet not included when going to the drawing board. They're not asked for their feedback or input at the initial time of planning, yet they are the instruments that make the occupancy song sing.  I think that it would be much more advantageous to get the team together and onboard when setting the upcoming goals and forecasts and preparing budgets. Make your team feel their input is valued and they are accountable for the projections and outcome. 

And please don't forget to include TEAM INVESTMENT as a line item in your budget.  Training, motivating, empowerment, field trips, whatever you want to call it, it's the oil that keeps the leasing and maintenance teams rolling. And with all of the employee turnover, quiet quitting and the pressure to maintain high level of occupancy, you can't afford to not to put a good chunk of time and money to invest into your team. Making budgets are good, achieving budget goals are better.