Modern Office Systems to Automate Your Office

As the modern world continues to stride boldly forward into the evolving Information Age, automation has become commonplace in practically every aspect of daily life. Although some fear this change, worrying that computers and machines will completely replace humans in the near future, automation currently serves in a complementary role. The modern workplace actually thrives on new technology processes. This technology helps increase employee productivity and drives value by freeing them from mundane, time-consuming jobs. 

If you’re a property manager, you might be surprised to learn that there are day-to-day tasks that would be better handled by software, automated monitoring solutions, or other proptech solutions. From automating your apartment package delivery system to offering virtual showings, there’s a number of ways technology can help make your life easier and increase your productivity. Below, we’ll share some effective strategies to automate your work environment so that you can free up more time to handle the tasks that are worthy of your efforts. Keep reading to discover what those are.

Systems to Automate Today’s Modern Office

Multifamily management is no easy task. On any given day you have to wear dozens of different hats as you juggle the various duties the role requires. For example, you are likely responsible for – or at least involved in – the following:

• Marketing the property
• Screening residents
• Processing resident applications
• Collecting rent 
• Receiving packages and deliveries
• Overseeing maintenance
• Responding to residents 

But how does technology in the modern workplace facilitate these business processes? Forbes had this to say about modern office systems¹: 

“Technology offers ways to accomplish this without sacrificing a high quality of service…Technology is underused in property management but has the potential to drastically reduce expenses while improving the quality of service. Every tedious process should be streamlined or automated.”

The following are a few of the systems your company can use to automate your workplace:

Property Management Software

Leasing is a laborious activity that tends to consume a lot of your efforts and energy. This can involve anything from:

• Posting listings 
• Responding to queries
• Showing rooms
• Screening residents
• Processing applications

While there are a host of reasons to consider using property management software, the benefits include:

• Streamlined management of important documents – By going paperless, you not only help the environment by being green, you also have instant access to digital records—records that are less likely to be misplaced or damaged.
• Ability to expand the property portfolio – Most properties want to expand and add units but are unable to do so due to the constraints on resources and time. By using automation, you free up time and money that could then be better spent planning for future growth. 
• Increased efficiency – By automating your company’s workflow, you increase your output and efficiency. This improves communication, visibility, and accountability on every task. 
• No need to worry about rent collection – Rent collection and enforcement are two of the largest headaches for any property manager. When you offer residents a solution to meet their needs by allowing them to pay rent online, you make their lives simpler and dramatically reduce the chance that payments will be lost or cause disputes.

Smart Lockers 

One of the larger time drains for any property manager involves mail and package delivery. In a day where Amazon has altered how people shop, multifamily apartments have been dealing with an ever-growing dilemma of how to handle the steady stream of packages being delivered on a daily basis. And as the holidays approach, this problem is only exacerbated, causing packages to spill out of the cramped mailroom, which is not only inconvenient but also a liability.

For each package that gets delivered, a property manager is forced to interrupt what they’re doing and spend precious minutes accepting, storing, and delivering each package to residents. While mailroom management may seem like a small thing, if your unit receives several packages a day, that time adds up and those continued disturbances to your workflow can impact your rhythm or train of thought. In fact, in 2014 Camden Property Trust sought to estimate the time and money lost due to package disruptions.

According to Seeking Alpha²:

“The company‘s buildings received 1M packages in 2014, up 50% from the previous year. Camden figures each package results in roughly 10 minutes of lost productivity. Doing the math at $20 per hour for employee wages adds up to $3.3M per year.”

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem that an increasing number of property managers are turning to—smart package lockers, such as those made by Parcel Pending. Smart lockers – storage solutions with integrated technology built into it – allow properties to automate package delivery, notification, and distribution.

These smart storage lockers provide features such as:

• Safety – 24/7 cloud-based surveillance that ensures that packages are delivered safely and then kept in a secure package delivery box. 
• Mobile friendly – A mobile app that notifies each resident when an item has arrived and allows them to easily recover it at a convenient time. 
• Refrigerated – Modern lockers that keep medicines, groceries, and other temperature-sensitive items properly cooled. 
• Courier agnostic – Accepts deliveries from any courier service.
• Customizable – Parcel lockers come in an array of sizes, custom colors, and wraps that can be styled to fit into any building. 

Not only do these lockers simplify the mailroom process for you, but they also create a simplified experience for your residents.

Virtual Showings

Property managers spend quite a bit of their time away from their offices showing rooms to potential residents. While this is and will remain an important aspect of any property manager’s role, there are many times where the people who want to see the room are simply browsing as they consider several locations. Often, such cases tend to be more of an exploratory, fact-finding mission than an intentional walkthrough. According to TREO Realtors³:

“A Virtual Showing gives any interested buyer the ability to walk through your home using technology similar to Google Street View.  There are clickable arrows that will allow a person, from their computer, to walk through the entire home. A buyer can get a perspective from any angle allowing the viewer to see the room in its entirety, instead of our normal panoramic photos only seeing it from one angle.”

By allowing residents to take virtual tours of the property or the unit, you can ensure that the people who come by already have a good understanding of what the property is like and whether a unit there would be a good fit. You automatically eliminate a percentage of people who would come for an in-person tour and instantly know it wasn’t right for them. This saves both of you time and effort and ensures that the prospective residents that do come by have a decent understanding and desire for the space. 

Although virtual tours will never replace in-person showings, they do optimize the process. And, since the vast majority of people begin their apartment hunts online, the more transparency you can provide them, the more confidence they will have from the outset. By providing this added convenience, you demonstrate that you are open, embrace technology, and aren’t trying to hide anything from them.

Maintenance 

If you have a large property, you likely have a maintenance team or department that works around the clock to resolve issues and maintain the property. But often the initial maintenance problems are run through you. Phone calls, paperwork order, and status updates are all handled manually, which results in hours wasted on data entry. Naturally, the time you spend handling such onerous tasks could be better spent addressing the various needs of the property. However, you can create extra productivity by automating your office systems.

According to Door Grow⁴:

“Most property managers see maintenance calls as an inevitable hassle, the cost of doing business in residential real estate management. In fact, the average property firm spends anywhere from 10 to 25 hours handling maintenance-related tasks every single week—that adds up to a whopping 1,300 working hours each year. Even services that initiate maintenance or field the requests only start the process. What if there was a way to automate your incoming maintenance requests, eliminating the time you spend coordinating with vendors, checking in with tenants, and following up at the end of the day?”

A property management software can streamline the process, allowing you to accomplish the following:

• Generate work orders
• Submit work requests
• Manage parts, suppliers, and purchase orders
• Predict maintenance issues
• Monitor work progress
• Track technicians
• Reduce work backlog
• Schedule maintenance 

Automating all these services saves you time and effort. It also creates visibility and accountability on both sides. This simplifies the reporting process, allowing a tenant to issue a complaint and then track what’s being done about it in real-time.

The Modern Office

As workplaces evolve to meet employees’ changing needs, property management companies may want to consider modernizing the office space to move away from endless rows of cubicles, including low wall cubicles, to an open office design with a modern workstation for each employee. These design changes can promote easier collaboration between employees, improve productivity, and better serve each client or resident.

Property management companies can encourage collaboration and communication by installing modern office furniture solutions, including office desks (maybe even sit/stand desks), ergonomic office chairs, up-to-date technology, and modern office systems. The idea is to design the workspace with the appropriate office and storage solutions as well as to ensure that it’s mentally and physically comfortable for employees.

Additionally, modern offices incorporate digital whiteboards, wireless technologies, such as wireless projectors, and large touchscreen displays to make collaboration between employees easier. A cloud-hosted solution, such as a cloud-based group app, allows employees to work together on the same project on any device and from any location.

However, even with today’s modern office design, some jobs still require a more traditional office space. For example, your CEO and vice president each need a private office to conduct critical company business.

Modern Office Systems

Even luddites would have to admit that there are several benefits to implementing modern office systems via apartment automation. Simply put, property managers have too much to do and too little time to waste on mindless tasks, such as accepting an endless stream of packages. By automating your office systems, you can create efficient working environments and give yourself the ability to focus on the duties that require your personal touch, such as providing excellent customer service for your residents.

To discover how smart lockers can automate your leasing office operations, contact a Parcel Pending by Quadient representative today!

Sources:

1. Jones, Tim. Forbes. Technology Is Evolving Property Management And Leasing – And Investors Need To Keep Up. (2017, September 8). https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2017/09/08/technology-is-evolving-property-management-and-leasing-and-investors-need-to-keep-up/?sh=1ecad0fb45fd.
2. Alpher, Stephen. Seeking Alpha. Camden Property Trust takes action on “package-gate”. (2015, October 20). https://seekingalpha.com/news/2840436-camden-property-trust-takes-action-package-gate.
3. TREO Realtors. Virtual Showings: The Future of Real Estate. (n.d.). https://treorealtors.com/virtual-showings-the-future-of-real-estate/.
4. Hull, Jason. DoorGrow. Property Management Maintenance Automation with Property Meld – #DoorGrowShow. (2016, April 5). https://doorgrow.com/property-management-maintenance-automation-property-meld/.