Help with inexperienced manager

I am a former Board of Director, former President, VP and Secretary. Our new Board had a mission to get rid of the Building Manager of 41 years. In their effort to get rid of her, they gave her less than 2 weeks notice and then contacted 4 HOA agencies with a deadline of less than 2 weeks to find a new Manager. Of course only one responded with a manager and they received the job. Imagine our surprise when the new Manager (whose resume was not requested) work experience is he worked as an Assistant Manager at Jimmy Johns for 4 years 8 months and before that at a local grocery store. The lad has his resume on Linked In for all to see. So the Manager shows up for first day of work this past Monday, only to call in sick on Tuesday. Another young lady came in with work experience of Managing a materity shop. She leaves at 12:00 and a third person came for the remaining hours only to find she has never managed a HOA but works in the office for the agency. . We have three people from the agency in that position since January 31, 2022. . I was horrified that the first manager was given the master key to the building immediately and a handful of HOA checks to post to the co-owners account right off the bat before he called in sick. By the way, he only has 8 months working at the current agency. To say the Co-Owners are upset is an understatement. The recent budget the board approved does not allow for the increases we will pay this agency. This new manager was being paid around $23,000 based on info from the internet for an Assistant Manager at Jimmy Johns and now he and the agency will be making 3 times as much with no experience. What can we do other than hire legal counsel? Thank you.

What a mess. As you already know this process was flawed from the very beginning and therefore the Association has not received any competent service. You should be very concerned that this Board will be making further decisions that could be detrimental to the Association. Hope you find a solution.

The fourth new person came to today “fill in “ for our experience manager.

PaulaR3, are you on the Board?

If you are not on the Board, then I think all you can do is send a letter to the Board with suggestions. Perhaps:

Dear Directors,

It seems to me that the HOA is struggling to get a competent manager. May I suggest that the Board keep the manager's work to a minimum for the next several weeks; have someone oversee this manager on a daily basis; and focus on choosing a new management company as soon as possible, taking care to do so? I would be happy to help assemble and serve on a search committee that, with Board approval, finds three management companies and seeks initial bids (as a starting point) from all three, per criteria that the committee would assemble. The Board could then fine tune what it desires and interview the three companies.

Sincerely,

name
address
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email addie

The new Manager only has 8 months experience which I would guess that is showing up like the other three individuals have shown up counts as on the job experience. I worry that 1) an inexperienced individual (don’t know if they are bonded or not) has access to everyone’s unit with the master key and 2) access to thousands of dollars in checks from HOA’s. For a young person, that is alot of responsibility. I would have thought at a minimum that someone from the agency would have come and trained the individual if not trained previously.

None of the 3 fill in managers have done anything but stare at the computer, go to lunch and leave early. Not too much is getting done. A Co-owner asked questions of each of them and then they say wait until the first manager returns. The former Building Manger worked with the original new Manager on Monday for a couple of hours and left him to his own devices. So not much work is going undone and morale among the employees is poor at best. No accountability at all.

Are these managers coming from a professional property management company that provides support and training? Or are they coming from an employment agency? We contract with a property management company and are provided with an experienced community manager and an assistant community manager. Both are supported by the property management company and provded with training, benefits, etc. If we are not getting the management skills that we need, we call the owner/manager of the management company and request a change. It has only happened once in 15 years but as a customer our request was addressed and taken care of immediately. If you are just hiring an individual from an employment agency, who do you expect to train this person on the job requirements and the ins and outs of your property?

Yes these people who are filling in are from the agency. I do not know if they are experienced Managers or not. One is an office worker. Basically, they look at the computer screen while working their shift and tell co-owners another person will be in the following day. We will have our fifth fill in person today. No status on the manager's health condition or future with us. No accountability of anyone. No, they are not coming from an employment agency.

May I ask how many units are in your HOA? How experienced was your manager when they were sent by your Agency? Did you receive a resume on the proposed manager? Are all your employees paid by the agency? Our building is 60 years old and our 20 year old Maintenance manager knows the building quite well. A new maintenance guy will have much learning to do learning the "ins and outs of our building.

I would expect the agency to have trained this individual in all facets of property management before having him serve as our Building Manager. I do not think there is anyone on our board who could train this individual in the "ins and outs" of our particular HOA. I guess we have no choice but to give this a chance as the ink is barely dry on the agreement with the agency.

Thank you for your comment. Have a great day.