How to Speak Maintenance - Say it So it Gets Done

It's not a matter of skill, it's a matter of communication! Michael Garcia of Greystar joins How to Speak Maintenance with Jason Fein and Becca Ramati to share insights on communication, leadership, and why sometimes you just have to “say it so it gets done.” 🔧

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Hello. Welcome to How to Speak Maintenance. If you're new to our podcast, we are sponsored by the Texas Apartment Association Education Foundation. We bring guests on our show to talk through the maintenance side of property management and how we can help support our maintenance teams. My name is Jason Fine, and I'm the SVP of maintenance at Windsor Communities. And I'm here with Becca Ramotti, who's the VP of the Texas Apartment Association Education Foundation. Hey Becca. Hey Jason. Before we start today, would you like to talk about anything going on with the TAAEF? Oh, we're just very excited for our conversation today. If you haven't seen it yet, TAAEF just recently released a research study about the Texas workforce and the things that apartment owners and managers need to know about bringing new talent into the industry. Really impactful, interesting stuff. Um and check it out. Well, our special guest today is Michael Garcia from Graystar. Welcome, Michael. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Michael's the regional maintenance manager at Graystar, and I know that you're gonna have a breadth of knowledge and experience that you could be able to share with our listeners. So would you mind uh talking about yourself a little bit and letting us know how long you've been in the industry? Yeah, no problem. Uh been in the industry for 21 years. This will be my 21st year this year. Started as a porter. Uh worked for three companies. Um, one of them was uh Ventera Realty, started with them as a porter, and then worked my way up to service supervisor, was service supervisor for a very long time, jumped to a company called VXMith Management, very, very small company, two properties. About the whole company was about nine people, and then um came to Gracear nine years ago and been with Gracear for nine years, started as a service supervisor and been in this role in regional maintenance for three years now. There you go. Very, very long journey, but uh well worth it for sure. Definitely. I I love the experience you have starting out as a porter and working your way up to service manager. That's that's a very awesome, honorable path. So yeah. Yeah. Well, as we get into our topic, uh the first thing I wanted to kind of bring up is that you know, we always hear about we have to hire the right people, we have to make sure our employees know what they're doing. And sometimes skill, it's not just necessarily a skill issue, it's a communication issue that we might be running into. I I wanted to jump into it and say, you know, ask you how often do you hear somebody say that tech just doesn't know what they're doing? Like how often you have you heard that from a manager. I've heard that a lot. I've actually heard that about myself a couple of times, which is funny because um maybe sometimes that they're right, it depends what I was working on, right? But um, for the most part, if if we just try our best, um the service, the service team members sometimes, you know, they're learning as well as they're going, and that might be right, you might be right when you're saying that, but that doesn't mean that they are hindered in their skill. Can they learn that skill? Um, so just because they might not know at that time that that word those words have been said, and sometimes you could be wrong, you know, they can just have a different, like we're talking about earlier with the communication. Um, but for the most part, I think that um when we're out there working on everything that we're have to do, where it's plumbing, painting, there's so many things that our guys do on a daily basis that it's hard to know everything. It's just not it's just not feasible for them to know it all. So as they're going through the property and learning the things that they're seeing every day, um, just give them some some leeway with that, knowing that that that's exactly what we're experiencing out there. Yeah. I think we we kind of touched on it a little bit before we jumped on the call about unrealistic expectations of how long a service request might take. I mean, you've seen that before in your past, right? Yeah, yeah. Uh like we were talking about earlier with the leaks, the leaks is a that's a perfect example because um water travels. And just because a person says that this leaking at the sink doesn't mean that it's leaking at the sink. Sometimes it can be from a unit across the way. I mean, we just don't know how that water is gonna travel. So when it comes to troubleshooting, especially when it comes to leaks, um, it can be tricky. And so just because a person is saying that it's at one spot doesn't mean it the source of that leak is from that exact spot. It could be something that we might need to look in look into and open up walls, and that stuff takes time. So um just explaining to the residents, you know, that this is what's going on, and as long as there's some communication there, our residents are pretty usually pretty understandable as long as we're giving them the feedback and the information that they that they need. Sure. I think there's a big difference between AC, like a ticket saying AC doesn't work or fan motor doesn't turn on, right? Yeah, because troubleshooting takes time, right? Yeah, especially when when uh on call situations happen. I have so many guys who say that they don't go to on calls at night, and I'm like, why though? You know, because it could be the inside unit, it could it could definitely be fixed uh depending on what the issue is. It could be you start when you say when you say that the fan motor's not working on my fan, it's not coming on, I'm gonna start on the inside unit. If you say that my compressor was making a loud noise, then I know I'm probably gonna start on the outside unit. So more information, the better for sure. When it comes to any types of calls, whether it's AC, plumbing, um, the more information our guys have when they're responding to these issues, um, the better. Well, Michael, how can the how can the office team and or and residents, how can we set them up to give more information to ask the right questions? I mean, on on either side, no one's a mind reader. You know, the tech isn't a mind reader, and neither are the the other people gathering or giving the information. Are there any tips or things that you found to be helpful to sort of coax more out of them? I think having the conversation, especially when it comes to maintenance teams, having the conversation of what you would like to see on the work orders and relaying that to the property management, property manager, and then leasing agents, everybody in the office staff, uh communicating what you would like to see to make this those processes faster for yourself. And then if you can't get any leeway with that for whatever reason, maybe it's a busy office and we were all busy, every single position is no single position that's not doing anything right. We're all busy. So depending on the site, whether they are able to slow down and take that information down. Um, maybe we'll have to do it ourselves. We'll have to look at the work order and before we go out to the actual work order, give that resident a call and seeing, hey, it says that your light bulb's out. Well, where's the light bulb located? Is it the one in the vanity? Is it the one um wherever it might be? So that way you can tell, okay, I got this. I need to take this light bulb with me because it's on this spot. Um, just so having that information is key when it comes to speeding the process up for these turnarounds for the workboards. Yeah. Well, and I know that there's new technology out there too. The you know, I know HappyCo, Lease AI, some of these other companies that have these bolt-on technology software packages that will use AI to listen to a resident and ask questions. So I know we're getting there. But until all of us get to that point, we gotta make sure we ask the right questions. I'm smiling because we're going through a whole transition phase from uh Happy Code from another company to Happy Code, and I feel like um Happy Codes are very, very AI, it's gonna be, it's not right now, but it's already showing signs of like what you just said, the AI supported. Even with my inspections right now, depending on what I put down on my notes, it will change it for me to like simplify, simplify it. And I'm like, oh yeah, it's kind of cool. I like that. Because I'll try to sound all smart and it kind of like it like simplifies it for me. I'm like, all right. Oh so that we definitely blame skill when the real issue is clarity. So where it breaks down though, let's kind of talk through the three biggest breakdowns that we see on site. You know, the first one being the work orders that don't have all the detail. Kind of hit on that a little bit at the beginning. I mean, can you give other examples where there's not enough detail in the service request? And so it adds more time onto the the troubleshooting portion. Yeah, I mean, whenever it comes to any type of work order we're having, whether it's the water heater, um, electrical issue, um, sometimes the information that we get is kind of vague, where it's like the power doesn't work. Well, the where is it the master bedroom or the primary bedroom, or you know, is it the kitchen? You know, where is this located at? Um, is it the GFI? I mean, there's all these questions that could be, if it was stated onto the workboard, it could make the process a lot faster when it comes to troubleshooting that issue. And that goes across the board, whether it's HVAC, um light bulbs, anything you can think of plumbing. Um the water doesn't work. Is it the hot water? Is it the cold water? Um a lot of things that that could be said that could be on these work orders that um sometimes we don't have the information until we go out there and actually figure, put our eyes on it and see what's going on. That if we had the information on the front end, it'd be a lot faster for us to troubleshoot. I like how you brought up the receptacles in a bedroom. There might be four receptacles. So if you just say receptacle and bedroom doesn't work, then I have to plug in every single one and I have to try to figure out what's going on. And so it definitely adds time onto the amount of things. Another thing too, when you're saying that, I was thinking about um when when we have some properties that have like a switch that have you know connected to one of those receptacles, if our leasing agents are able to put that on the front end when the residents are moving in, sometimes that would be that won't be a work order later. You know what I mean? If we if they say, hey, look, this one, this switch right here connects to this outlet and it controls the top outlet, um, then they'll know that instead of putting in the work order later because they think it doesn't work, they're actually informed that it works off of the switch. Sometimes that could kind of help bring those work order numbers down when it comes in from the move-ins. Definitely. I I had a service request one time. I gave to one of my techs, he was uh my lead tech, and it was for an AC that wasn't working. And he he was in there a good hour or two hours, and and so I called him and asked him what was going on, and he said, I'm still trying to figure out what the problem is. And so I went in and I was talking to the resident, and I said, Hey, what's what happened? And he said, Well, I was trying to program it, and so I punched the thermostat. I got mad. And I said, Right. But he had already started like he's really digging into the transformer and he he hadn't gotten to the the to the uh thermostat yet. So, you know, even asking good, you know, easy questions, you know, what happened? Was there a loud bang? Did something happen to it? You know, that can kind of help the troubleshooting piece, but you know, don't blame him for you know the amount of time he had to dig in and see what was going on. So yeah, that reminds me of a story of uh I had my service tech call and say, Hey Mike, I can't figure out this AC. Can you come show me? He's been in the industry for a very long time. And I said, Yeah, I'll come check it out. And he and I asked him, What have you done so far? And he said, Oh, I've uh I changed this, I changed that, and he's going through the process. I'm like, all right. And I'm not really looking to kind of like prove him wrong or anything, I'm just trying to help. And so I'm just trying to gather the information. He said, Oh, I replaced the thermostat, but the compressor still won't come on. And so I was it started tired of having me question, like, why'd you replace a thermostat if the compressor's not coming on? So went I went to the unit and I told him, I said, Hey, I think this compressor is in a lock lock mode. It's uh it's overheated, so it's in thermal lock. And he's like, Oh man, I've never heard of that. And you know, some some guys have just never really been taught, you know, you just never know who they worked with in the past, and sometimes they just don't know. And so I said, Okay, well, it's when it when it gets too hot, it'll turn off. And we need to cool it down, so let's get some water. He said, Oh man, I never heard of that before. Well, you think water's gonna unlock it? I said, Yeah, it will unlock it. So we finally did it, we went through the process, and then so I tried to explain to him like the reason why he thought before, because he said the reason why you replaced a thermostat before was because he'd done it before and it worked. And I said, Well, that's exactly what happened. You turned the power off and it cooled down, and then you replaced the thermostat, and then so it made you think that the thermostat fixed it, but it was actually the it wasn't in a lock, it was thermal locked, and so uh it was that was really the issue. If you would have cooled it down, it would have actually worked without replacing anything, and then checking the levels and seeing why why did we get too overheated status? But a little bit more detail from the resident could have helped kind of maintain outside. You know, I have the ACs on, it's not cooling, but the fan is moving inside, so that could possibly push them to say everything's working on an indoor unit, I need to go outside. So exactly, yeah, and maybe save some parts, some money on parts that he that exactly outside. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that that have that definitely helps with you know outlining the the need for communication from the resident as far as what the problem is and what they're seeing, you know, then there's the office, the maintenance translation errors as well. You know, can we yeah, I'd like to hear your stories and and thoughts on, you know, the resident calls into the office and says it's what the problem is, and then the make the office team just just misses the mark and the communication's off. Yeah. Um sometimes you when it comes to actually having the communication, when you're talking about, are you talking about for the expectation of like the timeline for these work orders to be completed? Yeah, yeah, either that or just you know, the it just got translated weird, and now all of a sudden the maintenance tech went to the wrong apartment, or they, you know, they're looking at the wrong toilet. Yeah, sometimes it's easier easier to get caught up whenever you're taking in the information because we're we're all everything's coming at us from all different kinds of angles, right? Everything's going on. So uh having the wherewithal to ask the questions for one, and then sometimes, like we were talking about earlier, it can be you reach out to somebody who you might have worked with in the past and ask them, hey, how long should it take to do a water heater? And you're like, they they answer the question, like, oh, it's like 15 minutes, and then the not knowing, hey, I have a 30-year-old property that I'm working at, and the person that I asked, they actually work at a brand new community, so yeah, the brand new community it will take 15 minutes, but that doesn't mean that the 30-year-old community it will. You know what I mean? So sometimes just knowing the property and actually communicating with your team to figure out how things are taking in, not relying on an outside source to figure that information out, but actually working one-on-one with your team can be very helpful in figuring out what they're going through. Yeah, that gate valve at the 30-year-old property might not shut off the water. It's not gonna shut off, I promise you that. You'll get you'll get very lucky if it does, but for the most part, they won't, and then that turns into a whole different ball game. I used to have them under the sink where you go up under the sink and it just doesn't shut off, and you're like, man, I'm gonna be here. I'm gonna be here for a while. And that's why it's important for the office team to understand that and to be able to give that grace to the maintenance teams. It's not a it's not that they're bad at plumbing or electrical, it's that it just takes a little bit longer to complete service requests at this property. Yeah, I have I have guys who who they come to me, you know, they tell me, hey, Mike, they just won't, they didn't get me, they don't understand like what I'm going to. They don't, and I'm like, well, what are they asking you? What are they telling you? Like they're saying that you know this leak should take me. And I'm like, well, you're explaining yourself on why it's not? Are you setting that are you giving them the reality information that they need because they're only working on the office? And some of them do know a lot of information. There's a lot of managers who are very well versed when it comes to maintenance, but then if they don't have the information that they need to know why things are taking long, and that comes from us as maintenance staff. We have to be able to communicate and not feel bad about the information that we're saying. You know, it's just the truth. Unless you're playing around with it, you're right, if you're if you're kind of making excuses, that's one thing. But if you're being honest and you're being up front of like, hey, you know what, that's this valve is not working, and I'm just not gonna take the you know, whatever minutes that it you thought it might take. Um, now I'm having to do X, Y, Z. I'm having there's like a process now. Um, but we have to be the front end as far as like that information. We have to be the ones being okay with saying, but because some guys, I feel like some some guys sometimes they they don't want to say it's gonna take them longer just because it's like a prideful thing. And don't be prideful. Because for one, it's gonna set an unrealistic expectation of the future because these things are gonna keep on happening, and you're gonna try to rush those things, and it really has to be done in a reasonable time so that way it's done correctly. And if you try to rush it, it's not gonna, it's not gonna get done right. And it's a domino effect too, because if the office has an unrealistic expectation about the time, they'll tell the resident that expectation, and then the resident has an unrealistic expectation, and then nobody's happy. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I have so many uh issues with residents, you know, that they they have one, and it's not no fault to them. They just they're going through life the way we all are, and they want things done and they want them done in a hurry, right? It's just like everything else. I could picture myself, you know, I I have so many things that I want really, really fast. I want it to be it's just to the way we are today. So it's like we have to really be keen in on that and then figure out what we can do to manage that expectation. And the only way we can really manage it, or in my opinion, is to explain ourselves on why things are not happening as fast as maybe they might be thinking is. That's the only way we can fix it. But we have to be willing and open to say the reasonings why and and really line it out for them as far as the timeline goes. You know, we've we've talked a lot about the relationship between the property manager and the service supervisor or service manager. And I wonder if anyone's ever gotten together and made a list of how long, you know, on average, there's always exceptions, but how long on average these things might take. And so that they could then share that with both both sides to make sure that we're all sort of on the same page and you know, yeah, to set some expectations because it really is not a skill issue. And I think that's such important framing is that this is about expectations and communications and not if someone's good at their job or at the skills for their job. Exactly. I tried I tried to really explain this point to one of my one of my guys who's really focused on the time management side, and I love that about him. But at the same time, he he tried to ask me, hey Michael, how long it should how long should it take you to paint a one-bedroom apartment? And I'm like, okay, well, what paint am I using? You know, like what's the brand of the paint? Am I going to from color change or going to touch up? And I'm starting to ask all these questions, and he's like, Well, just tell me, just tell me what. No, but all that information needs to be, I need to know because and then I know now I know I can give you a realistic timeline. But for me, myself, I don't I don't try to use that um just to put timelines on things only because just because it's gonna take me uh 15 minutes to do something doesn't mean that it's gonna take the next person 15 minutes to do something, and that doesn't have anything to do with a skill issue, but more more or less of just the natural human aspect of working. Uh, we don't all do things different. I mean, we don't all do things the same. We're not robots, so just because it takes me 15 minutes, now there is a line there though. It shouldn't take you. There is a time where it can be too much time, but I I just don't like putting timelines on on certain situations just because based off uh certain like it needs to be done on on this amount of time. You know what I mean? Yeah. We had a comment from Alec. Um, imagine how much it would eliminate misunderstanding understandings if the office team did ride-alongs with maintenance staff and vice versa. I know we've talked about that in the show before, but Michael, have you ever done that? I have done it before. I have had uh I've done it where I sat in with the office team member, and I tell you what, I would not want to do office work. Um, I struggle with with the whole paperwork process when it comes to leasing, and just um just leasing in general is really hard. And this I've done it with leasing agents, I've done it with the assistant manager. The assistant manager is nothing but numbers. Miss me with the numbers, please. I don't want to work. About numbers. I could do it for some time, but when it comes to like my everyday job, I definitely don't want to do that on a day-to-day basis. But yes, I've had had Listen Agents ride with me and um assistant managers and managers, and I've actually had a regional um actually a director of uh with Graystar shadow me on an RMM inspection. So I think that that's really cool that um to practice those things where you can get the different perspective on what they go through, whether it's office or maintenance, so that way they can understand, you know, because maintenance we would like we say, hey, they should come around with us, but no, you go to them because they're as well, because their job isn't you know all peaches and rainbows the way we think. We're walking in the office and we're looking at them like you're just on your computer, still again. You know what I mean? But they go through a lot too, so it's for both sides. Practice it on both sides and it'll help uh get that perspective for sure. Thanks for the comment, Alec. Appreciate you chiming in. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah. No, I I find a lot of value in uh everybody understanding the impact that each uh team has on the other person. I mean, not just the fact of getting more information in the service request so I know where to go and I can limit my troubleshooting time, but also the impact that maintenance has on the office when we don't put notes in the service request in MRI or in YRD. And so then that way when a resident calls and says, Hey, what's going on with my service request, they can open it up and they can be able to see, oh, it looks like Michael's working on your your AC, he's got a part coming in Tuesday, we'll install it then. So that's really important. But I mean, speaking about the continuing with the conversation about communication, it's that technician to resident communication as well that could cause uh chaos or you know, frustration and deliver a poor service to the residents. So can you talk a little bit about that as well? About the impact that this has on the residents? Yeah, and I got a really uh cool story with one of my texts that I I had that he just kept on getting um complaints about his demeanor when he goes into apartment, and he didn't want to talk to residents, he just wanted to go in and out. And sometimes, yes, you're there to do a job, but I actually it and this guy was all about numbers. He was all about getting down to zero. He wanted to get down to zero every day, and the team really struggled on having him understand how yes, the numbers look good, but at the same time, when you're it your demeanor when you go into the off with to go into the resident's home and how you're approaching them every day, how you're talking to them. And with him, he was kind of like very vague on his details that he would give to the resident. And so they would ask him, Hey, what's going on with that? Like, can you just be is I'm not a people person, I'm not here for that. I'm here for to complete, to fix the job, and that's it. So they had me go talk to him, and so I tried to get when they told me all that information, my my thought process and having that difficult conversation with him, with him was I already kind of figured out that this was a numbers guy. And I was like, I harped on that aspect of it because and the way I did it with him was um I said, hey, all this it ties into the online reputation score. And so when somebody complains about your demeanor, hey, what's an online reputation score? Well, that's an encompassed score for everything that's going on in the property, and and that your online reputation affects everything when it comes to residents seeking you out and whether they're renewing or not. And so once he heard that, he kind of like, okay, I get it. Now I understand. And so nobody really explained it to him that way, and so just figuring out who you're working with, but yes, the the res the service tech to resident um relationship really has to be a strong one. And sometimes, honestly, mistakes are um a good way to make that relationship stronger because we're all humans, we're all gonna make mistakes, but it's how we uh react to those mistakes that make the difference. And so Graystar has a real cool uh initiative that we have called uh Make It Right Right Away. It's the mirror. And we we try on those issues, those times when we do have those mistakes, it's responding to them in a very, very different way, and actually going above and beyond that kind of makes that resident say, hey, you know what? That was really cool that they took care of me in this fashion after they made some whatever the issue might have been. So yeah, having that relationship between service tech, uh, even service supervisors, it's really, really important to have that communication and the relationship with the resident. And it really goes a long way. Yeah, definitely. I was uh when I was a main end supervisor at a community, we had these door locks on our back door, and it was a mortise lock, and you had to lift that to lock it, you had to close the door, you had to lift the handle, that would engage the throw, and then you could turn the knob. And I remember every every resident would move in, they'd shut the door and they turn the knob, but it wouldn't turn on the way. So they would put a service request in that said, Yeah, back door won't lock. And I remember I had a maintenance tech and he would go in, he he would lift up the handle, make sure it latched, he would turn the knob and he'd write, your door works fine, and you'd walk out. I think that's a great example of where our communication to the resident causes frustration and anger. And guess what? What are they gonna do? No, my door isn't locking. Yeah, all of a sudden they're calling us back. So they're first gonna go online and then they're gonna they're gonna blame you. Yeah, because then those those reviews come in quick. It's the the positive ones are hard, they're like pulling teeth, but those those uh they'll dish out those negative ones real quick. So just yeah, like you said, slowing down and taking the time to figure out what's going on, and then when you're done explaining, you know, what was done on the work order, um, definitely goes a long way. Even for my guys, when they're doing the inspection process, they'll just put fixed. Yeah. Give give me some information. I need I need to know what what was what was the process done to actually you know fix the deficiency that was found during the inspection. Um because that fixed word is not it's not usable for me. Yeah, well, it's not gonna be usable in the future. In the in the foreseeable future, we're gonna have technology that's gonna use uh the information on the ticket, and it's gonna say, well, on this AC we replaced the transformer, the thermostat, and the capacitor, and and then we could be able to you know use AI possibly to be able to figure out what the next steps are. So if we just have fixed, done, or completed, that's not gonna help us at all. So it's important, not only for technology and for the future, but also to make sure the residents are happy and they don't feel like you're blowing them off. So yeah. Yeah. I feel like the playbook and things that we've talked about, the three habits that we that could change everything are ask better questions up front, write work orders like you're telling a story, and close a loop every time, leave notes for the residents. I think some of the those to me are the kind of big three takeaways that property managers and maintenance teams can can use to be able to ensure proper communication and make sure that we're as efficient as possible. So I uh I really appreciate your time, Michael. You you've been uh thank you for having me. Appreciate it. And uh I hope we can get you back on in the near future. So all right, appreciate you. Yeah, don't hesitate to reach out. I love doing these things, I love uh spreading the knowledge, whether it's with Graystar or any other you know avenue that I can spread my knowledge out there. I'm definitely more than willing to do that. That's awesome. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Well, if if anybody listening is looking for more episodes and they want to hear more about how to speak maintenance, you can find any of our previous conversations where you find your podcasts on the go. And uh thank you, Becca, as always, for putting this on and helping us get this going. So and we'll be back on June 24th for the next episode of How to Speak Maintenance. Thanks, y'all. Thanks, thank you.