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A property management business has implemented offshore outsourcing to manage PM administrative duties – with resounding success.
The comment follows a a leader in property management training saying outsourcing services is "the way of the future" and will allow property managers to concentrate more on their core strengths.
McGrath Property Management in Sydney’s lower north shore has three employees in Manilla, Philippines and is expanding soon to a fourth.
General manager and property management licensee Pamela Thomson said the offshore employees cover “everything” admin-based for their property management business.
“It was difficult to set up to start with but now that it is in place it is fine,” she told Residential Property Manager.
“You have employees that work for you but are situated in a host office – I guess it is the step before setting up your own office in another location.
“We pay wages and on-cost for that service – for the hosting.
“You get far more qualified people there, in terms of tertiary qualifications for administration roles,” she added.
Ms Thomson said they started with one employee, who they actually flew into Sydney to be inducted into the company.
“She got inducted into our business like anyone else, and she took that bit of our culture back and she is now the team leader – it has been four years and she is still there,” she said.
Ms Thomson said the outsourcing of admin duties definitely eased her property managers' workloads and levels of stress.
“[Say] you have a property manager and their assistant; the assistant probably does a lot of their leg work outside the office and then there is the work they do with the tenants and so they are never in the office,” she said.
“At the end of the day they respond to emails, and it is 100 emails.
“They are not fresh and they are trying to rush them and it is taking too long to get back to tenants or landlords – that doesn’t happen anymore.
“We have someone instantly at the computer all day and that is their role.”
Ms Thomson said their property managers now just deal with the client relationship all day.
“They can answer the calls from the client and they can provide better investment advice rather than just what repairs need to be done – it is more strategy,” she said.
Ms Thomson said she is all for outsourcing administrative duties but will never outsource the client relationship.
“Really, the strategy to maximise the return will always be done by property managers, never anyone else,” she said.
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