How to Turn Prevailing Wages Rates into a Great Investment
So, you have to comply with Prevailing Wages Rates. Your yearly budget just skyrocketed and you're redrawing your financial projection for the next several years.
Now what?
I'm going to tell you 3 ways to make the most out of Prevailing Wages Rates and to turn this expense into an investment.
My name is James Park, the managing director of Spark Super Inc., and I work with Coops and Condos to help staff their building with amazing Supers and Porters.
Wage increases or required benefits are inevitable and part of life in NYC. But when the time comes to giving raises, many Coops and Condos simply give their wage increases without any feedback or words of encouragement, and everyone goes along their merry way.
When this happens, I feel that you've just lost the best opportunity to motivate your staff and elevate their work performance. With any raise, you should always give your staff feedback about how they've performed or whether there are areas for improvement.
Because at the end of the day, it's not all about the money. Intrinsic rewards, professional growth and the feeling of being appreciated for the work being done also play a part in elevating job satisfaction.
At the end of the day, it's not all about the money. With any pay raise, you should always give your staff feedback about how they've performed or whether there are areas for improvement.
- 1Upgrade your Staff: Your staff is one of your building's biggest asset and investment you can make. They can save you tons of money down the line and earn you dividends. So, add training and encourage your staff to earn licenses or certifications. Sometimes, these licenses may allow your staff to take on tasks that are normally outsourced to professional vendors. This can help you save money and offset your Prevailing Wages costs. Any training or classes that your staff can take to learn more about his industry will benefit your building and its residents. Your Staff will be happy and motivated to grow professionally, which will lead to higher job satisfaction and increased staff morale.
- 2Boost your staff's efficiency: Look at your system's checklist and maintenance schedule. See if you can streamline anything to make the workload more efficient and the staff more clear about what it takes to fulfill the building's priorities and do so with efficiency. Can anything be condensed or processes improved? Can you improve operations and perhaps even save some hours that can be reallocated to other important tasks? For buildings that may have a difficult time meeting these financial demands of Prevailing Wages, streamlining operations may significantly offset the costs of Prevailing Wages by allowing the building to add more tasks or reallocate energy.
- 3Have the difficult talk with staff now! If there's ever been a time to have a difficult talk with your staff, it's now. Prevailing Wages is here to stay and the opportunity to change unwanted behavior is now, when s/he receives his pay wage. Any loss of opportunity here to try and improve your employee's performance or attitude will be more costly later on, when this unwanted behavior is harder to change. Even if this realization leads to termination of employment, it's better to do this now before his prevailing wages vests. Making these hard decisions at this point is actually more fair to the employee. It actually may be a disservice to the employee to keep him at a job that he is unhappy with and is devoid of any hope of succeeding.
These are the 3 things you should do now to make sure that your Prevailing Wages Rate payroll expenses are not thrown out the window. As time goes on, the laws that govern the operation of a building (i.e. Local Laws) become more complex and costly to comply with.
Moreover, as the lifestyles and habits of residents change, they demand more services and a response to their maintenance problems right away.
Your building staff is at the frontlines of these legal and social changes and making sure that the building and its residents are safe and taken care of.
Your building staff is at the frontlines of these legal and social changes and making sure that the building and its residents are safe and taken care of.
Turn this expense of Prevailing Wages Rates into an investment by seizing on this opportunity to make sure your staff is motivated, focused and ready for the next level.
To help you embark on this journey through the Prevailing Wages, we've created some tools. See below:
How can we help you? Use FREE Tools for Co-ops and Condos
Below are some tools to help you on your way to turning your Prevailing Wages expense into an investment.
Co-op Board Tools and Checklists:
Find Your Building's Total Cleaning Time
In order to know whether your staff's schedule is optimized to the correct number of hours, compare your building to others in NYC. Use our Calculator to find your building's total time required to clean the common areas, sidewalk and handle your residents' trash and recycling.
The Complete Cleaning Checklist for your Building Super
We've created the ULTIMATE checklist to keep your staff focused. Customize it for your building!
