There are several good reasons property owners outsource leasing and maintenance to outside management companies:

• Property management is not the owner’s primary business, and their time is better spent where they can add the most value.
• Property owners may lack the technical or interpersonal skills to successfully manage either maintenance or leasing operations.
• Property owners may not wish to keep up with all the regulations associated with property management, much less deal with all the tenants’ concerns.

Regardless of why an owner chooses to outsource these responsibilities, property management firms agree: Outsourcing is the right choice for owners.

The same logic works for a property management firm’s own operation when it comes to HR. All the tasks of onboarding, time-tracking and scheduling, administering payroll and benefits, while ensuring compliance with applicable regulations requires skilled professionals and specialized technology.

Here’s how you can outsource these for your company:

Scheduling and Time Tracking: Who, When, and Where

If you haven’t checked lately, time-tracking technology has advanced considerably. Geofencing allows mobile and field personnel to accurately clock in and out from anywhere, inside a single community or from remote properties. Biometrics virtually eliminate time fraud and ensure the time is being credited to the right employee. These systems also make it a lot more convenient for employees to log their time.

The latest scheduling software uses rules-based intelligence to optimize hours according to both staff and business needs without incurring costly overtime. This also accommodates PTO, holiday schedules, and workers’ FMLA obligations without a lot of back and forth and fiddling with spreadsheets. These systems can then be seamlessly integrated with a payroll platform to ensure faster and more accurate pay runs.

While these systems are extremely intuitive and easy to use, they can be a considerable investment for smaller companies. But they can easily be part of the package if a firm decides to outsource their HR to a professional employer organization (PEO) or human resources outsourcer (HRO) whose core business is providing these services and the technology to run them.

Payroll and Compensation: From Benefits to Bonuses

Every business recognizes that payroll is a job for specialists. And many property management firms already outsource this function. When the payroll system is integrated with the time tracking mentioned above and with the benefits packages that outsourcers can also manage, payroll goes a lot faster with even less room for errors.

Because they tend to manage very large pools of talent, PEOs enjoy group rates on employee benefits like medical insurance and employers’ insurance like workers’ compensation that smaller firms could never get on their own. Outsourcers’ expertise in payroll and compensation can also be a strategic resource in devising competitive compensation rates and packages to attract and retain the best talent.

Compliance: Labor and the Law

Perhaps the greatest stress-reliever an outsourcer can offer is the confidence that regulatory and legal compliance is being honored in every aspect of a property management company’s HR operations. In the same way property owners outsource management to avoid dealing with tenants, PEOs actually assume many of an employer’s liabilities. This frees onsite managers and personnel to focus on keep tenants and owners happy.

This protection covers the entire scope of services, from hiring to performance management. While property management firms will always choose their employees and direct them in their daily responsibilities, a PEO will take care of all the background checks and other vetting procedures (like drug testing) during the hiring process.  And, like an in-house HR department, they are positioned to manage disciplinary procedures should that ever become necessary.

PEO’s workforce management technology helps in this. It can automate everything from flagging potential violations of overtime rules in scheduling to assuring payroll reflects the correct rates according to hours worked and appropriate withholdings. They’ll even take care of the tax filings. And all PEO activities are supported with thorough documentation.  

Optimize your Operations with VensureHR

Every good owner knows they can’t do everything, whether it’s property management or HR administration. If your property management company could use help getting the best possible employees or keeping the ones, you have, consider partnering with a PEO.

As part of the nation’s largest privately-held employer solutions company, VensureHR can provide all the support discussed here – and much more – along with the technology to streamline your entire operations, all at a lower cost than you could ever obtain on your own.