Maintenance firms run on skilled technicians and fast response. Here is how to keep them skilled, scheduled and on your side.
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Share your requirementsA property maintenance company keeps buildings working: plumbing, electrical, carpentry, painting, air conditioning and general repair for residential societies, offices, retail and institutions. Some work is on annual contracts with a resident team, and some is call-out, with a response time to meet. Technicians are skilled tradespeople with different specialities, supported by helpers and a coordinator who takes calls and schedules visits. Customers judge the firm on how quickly someone arrives and whether the fault stays fixed. A good technician is hard to replace, and many are tempted to work independently. See also HR for facility management. Most of the HR work is about knowing what each technician can do, sharing the call-outs fairly and giving trainees somewhere to go.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
A technician says he can do a job, and nobody has checked or kept a record of what he can safely do.
The same few people take out-of-hours calls, and the rota is informal.
Technicians stationed at a client site see the firm rarely and take direction from the client.
Rushed repairs return, and the cost is borne by the firm.
Technicians who build a customer base may leave to work for themselves.
Helpers pick up trade skills from whoever is nearby, with no route to becoming technicians.
Technicians buy materials and claim them back later, and delays in repayment cause friction.
What was done at a flat or an office is in a technician's memory, so a repeat visit starts from nothing.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Career and Succession Management; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for facility management, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a property maintenance and repair companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A list of what each technician is cleared to do, assessed by a senior technician, so jobs go to the right person.
What this coversHideA list of what each technician is cleared to do, assessed by a senior technician, so jobs go to the right person. The employee information management holds it.
A fair rotation with a rule for time off after a night call, and the allowance for it set down.
What this coversHideA fair rotation with a rule for time off after a night call, and the allowance for it set down. The attendance and shift process covers it.
A regular visit from a supervisor, a named contact at the office and a way to raise concerns without going through the client.
What this coversHideA regular visit from a supervisor, a named contact at the office and a way to raise concerns without going through the client.
Look for patterns, and treat them as a training signal before treating them as a conduct issue.
What this coversHideLook for patterns, and treat them as a training signal before treating them as a conduct issue.
A defined path from helper to technician with skills to learn at each step, so trainees do not leave to find one.
What this coversHideA defined path from helper to technician with skills to learn at each step, so trainees do not leave to find one.
A short record for each site and each job, with what was found, what was done and what was used, so the next visit starts from the history.
What this coversHideA short record for each site and each job, with what was found, what was done and what was used, so the next visit starts from the history.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A skills record for each technician, so work is matched to what they are cleared to do.
A fair on-call rota and clear rules for call-out time and rest.
A route from helper to technician to supervisor, so skills grow inside the firm.
An understanding of why skilled technicians leave or go independent, and what keeps them.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in facility management, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Housekeeping, technician and security staff at client sites leave for reasons head office rarely hears. How to ask, what to look for and how to act on it.
7 min readRead article
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
A two-hour exercise that names the roles you could not fill quickly, who could cover them, and what readiness would actually require.
7 min readRead article
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Have a senior technician assess him on the jobs, record what he is cleared for and review it. A claim in an interview is a starting point, not a record.
By a written rota that rotates fairly, with a rule for rest after a night call and an agreed allowance. Informal arrangements leave the keenest people overloaded.
Keep regular contact, a named person to call and a route for concerns that does not run through the client. Distance weakens loyalty.
By paying fairly, giving a path and treating them well. Confirm the position on restrictive terms with a qualified professional before relying on them.
Defined steps with skills to learn and be signed off at each, with a rough time for each. People stay when they can see the next step.
We would ask who has signed off each technician's skills, how out-of-hours calls were shared last month, and when someone from the office last visited a resident team. A sensible first piece of work is a skills sign-off record plus an on-call rota. We then send a written scope for you to review.
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