Page 16 - NJ Cooperator Spring 2020

16 THE NEW JERSEY COOPERATOR —SPRING 2020 NJCOOPERATOR.COM Chip Hoever has joined forces with Matrix Property Management Group—now Matrix can serve you from TWO locations— North Jersey: Central Jersey: 50-C Main Street 1215 Livingston Ave Succasunna, NJ 07876 North Brunswick, NJ 08902 908-852-0064 732-228-8200 Samantha Regner, CMCA Chip Hoever CMCA, AMS, PCAM VISIT OUR WEBSITE www.matrixpmgroup.com Matrix provides full service property Management from A to Z… • Maintaining homeowner accounts • Receiving and posting all fees—bank reconciliations • Answering homeowner calls—issuing work order if necessary • Supervising maintenance projects • Watching over contractors working on the site • Periodic site inspections, including nights and weekends Please visit our booth—311—at the cooperator show on May 6th fi rms are not specifi cally considering age. ness go on to do project work,” adds Woll- According to the pros, they’re looking for man, “but the truth is there aren’t a lot of more of a ‘fi t’ that incorporates many vari- ables—and though the age of the manager can to keep good people.” relative to the population of a given cli- ent community may sometimes come into agement has certainly changed, but at the play, the manager’s maturity and ability to same time what makes the profession spe- work with any population is more a de- ciding factor than anything else. Educational Requirements Wollman notes that most people come way. to the real estate business—particular- ly management—by a less-than-direct route. Up until a few years ago, there were very few college- or university-level academic programs that would prepare a person to enter a career in real estate. Th at is beginning to change, but hasn’t shift ed dramatically...yet. “No one expects post-graduate educa- tion in our business,” he says. “People who come into management oft en have past work experience or education in architec- ture, fi nance, and so forth, and they can modify their experience to become good managers. Most importantly, they need to be good people-persons—and that hasn’t changed. Truthfully, though, 20 years ago people did get in with less experience and a more limited skill set. I learned by do- ing, and we still do. I believe ours may be the last industry like this.” Wolf points out that although Mas- sachusetts is a non-license state—in that property managers are not legally re- quired to hold any particular licensure in order to work in the fi eld—his company requires managers to pursue continu- ing education throughout their tenure with the fi rm. “We send our people for courses through the Community Associa- tions Institute (CAI),” he says. “We expect them to get involved with a committee at CAI—any committee they like that inter- ests them.” Wolf believes the policy his company holds is typical throughout the industry in New England. Career Longevity Pretty much anyone would agree that multifamily property management isn’t the easiest job in the world. So...do managers stick with it? Do they adapt to changing variables to advance their ca- reers? Both Wollman and Wolf say yes. “If you stay in fi ve years or longer, chances are, you’ll stay in permanently,” says Wolf. Many factors aff ect that deci- sion, and that’s something that’s been consistent over time. Management in- volves long hours—managers are pretty much on call 24/7—and little apprecia- tion, along with heavy workloads. Wolf points out that “While the number of unit owners that tend to take advantage of a manager is overall a very small percent- age of the whole, they can be very disturb- ing for the manager—so the ‘thank yous’ the manager gets from the other 97 or so percent make all the diff erence.” “Some managers who leave the busi- alternatives. And we do everything we In the fi nal analysis, real estate man- cial has stayed the same. Despite email, text, apps, and other innovations, it’s still a people business and is likely to stay that n A.J. Sidransky is a staff writer/reporter with Th e New Jersey Cooperator, and a pub- lished novelist. THE EVOLUTION... continued from page 15 the employee to call out serious hazards and to inform OSHA when they believe an employer is not compliant. OSHA compli- ance offi cers perform drop-in inspections only when there is an imminent or obvious hazard, an injury or fatality, or if a worker or worker representative fi les a complaint. “OSHA’s role is to enforce the rules that apply to any work being performed on-site,” says Kate Ferranti of SEIU Local 32BJ, the Service Employees International Union, which represents building workers through- out the Mid-Atlantic. “Th ey can inspect a condo if there is a history of accidents there, or if an employee fi les a complaint regarding lack of training or if a hazardous condition exists.” 32BJ According to James Barry, Senior Man- ager of Program Development for the 32BJ Training Fund, the union has more than 175,000 members, making it the larg- est property workers’ union in the United States. Eighty thousand of those members work in the New York metropolitan area— and the number swells to more than 100,000 when you count New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Union members include cleaners, doormen, porters, maintenance workers, window cleaners, security guards, superintendents, and theater and stadium workers. In addition to the healthcare benefi ts, retirement planning, wage negotiations, and collective advocacy that the union pro- vides its members, 32BJ off ers more than 200 educational courses and certifi cations through its jointly administered multiem- ployer Training Fund—many of which have a strong safety-related component. To be qualifi ed as a window cleaner, for example, a candidate must pass a series of training courses certifying them to carry out diff er- ent aspects of the job, such as suspended scaff old safety and rope skills. Robert Sparer, partner at the labor and employment law fi rm Clift on Budd & De- STAFF SAFETY... continued from page 1