Best Practices in Condo Association Management

Communicating effectively

Although there’s no single best way to communicate with owners, there are a few best practices and strategies we see in some of the more well-run condo associations in Stamford, Greenwich, Rye, and Darien in particular. They’re on top of their communication and have given us several ideas we can relay to you.

Overcommunication is key
One of the best ways to ensure your condo owners are invested and involved in your association is to ensure you are communicating with them as frequently as possible. Frequent communication will not only remind the owners that you exist, and are providing a valuable service, but it will keep them in the loop.

Asking for feedback will help show your owners that you are interested in their experience and their opinion on what’s going on in the community. Your owners are the group you are serving and working for, so it’s extremely important to get their feedback as often as possible. Even if the feedback is negative, this is a good thing. You won’t be able to fix anyone’s problems without knowing they exist. Knowing problems exist sooner than later will save your association money by being able to address the problem before it becomes a bigger problem.

Make communication simple and easy
The fewer hoops a resident has to jump through to communicate with your team, the better. People usually don’t like to go out of their way to find information, so if they need to log in to a website, or walk over to your offices to pick up a pamphlet, you may find that owners are less likely to communicate and be involved in the process.

Going digital and giving multiple options for communication is the best way to ensure your owners actively participate and communicate with your team. Offer several options for communication, such as email, text, and even a number to call for questions or just to chat. Having an easily accessible website is also important so that owners can quickly and easily review condo association rules and see when the next meeting is.

Hold regular and consistent meetings
Meeting frequency is often written into the condo bylaws, and a best practice for board meetings is once a month on the same day of the week. This makes it easy for your board members to know when and where the meetings are. It’s advisable not to make the board meetings mandatory so that if there is no business to discuss, they can be canceled. You don’t want to waste anyone’s time when it can be avoided.

For general meetings, you should hold them quarterly. If you have a particularly active community you can hold them more frequently, but typically 4 times per year is enough to keep everyone happy and engaged. If you are managing a larger community, you can hold meetings more frequently as the need arises. The most important thing to remember is that you should hold emergency meetings when it is called for. Letting problems grow and get worse will only lead to negative outcomes.

For general meetings, there are few key best practices that help ensure a successful and productive meeting outside of letting members know where they are. When you host a meeting, ensure that you have a comprehensive agenda of everything that will be covered and that all owners have a copy of it prior to the meeting. This gives the owners time to review the agenda, and prepare for the meeting so that they can give constructive feedback. It also allows you to budget your time and stick to a defined schedule.

You should also document meetings to ensure you have a record of what happened, who spoke up and gave advice, and who had concerns or questions. This will help the board immensely after the meeting is over. It allows you to remember the points that were made so that you can take them into consideration. To do this effectively, at a minimum, you should have members sign in when they arrive, record audio (and/or video) of the meeting, and appoint a note keeper who will manually write down questions and points made by the owners present.

Meetings are not fun per se, so if at all possible, you should give members additional reasons to participate. You can do this by hosting in a nice location like outdoors, offering food, hosting a raffle, or holding social activities or mixers (non-mandatory) afterward. Anything you can do to encourage participation is a good idea, and will only increase the long-term success of your association. The more owners participate in meetings, the more invested they will be in the success of the association.

Be as transparent as possible
Transparency is key to the success and continued engagement of your owners. While texts or emails are a good way to ensure people know about meeting times and locations (locations should stay the same whenever possible), you do not want to inform your owners that a decision has been made without their involvement. Sending a message that a major decision has been made without their involvement is a surefire way to foster resentment and reduce future participation.

Part of this transparency comes down to the association keeping owners in the loop as to what’s going on through a regular email or newsletter communication. As long as you make your best effort to ensure everyone has had the chance to evaluate what’s going on, you have done your job and will not be at fault if someone complains they had no idea that this or that was going to happen. Providing financial records to owners will also help increase trust in the association and foster good-will.