Ensuring your employees feel safe at work is about much more than just being a generous boss. From reducing your insurance premiums to lowering your liability for potential lawsuits, guaranteeing onsite safety for your employees brings a multitude of benefits. One such overlooked benefit is the resulting productivity and employee retention that onsite safety brings.
Real estate and property management is one of the more dangerous professions. Employees often work alone and interact with many members of the public without any screening. In fact, 40% of female real estate professionals report having been in a situation that made them afraid, and 5% of real estate professionals reporting being the victim of a crime while at work.
This kind of ambient fear for self and property takes its toll, and for employees, that is often reflected in issues with retention, productivity and attendance.
Retention: in today’s hiring market, finding and keeping talent is a top priority. One way to ensure you maintain your employees and avoid costly turnover is by prioritizing onsite safety. In a 2015 study by “Best Places to Work”, the acclaimed survey company, found that out of 65 multifamily companies that submitted for the award, only 4 met the standards for a “Best Place to Work Award”. The one common factor between all four of the winners? Their employees felt safe while working on-site. Other studies have found that employees with a negative view of their company’s safety policy had faster and more frequent turnover. Providing employees with a safety device like Apartment Guardian’s fully mobile panic button communicates that you care about their safety, and in return, they are more likely to stay on long term.
Productivity: another area of employment that suffers in unsafe conditions is worker productivity. If employees are worried about their safety, it can be hard to truly focus on their work. Studies have shown that proactive implementation of safety programs increases employee productivity by about 17%. This kind of improvement can end up lowering your payroll expenses long term, as you will have fewer but more productive employees. Take your onsite employees’ minds off safety and put it back on their jobs by providing them with a safety solution like Apartment Guardian’s mobile panic button.
Attendance: everyone who has worked in property management knows that absenteeism and tardiness are huge problems. Not being able to rely on staff to show up or show up on time puts you in a vulnerable position with your tenants and would be tenants. In fact, the estimated cost of absenteeism in the service industry is $8.5 billion a year. Two of the top five reasons for employee truancies are mental health issues and unsafe working conditions. As discussed in this blog, unsafe working conditions are a main contributor to mental health issues, so taken together, feeling unsafe at work might be considered the number 1 reason employees don’t show up. Improving onsite safety, however, can dramatically turn things around. Studies have found that investing in onsite safety and training can improve absenteeism by almost 9%. Don’t give your employees a reason to stay home when you can instead give them peace of mind with Apartment Guardian’s low cost, fully mobile panic button.
Hiring, maintaining and managing employees is one of the biggest challenges of any organization. When you add potentially unsafe working conditions to the mix, it can become a full time headache. Maximize your employee retention, productive and attendance by providing them with a low cost, full mobile panic button designed specifically for multifamily employees. For more information, click below or email me at kate@apartmentguardian.com.
