An article by Hamish Turner (NZ)

The easy answer to this is that there can never be too much training. There are a range of options year round with 2 national property management conferences each year, namely Leading Property Managers of New Zealand and REINZ’s annual conference.

There are several training groups that provide a range of different options from general property management training through to business management training. There are several consultants working within our industry that provide a range of training options.

There are loads of audio and visual training packs that can be purchased online from varying property management professionals – both training groups and consultants. The decision regarding what financial investment can be made into training often comes down to cash flow and in part it should. Training a larger group can be much more cost effective than smaller teams and where a smaller team exists, there is often a lot less cash flow and as such a lower training budget.

As noted above, there are varying options available, but perhaps the simplest and most cost effective training tool involves either building or buying a Procedures Manual, then setting aside training for the team each week. Continual learning in repetition really is best practice. If your team is already doing this, that is great. If not, then perhaps your team can meet on a weekly or fortnightly basis to visit a different section of your Procedures Manual.

As new things come up during the course of business they can be added to the Procedures Manual and act as a “living” resource that continues to get better. The key is the use of it, and this starts with staff and management alike isolating set times within their schedule to train.