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Making the Case for Voluntary Quality Assurance: Team Approach Eases Certification Process
July, 2009
By Bonnie Hoy and Ted Whitehead
A growing number of Ontario’s rental housing landlords have signed on for a voluntary quality assurance program aimed at branding and promoting well-managed and well-maintained rental buildings. More than 275 buildings encompassing 85,000+ suites have met the qualifications for the Certified Rental Housing Building Program since the Federation of Rental-housing Providers Ontario (FRPO) first launched it in Toronto in the summer of 2008.
To achieve certification, participants must prove they comply with stipulated management practices in five categories: legislation requirements, resident management, human resources, building operations, and finance. This is confirmed through an audit conducted by the independent firm, J.D. Power and Associates, and must be re-audited and reconfirmed on a three-year cycle. Building managers and operators within each participating building are also required to complete an eight-hour training course focusing on the program’s standards of practice.
Currently, more than 300 buildings are at the audit step and program administrators expect more than 600 buildings will be certified by the end of September. This includes properties in the Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Windsor, Ottawa and Kingston.
Toronto-based Sterling Karamar Property Management, which recently achieved certification, was one of the first property management firms to enroll.
“Our industry has always felt that self-regulation is better than government regulation,” reflects Marvin Sadowski, Executive Vice President of Sterling Silver, the development arm of Sterling Karamar. “Part of the idea behind the Certified Rental Building Program is that it provides an objective measurement and proof of good practices that we felt the industry ideally does anyway.”
Required standards of practice cover a wide range of responsibilities from landlords’ obligation to understand and comply with federal, provincial and municipal regulations that protect their residents’ and employees’ health, safety, privacy and human rights to customer service, proactive planning and preventative maintenance, record keeping and standardized accounting procedures. Qualifying buildings are entitled to display the Certified Rental Building Program’s logo on-site and in marketing materials.
At Sterling Karamar, the certification process began by bringing every member of the management team on board. “We took a team approach, and built a cross-functional team from all sections of the business; including people from our head office, outside finance experts in finance and representatives from building management staff,” explains Barb McIntyre, Sterling Karamar’s Manager of Human Resources. “We established our CRB Project team by focusing on individuals we thought were our ablest and keenest people from different parts of the company: expertise and enthusiasm was very important for the project to have impetus.”
Participants included David Medeiros, a Maintenance Manager, and Cedric Abreu, a Maintenance Coordinator, at two different Toronto properties. “Our information and policies are clear, and our customers know they are renting from a reputable company,” observes Medeiros, who served on the certification planning committee, attending weekly meetings for a two-month period.
The company conducted a full, systematic self-audit of its policies, procedures and practices compared to the standards of the CRB, and has devised its own continuous improvement policy, in keeping with the objectives of the certification program. Company officials also embraced the program’s requirement for third party certification.
“The involvement of JD Power in supervision of the program’s standards is a stamp of approval that lends impartial credibility to the program. We believe that our being one of the first to meet CRB requirements validated our own internal quality processes,” says Jack Beaton, Vice President of Sterling Karamar’s Residential Operations.
When it’s time for recertification, McIntyre is confident Sterling Karamar will be ready. “It’s a great reinforcement to the continuous improvement ethic to have to re-certify every couple of years. It ensures we never stop looking at how we can continually improve,” she says.
For more information about the Certified Rental Building Program, see the web site at www.CRBprogram.org.
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