Growth of property management company leads to restructuring

A leading property management company is looking for a chief operating officer (COO) and is restructuring its staff base as a result of the business’ rapid growth.

Leslie Hermans, Executive Director of Hermans & Roman Property Solutions, says, “Kevin Roman and I established Hermans & Roman in 2002 with a staff of six in Cape Town. Now, less than four years later, we manage properties in excess of R3billion, employ almost 100 staff in Gauteng, Cape Town and Durban and are consistently expanding.

“We have always adopted a client-focused approach to our work and, to ensure we continue to deliver the personalised service of a boutique property management company, we have decided to appoint a COO and to re-organise our staff structure.

“Our business is people-driven, whether it is our clients or our staff. We wanted to identify how we could best facilitate growth without overloading our employees or letting service standards slip.

“To this end, we invited an extended management team to attend a strategy session where staff could play an interactive part of formulating a future business plan for Hermans & Roman,” says Hermans.

The result, he says, was to strengthen the management team by appointing more relationship managers. “This allowed us to recognise key staff and provide them with additional training to face new and exciting challenges. In addition, it creates the capacity to effectively manage our clients’ properties and maximize the value they can obtain from their portfolio.”

At a more senior level, Hermans & Roman acknowledged the need to find a COO. “Kevin and I spend a lot of time interacting with our clients at the highest level.

We are looking for someone who has extensive experience in the property industry and can take charge of the company’s operations. He or she must possess a hands-on approach to managing people and join the team to form the backbone of the company.

Hermans & Roman Property Solutions are one of the few property companies to have established a staff trust, with their staff as beneficiaries. “Our desire is to create wealth for our employees,” says Hermans. “A separate vehicle, Hermans & Roman Property Investments (Pty) Ltd has been set up, which shall invest in a property fund and a portion of its shares has been designated to the Hermans & Roman Staff Trust.”

Source: eProp - www.eprop.co.za