Couple of the tenants told me the manager who lives in the park gets drunk there a lot. Maybe nightly, maybe couple times a week, IDK.
Now, the manager is only working there part time (e.g. 20 hours per month), so its not I am against them having personal time, but seems to create issues with the tenants when they approach the manager for issues.
What is a good way to deal with this? Not sure if others would fire a manager like this, but my only good idea is to the manager to have set working hours.
The manager is a retired lady and her husband is former military, and talent is really hard to find around here.
The manager representes the park owner. A alcoholic manager sets a very poor example for how you want to operate your community and for that reason would not meet my expectations. I would terminate her knowing that any attempt to control or regulate a alcoholic is futile.
I agree with Greg’s points. However, a couple things come up
Without defined work conduct (i.e. handbook, code of conduct, etc) and clear work hours this can become hard to avoid happening over and over again with future managers - so whatever path you take, you should set clear standards. If you’re standard is no drinking whatsoever by the manager in your off hours while in the community (even in the privacy of their own home) that’s up to you I suppose. But if you’ve got people knocking on their door after they pop a top on a Saturday evening then complaining that they could smell alcohol… I don’t know how realistic that is going to be to keep a manager on staff.
Reliability of tenants or Culture of the Community? I’ve had the residents who clearly have it “in” for the manager. If they are accurate, that’s one thing (have them submit a written complaint maybe?). If they are problem tenants, now they know how to get future manager’s fired
I would not allow a drunk manager to perform work for the property. I would also not employ a known alcoholic. But I would not prohibit drinking by the manager 24/7 or allow verbal allegations from a resident to guide my decisions. Raise a flag to investigate? Sure. But get a complaint in writing, don’t share the name with the manager to avoid repercussions.
I guess my real problem now is figuring out how often she is actually drinking. Just spoke with the manager who said she is available for the tenants almost every day and most of the time.
Right, first question I always consider is: is the tenant unhappy with the manager about something else. Two of them are friends with each other (one was evicted) and the third is having a disagreement with her about something else, but seems like the 3rd is unrelated to the first two.
Sounds like my only option is to go out there and start surveying tenants.
I worked in HR for a Fortune 10 company for years. I have experience that can help you. You can consult a labor attorney to see if the laws ware different in your state. But these principles are fairly uniform across the US, and I worked in HR in states as diverse as Texas and California.
Do NOT approach this issue as an alcohol abuse problem. If you do you may be on the hook to counsel her, provide her with medical help to control her drinking, and generally keep her around to give her multiple opportunities to fix her problem.
DO approach this as a performance issue. Use the substance of the tenant complaints to document and discuss with her ways her performance is unacceptable:
Don’t say: “The tenants say they have observed you drunk.”
Do say: “On June 30 a tenant presented her July rent check. You seemed unable to write out a receipt and told her you’d give it to her the next day. She reports never received a receipt and I don’t see a record of you preparing one.”
Set a follow up meeting schedule (e.g., every week).
Under prior ownership of one of our properties, the maintenance employee, who was known for drinking at all hours of the day, got drunk and drove around. A neighbor had his car on jacks and was underneath it. The drunk hit the car, knocked it off the jacks, and almost killed the neighbor. The case was settled out of court before we took ownership, but this is obviously a huge liability. Even if the drunk was “off duty” the tenants don’t see it that way and will sue the park.