Innovation in Board Education

By Andrew Hay, CAMEx, CCAM-ND.PM

Do you know what qualifications/education level a person must have to serve on their HOA board? If you said zip, zero, nada, nothing, or anything similar, you would be right. In fact, current board members and management most often are recruiting volunteers due to apathy and probably undersell it just to make sure they find a committed person.

It is a combination of both lack of interest and no requirement for qualification that contributes to why our client board members generally have no idea how to fulfill their duties on the board.

Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.” This couldn’t be truer for HOA board members. In fact, lack of education causes many problems for not only community association managers and management companies but also for the communities themselves, service providers, and the entire industry.

This article will discuss traditional and innovative ways managers and management companies can educate their board.

TRAINING & HOW TO APPROACH

One of the most effective and traditional ways to educate a board is to hold training sessions regularly. Many management companies offer training for their client boards annually, some as often as monthly. We have found the most effective frequency is quarterly.

This ensures the training stays relevant while not becoming repetitive. At whatever frequency, it is a best practice to keep this type of training generic, meaning not specific to a community. This allows efficiency as you can invite all your clients and the subject matter is relevant for everyone.

One positive that came out of the pandemic is that people are much more accepting of virtual training sessions, which can also be recorded and used in between training sessions and as marketing materials when soliciting new clients.

As people learn in different ways, consider putting together a coursebook with details covered in the training. This way you can cover more topics in the training, but the board won’t feel the pressure to retain everything, because they will have a quick reference guide to what was covered.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

Encourage your clients to budget for board education. There are many resources that board members can access that don’t have to be generated or facilitated by your company or staff.

ECHO (Educational Community for HOA Homeowners) holds many events throughout the year including online webinars, in person luncheons, and an annual seminar.

Boardlineacademy.com offers many online training options for both association board members and management companies in easy to find, and use videos, webinars, etc.

There are also many free education topics put out by the wonderful industry service providers by way of podcasts, white papers, newsletters, etc. Keep an eye out and take the time to put a relevant article or link into a board packet to provide your client with a resource and education on the topic.

TEACHING FROM EXPERIENCE

Adult learning varies significantly compared to children, and one major way adults learn is through experience. It is important when you are training board members that you draw on the experiences they have in being a part of their community and use your experiences from managing other clients to share best practices, pitfalls, common issues, and challenges to have more meaningful and successful training sessions.

One easy way to do this is to follow up with your board members a day or two after every board meeting to point out things that they did well in the meeting and areas where they could improve.

Examples of items they did well could include agenda items that they were able to decide upon quickly or ways they reacted (or didn’t react) to member comments. It is always a good idea to follow up with your board members quickly after a tough or long meeting to both encourage them that they are doing the right thing and to constructively provide education on ways to not have that unpleasant meeting again.

Some examples include:

• How to better control the member comment period

• How to call a vote when conversation becomes circular/ repetitive

• How to make a proper motion

Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.

- Lyndon B. Johnson

FUTURE PROOFING

Never forget, today’s homeowner is tomorrow’s board member. Consider offering training courses for entire communities with a focus on HOA governance and structure. Unlike the board member training referenced earlier, this is best done specifically by community.

This is a great time to get to know members of the community outside of a formal board meeting and to incorporate specific nuances about a particular community, who maintains what, common violations, arch review process, etc. And don’t forget general topics like board structure, communication, elections, and why the association isn’t the source for all the community’s issues/concerns.

Whatever the method(s) used to educate board members, we must be diligent in continuing to offer information and resources at every opportunity. It is easy to forget that board members are volunteers and serving their community is just a small fraction (some larger than others) of their lives.

Whether using formal training materials/ platforms or sharing information based on experience, the more touch points you have to educate your clients translates to more efficient management with less hurdles and faster decision making.

Andrew Hay, CAMEx, CCAM-ND.PM

Andrew Hay, CAMEx, CCAM-ND.PM, is the Chief Executive Officer of The Helsing Group, Inc.