cover — ACMO 2000 Update
ACMO 2000 Certification
— One Firm’s Journey
to the Future
By Robert L. Weinberg, MBA, RCM, ACCI
D
uring the ACMO annual general meeting in 2004 some members
in attendance had a lively discussion about the effect of the ACMO
2000 certification requirements for ACMO Corporate members. In fact, it
went a little further. After some heated but controlled discussion between
members on the floor and the Committee members on the panel, a motion
was put forward and passed that all ACMO Corporate members be ACMO
2000 certified by December 31, 2006, or they would lose the Corporate
member standing. They felt that the ACMO 2000 program had not been
taken seriously enough by the management firms and as a result, a deadline for certification was required. This was the formal start of our journey.
Several members of the Percel Inc. management team attended this
meeting in 2004 and were surprised that as president of this management
company, I agreed with the motion. After all, we thought somewhat guard­
edly, “Was this a way to collect money from condominium management
firms already struggling to make a small profit in one of the most competi­
tive and essential service industries in the Ontario real estate market?”
What my staff did not know was that Percel had been one of the first firms
to meet with the Business Development Corporation (BDC) representa­
tives in 1999 to discuss the certification process. The program needed more
explanation by ACMO and, combined with the fee requested of us, at the
time I thought it was money that could be better spent elsewhere.
■ No Government Support for Accreditation
Like many other property managers, I believed that if we in this in­
dustry wanted a higher standard of service, we should be attempting to
have condominium property management established as a profession
and then licenced. I later found out that the government would not permit
the establishment of a new independent college (of property management
“We would rather see every
management company in Ontario
that services a condominium
complete this certification process,
raise the levels of service across the
industry and make it possible for all
our staff on the front lines to earn
the status and the standard of living
that they richly deserve.”
■ ■ C M C o n d o m i n i u m M a n a g e r M a g a z i n e , S p r i n g 2 0 0 7
professionals) or grant licencing of
our industry. Instead, we were left
with the task of trying to create
and train a professional property
manager, grow our property man­
ager employment pool and teach
the condominium board members
the benefits of having Registered
Condominium Managers on their
management team. This is a task
with which we are all still struggling,
but one that is essential.
Although I had kept the original
certification overview binder on my
credenza for five years, I never made
the attempt to go through the pro­
cess. After all, how was this new
certification going to help my firm?
Certification appeared to have little
effect on increasing fees or creating
a more professional property man­
agement staff. At the same time, the
condominium construction market
was seeing an unprecedented boom
and the resulting pressures on the
condominium property management
market became self evident. ACMO
had been reporting that there were
approximately three hundred Regis­
tered Condominium Managers cur­
rently working in the industry. Based
on the number of condominium cor­
porations in Ontario, that number
was not nearly high enough.
Percel Inc. is a family-owned
small/medium-sized condominium
management company whose port­
folio has been purposely kept below
4000 units. We want to know our cli­
ents (large or small) and believe we
can never stop trying to improve our
levels of service in all aspects of this
business. I now believed that ACMO
2000 was for us!
■ The Road Ahead
ACMO was also taking the matter
much more seriously. In 2005, the
Certification and Standards Com­
mittee scheduled a series of break­
fast seminars in Richmond Hill (with
representatives of the BDC) to help
the interested firms with the process
of creating their policy manuals. We
found the process very informative
and were determined to complete
the program. The round table en­
vironment promoted the collabora­
tion between competitive companies
to reach our common goal: ACMO
2000 certification. Mike Nasser of
the BDC, although not a property
Brown & Beattie
manager, proved to be entertaining
and extremely helpful to the attend­
ees. The new certification manual
made it quite easy to understand
what they were trying to get us to
create – a method of putting down
on paper the policies and processes
we were likely using already.
■ The Search for an ACMO
2000 Leader
Understanding what we needed to
do and doing it proved to be quite dif­
ferent. First we had to create the role
of ACMO 2000 Leader. Most owners
of property management companies
lack the time to undertake a project
of this magnitude on their own. After
the realization that I could not ac­
complish this task alone, I delegated
the task to a person within the com­
pany who was newer to the indus­
try, younger, well educated and most
importantly, she did not know the
words, I can’t. She still had to per­
form her regular duties at head office
but also had to make time to compile
all the documents, procedures and
library materials we had on hand and
to assemble them into one concise
area for later assembly into the new
Practical Approaches
Building Science Engineering
Sensible Results
Reserve Fund Studies
Performance Audits
Condition Assessments
Specifications & Tendering
Forensic Engineering
Roof Consulting
Construction Review
Contract Administration
Newmarket
(905) 476 0275
Fax: 476 4745
www.brownbeattie.com
Guelph
(519) 827 1757
Fax: 827 1759
(416) 737 2241
15 - 6400 Millcreek Drive, Suite 418, Mississauga, ON L5N 3E7
(416) 737 2231
C M C o n d o m i n i u m M a n a g e r M a g a z i n e , S p r i n g 2 0 0 7 ■ ■
manual. This imposed a new, previ­
ously unconsidered cost for this certi­
fication process – overtime wages. We
found it difficult to create this manual
without having our staff spend a sub­
stantial amount of overtime on the
process. After all, if we were going to
do it, it would be done right.
Halfway into the process, our
ACMO 2000 Leader resigned her po­
sition to move onto other responsi­
bilities at IBM. While we wished her
well, we were forced to re-examine
our process and our timeline.
Shortly after her departure, we
re-acquired the services of a for­
mer employee – Carmelo Colangelo,
RCM. Seeing it as an opportunity
to utilize his strong administrative
and planning talents, in addition to
“After all, if we were going
to do it, it would be done
right.”
some property management duties,
we gave Carmelo the role of ACMO
2000 Leader. He had been attending
the breakfast seminars previously
as a representative of his newly cre­
ated management firm, but after
seeing the overall requirements of
“the firm” to become ACMO 2000
certified, he stopped attending.
His first task was to formalize our
Corporate Policy Manual. This man­
ual encompasses many of the items
that are also included in the ACMO
2000 Certification Policy Manual.
■ 1 0 ■ C M C o n d o m i n i u m M a n a g e r M a g a z i n e , S p r i n g 2 0 0 7
In October 2006, this manual was
formally presented to our staff at a
meeting. After the two-hour presen­
tation session was complete and all
questions were answered, all staff
signed for receipt of this manual.
Over the next two months, we
collaborated along with some of our
other staff to gather the rest of the
information required to complete
the Policy Manual. We created new
forms, wrote new policies where none
had existed and tuned other policies
to make them more reasonable. We
tested the use of the information
with some clients to ensure that they
would be acceptable. We searched
the internet to find all government
websites that posted the legislation
(Acts and Codes, etc.) and added
these links to our electronic library.
Our electronic library, located on
our corporate server, also contained
master copies (downloadable as PDF
files) of all forms that we expected
our staff to use on our properties or
at head office. Many weekends and
evenings were spent refining the writ­
ten material and eventually it was all
placed into the black binder.
■ From Policy Manual
to Gap Analysis
Then there was the Gap Analysis. This was the process of putting
our policies and systems under the
magnifying glass of the BDC. Mike
Nasser attended our offices in late
November to perform this task. We
were very nervous because we didn’t
want to go through this twice. We
were also under a deadline and knew
that failure to pass would also incur
another one thousand and sixty dol­
lar ($1060) fee to the BDC. To our de­
light, Mike was very easy going and
made us feel quite at ease. He stated
that he was very impressed with the
detail and the effort that went into
our Policy Manual and that since he
could not find any “gaps”, he would
have to make some minor presenta­
tion suggestions because he could not
leave without correcting something.
After three hours and a fair bit of re­
laxed humour, Mike announced that
if his site visit to one of our managed
properties went as well as the current
session had gone, our certification
would be complete in the eyes of the
BDC. In the end, due to the efforts
of our ACMO 2000 Leader and our
joint collaboration, we passed the
first stage of the Gap Analysis with
ease. Two weeks later, Mike did visit
one of our highrise complexes, with
our ACMO 2000 Leader to complete
stage two of the Gap Analysis. Mike
found that there were no gaps! He
also explained to us that although
2007 JOINT CONDO
CONFERENCE
November 2–3
Building Better
Communities — Going Green
five companies were in the process of
setting up the appointments for the
Gap Analysis, Percel was the only
firm to be certified by the December
31, 2006 deadline and, in addition,
Percel was the only ACMO 2000 cer­
tified firm to have met the newly es­
tablished certification requirements
for 2006. The other eleven ACMO
2000 certified firms would still have
to be re-certified under the new stan­
dard. We were all very proud of our
achievement and looked forward to
seeing the fruits of our labour.
■ So…What Does ACMO
2000 Certification Mean?
We had done it. We were to
be certified, but what did it really
mean? Were we any different or
better than we were before? Maybe.
Would this certification translate
into winning more contracts, at­
taining higher management fees, at­
tracting better managers or was it
just another piece of paper? That
remains to be seen.
Our acknowledgement came in a
letter from ACMO in late December
CANMAR
C O N T R A C T I N G
L T D.
ALL ASPECTS OF CONCRETE
R E S T O R AT I O N I N C L U D I N G :
underground garages
•
hydrodemolition
•
total structural slab
removal & replacement
•
traffic topping and
waterproofing systems
•
sealer application
•
expansion joints
•
balconies and masonry
•
caulking
BONDED AND INSURED WITH
OV E R 2 0 Y E A R S E X P E R I E N C E
• s pecializing in structural reha bilitatio n •
TORONTO
CONSTRUCTION
ASSOCIATION
21 GOODMARK PLACE
TORONTO, ON
M9W 6P9
TEL
FAX
MISSISSAUGA
CONSTRUCTION
ASSOCIATION
WWW
/ 416.674.8791
/ 416.674.7956
.canmarcontracting.COM
[email protected]
C M C o n d o m i n i u m M a n a g e r M a g a z i n e , S p r i n g 2 0 0 7 ■ 1 1 ■
2006. It stated that we were to be
congratulated for completing the
process and while it contained a ref­
erence to a recommendation by the
BDC, we had to wait until the Cer­
tification Management Standards
Council met in January 2007 to be
officially certified. Then on January
19, 2007, at the ACMO luncheon,
Percel received honourable men­
tion as having completed the ACMO
2000 Certification. This acknowl­
edgement was certainly appreciated.
■ So Where Do We Go
From Here?
During the first six months of 2007
we will be training all our staff on
the use of the new Policy Manual,
on accessing the electronic library,
on standardizing all our processes in
accordance with our Manual and we
will be delivering directors’ binders to
each of our client boards. This process
will ensure that although we continue
to provide a very personal service to
our clientele, our standard services
will not be affected by the individual
employee but will be delivered in
accordance with our standardized
format. All forms, reports, and com­
“…our staff can utilize
their unique backgrounds
and knowledge base while
taking the guesswork out
of the provision of the
quality services that they
are to provide…”
munications are now standardized.
We are looking forward to a
bright future wherein our staff can
utilize their unique backgrounds and
knowledge base while taking the
guesswork out of the provision of
the quality services that they are to
provide on our behalf. They now
have a formalized written playbook
to follow. Our clients will be the
beneficiaries of our efforts and in
return we should have a brighter
future. That is the plan.
Our staff are excited about the
benefits this program and its status
will have for them and for Percel as
a company. In a perfect world this
should translate to more opportuni­
ties for us, and staff within the com­
pany. It should mean higher salaries
for our staff and the continuation
of the long-term relationships we
currently enjoy with our clients. It
should make us better at our jobs.
In the end, we know that people are
flawed and that errors are inevitable.
It is our belief that by moving for­
ward with open minds and our new
playbook in hand, we can meet any
challenge and provide industry lead­
ing service levels to our clients now
and in the future.
Although the ACMO 2000 Certi­
fication may provide us with some
advantage over our competitors in
the short term, we would rather see
every management company in On­
tario that services a condominium
complete this certification process,
raise the levels of service across the
industry and make it possible for all
our staff on the front lines, to earn
the status and the standard of living
that they richly deserve. We consider
this our challenge.■
Robert L. Weinberg, MBA, RCM,
ACCI, is president of Percel Inc., the
association’s newest ACMO 2000
Corporate member.
ng 14 years of excel
i
t
a
r
le n
leb
e
ce
C
ICC Property Management Ltd.
COMPLETE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT SERVICES
ICC Property Management Ltd.
1550 16th Avenue
Building B, Suite 200
Richmond Hill, ON L4B 3K9
Tel: (905) 884-7900
Fax: (905) 884-6090
� Industrial � Commercial
� Condominiums � Cooperatives � Townhouses
� Condominium Financial Services
� New Condominium Development Consultants
� Computerized Maintenance Management System
PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT
MEMBER
24 Hour Emergency Line
(416) 346-0323
Visit our Web site at www.iccpropertymanagement.com
■ 1 2 ■ C M C o n d o m i n i u m M a n a g e r M a g a z i n e , S p r i n g 2 0 0 7