GM Hale Discusses Employee Retention, Succession & Maintenance

During the 2024 HSVPOA Board Directors Retreat, General Manager Kelly Hale discussed employee retention rates, the employee succession plan, and deferred maintenance. Explaining how things were in the past, Hale and Ken Unger are working with a plan that minimizes and eliminates our weaknesses with a better business model. This has been accomplished in the past two years with a blended approach, one step at a time.

Retention rate and succession plan

GM Hale said there are two things to consider regarding turnover.  “You have a pre-ninety.  You look at the turnover in the first ninety days.  That will indicate the selection process and your training process.”

“That is where we saw a slight uptick [in attrition rate].”

“Our Superintendents have never been treated like leaders.  It’s all new to them.  We’re walking a real quick path here to get them up to speed.  One thing is how they onboard people.”

The teams have to be good and work together without always having constant supervision.

“In the first 90-day turnover rate, you internally review what you are doing—selection and training. We did that.”

“The other one is the total turnover rate. You must slow down your attrition so you don’t lose skill levels.”

“There is good turnover, which we have been doing for two and a half years.  They are not bad people, they can’t change their mindset or get the vision on what is best for us and our community.  We’ve introduced them to what I call the industry.”

“I would rather be short than deal with somebody that does not have the attitude we need.”

“It is a culture change at the same time; You are going through caring about your members, your community, and health and safety.”

“I feel very confident things are going to start slowing down.  But I like measuring the total turnover because it looks at the stability of your skill sets.  We are talking about people who are equipment operators and people who run spray rigs.  There are specialized jobs here that we teach in-house.  I am not going to get somebody off the street and say, ‘Go run that spray rig.'”

“That is why the superintendents have been told, “We use a three-person-bench method for every position.”  We need three people trained for every job.  All the way down, there is a succession plan.

Deferred maintenance

Three or five years ago, staffing was minimal, equipment wasn’t replaced, and maintenance was deferred.  “That works okay if you are in a Covid situation; that may work for 18 or 24 months, but not twenty years.” 

Hale said three or five years ago, we didn’t have enough employees for trash pickup, trail maintenance, or clean up.  “it is the little simple, nickel and dime things that we, as Members and our Guests, expect to see.  It is not just about the recreation and the aesthetics of the community.  It is what is underground.  Before you notice anything else, it is not that you didn’t mow the golf course; you don’t have water coming out of the faucet, or the toilet doesn’t flush.”

“We know we allowed our golf courses to go right up to the edge. I hear this all the time, ‘I don’t play golf.  I don’t understand why we put money [in the courses].”

“We’re the largest gated community in North America.  There are nine golf courses within the fence line, including the one here at Diamante.  There is no other business model in the United States, North America, or anywhere in the world that I can find that is close to this.  To think this is not a golf community…You can tell yourself that over and over again.  That is fine.  I will not argue with you if that is what you think.  But at the end of the day, You will not find a business model with nine golf courses associated with it.”

“This is what brings people in the gate.  Like it or not.”

“We can’t allow these [courses] to go.”

“We found that a Board from twelve years ago discussed shutting down Balboa Golf Course and abandoning it. You can’t do that. Legally, you can’t do that because people bought homes there. They have a sense of expectation when they build their homes, and I have a sense of expectation on what it will take for our community to stay whole for twenty, forty, fifty years. To do that, you have to have marketability.”

Hale said that some people want to stay in the old days.  “Fine.  Go back over there.  The reality check here is that we have a lot of positive things.  We have a plan for the golf courses.  We have a plan for trails.  We have plans for the buildings.  The fitness center has plans.  Everything is getting attention.”

“The way Ken [Unger] and I started this is we took a blended approach.  That means everything had to get some money.  And everything needed some paint and polish because we kicked the can down the road for twenty years.  That is how we started.  We started an attack formation.  I will be honest: Ken and I sat down (we were friends before we took these jobs – we met each other when we were building our houses) – I said, ‘You go that way, and I will go this way.’  He went that way on water, wastewater, and roads, and I went this way with golf courses and everything else.  That is how we have been mowing down the problem real quick.”

Transcribed and written by Cheryl Dowden