Kairoi Residential, based in San Antonio, is stepping up to the pandemic plate by paying out bonuses to its at-risk staff and providing online mixology classes to its residents to soften the blows of he coronavirus. The efforts to get ahead of the curve started at the beginning of the crisis.
“Internally we start each morning with a meeting of our COVID task force, which has continued since day one until now,” says Tammy Freiling, executive vice president. “Our goal is to come out of this fast when things change, which they will.”
The meetings spawned proactive outreach efforts to the communities it manages and the people who live there in the form of phone calls. The first two calls to the firm’s employees were all good news. “On the first call we announced there would not be any layoffs,” says Freiling. “There’s a lot fear out here right now. On our second all-hands call we announced we were going to pay an extra $1,000 to all of our property-level employees—what we call the Kairoi stimulus plan.”
The company is also trying to counter the sudden lack of building amenities by getting creative online. “They’re calling it being socially distant, but the reality is we are physically distanced,” says Freiling. “So we’ve been rolling out resident events that are virtual, including a ‘maintenance minute,’ which is a how-to video of small routine repairs, and mixology classes sponsored by a local bar, where we’re able to deliver ingredients ahead of time and have a class.”
Good spirits may prove a useful key in navigating the virus as will being tech-savvy. Freiling is already seeing the industry transformed and consumers adapting. “Technology is forcing residents to get more comfortable with it who weren’t all the way there,” she says, “whether it’s electronic payments or virtual tours or self-guided tours or electronic leasing.”
But the real wolf at the door is now showing up with the start of each new month. “In our industry the fear wasn’t just the pandemic but was being able to collect rent, and that has a lot to do with shutting down the economy and unemployment,” adds Freiling. “April surpassed our expectations, and it wasn’t without a lot of hard work from the operations team reaching out to residents, working out payment plans. But May is going to be a challenge. We had a government stimulus, people still had their March paycheck. We’re not out of the water yet. There is still a lot of economic impact ahead, not from the virus but from the economic slowdown.”
