Staff and clients of a national property management company will benefit thanks to the restructuring and redefining of roles within the organisation.

Hermans & Romans Property Solutions have instituted a staff restructuring that now sees company shareholders Leslie Hermans as Chief Operating Officer and Kevin Roman as Chief Executive Officer. This not only ensures a continued client-services approach to business, but also effectively paves the way for staff promotions at every level.

“While Leslie and I will continue to work very closely together, this means that he will control the day to day operations of our current portfolios under management, with two new senior managers, Susarah Wileman and Liezel Conradie,” says Kevin, whose focus will shift to marketing and new business management and his other passion, people and skills development.

Staff development and training, explains Kevin, is one of the core values of this pioneering company, which was established a mere four years ago with a staff of six in Cape Town. Today, Hermans & Roman manage properties in excess of R3 billion nationally, with a staff complement of close to 100. Says Kevin: “The company continues to evolve and to this end, we instituted an incentive scheme linked to key performances in August, which saw new roles and functions being developed with staff members thereby providing them with growth and wealth creation opportunities. 

The incentive scheme is one of the results of a strategy session initially attended by an extended management team, and subsequently by all staff members where they played an interactive part in formulating a future business plan for the company. The company has since  identified and documented 400 individual processes which constitute its property management business– from credit control facilities to project management – which all play a crucial role in boosting efficiency.

The next step, says Kevin, is to continue to identify staff with key skills for either promotion, training, or both. The processes are linked to staff key performance areas and bonuses and if achieved successfully would see H&R running an extremely slick operation. The next step, which has been started, is a skills assessment to identify staff with aptitude for management, showing leadership skills and doing a gap analysis. This with a view to promotion of individuals and further training and multi-skilling.

And this applies to staff on every level, he adds, citing former PA Susarah Wileman, who recently became a senior manager, and the Johannesburg office’s former tea lady Maria Kgorutla who was recently appointed as switchboard operator.

In effect, this people-driven company has managed to identify how to best facilitate growth without overloading their employees or letting service standards slip. The result is a stronger management team, focussing on the company becoming the best rather than the biggest,  with the appointment of at least four relationship managers to “micro-manage the various departments “ explains Kevin.

Hermans & Roman is determined to have their final staff structure in place to coincide with their start up goal of managing property with a capital value of R5billion by 2008.  And this excludes public sector property management, a portfolio they’ve been making strong strides in and are keen on expanding. “We are continually looking to improve our assets under management and further improve efficiency levels,” says Kevin, “Which is why, of the people we have recently identified as possible future senior members of staff, we are also looking to boost some of our junior staff with specialist skills in the public sector.” Now there’s an opportunity few aspiring young property players could resist.

Issued by:         HWB Communications

Contact:           Christine Skinner
Telephone:        (021) 462 0416
Fax:                  (021) 462 0427
Email:               This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

On behalf of:     Hermans & Roman Property Solutions
Contact:           Kevin Roman
Telephone;       (021) 918 9500
Fax:                  (021) 914 3934