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Gordian Staffing allows community management business owners to get rid of all the clutter in their daily activities, so they can focus on what matters the most – growing their business. 

More than a traditional staffing company, Gordian Staffing focuses on finding candidates who can make a positive impact from day one while also being able to grow with your business over time. From the rigorous hiring process to continued consulting, education, and training, Gordian Staffing is a one-stop solution for any community management company’s employment needs.

Unlike any other staffing agency you have worked with before, Gordian Staffing provides community management companies with full time remote workers who primarily live in Mexico. These employees are 100% dedicated to the company they serve, they are not temporary workers and do not split their time between companies.   

We talked with the Gordian Staffing Founder Rob Buffington, CMCA, about his company’s vision and how they can help transform community management companies into the best version of themselves with high-quality, experienced, remote employees.

 

Q: What makes your company different than your competitors?

Rob: While there are several other companies offering entry level remote employees, no other company offers the full range of positions from CSR and Admin all the way up to remote CAM. We’re also the only company that was founded by HOA managers and has over 80% of their staff in the HOA industry.

We also pay our employees the best and take the smallest margins so that we can do everything we can to keep employees for the long term. Our philosophy is that we’d rather pay people better and keep them as part of the organization for years than take a churn and burn approach like so many other companies. We also have boots on the ground for our team. Rather than being just a website and an email, we have offices that people can come to when they have questions. We have regular socials and continuing education classes so that our RTMs know they are being supported on an ongoing basis.

Q: What drives the philosophy and purpose to your business, making it stand out from others in the industry?

Our philosophy is win-win-win. Many staffing companies pay their employees the bare minimum or keep them as independent contractors to avoid paying taxes. While this may work for entry level employees in the short term, your best people are going to want to be able to buy a house or finance a car. We also offer full medical, restaurant and food tickets, etc. While this cuts into our margins, it lets us treat our employees the way they should be.

Similarly, we work with our clients on an ongoing basis. Not just recruiting, but consulting, regular check-in, etc. So we save our clients money, pay our employees above average rates and benefits, and then take a portion of our profits and give back to local charities and our employees in the form of profit sharing and charitable giving. 

Q: How does your company culture help your success?

Our company culture sends a message to everyone who works for us, that we’re going to treat them well and treat them with respect. While some companies don’t see a problem with under reporting wages to save on taxes, we believe that sends a message to employees that “we’re going to do the bare minimum for you”. This allows us to be in a position of trust with the employees and get honest feedback that we can use to help clients and RTMs succeed.

Q: What role do people play in your organization?

As a staffing company, people are pretty much the name of the game. We attract the best people based on our clients needs to help both sides succeed.

Q: What types of changes have you seen in the industry that you are addressing or working toward solving?

We’ve absolutely seen remote staffing become more mainstream (some would say we’ve helped it along). As more positions are moving remote, we’re working to ensure that training is available for employees and clients to ensure that the work is done well. We’re partnering with technology companies to ensure that there is oversight and security in place regardless of the task.

We’re also developing training classes for new employees to take the burden off of clients, as well as building a rock solid HR team that communicates with employees regularly.

Q: What do you see as the future of the Community Management industry?

The biggest change that we’re going to see in the next two years is the change to what I call the “Account Executive Model” of community management. With CAM retention at an all time low and burnout at an all time high, changes have to be made. Currently the CAM is responsible for almost everything in a community, but manages a small number of HOAs.

I believe that we will see the advent of CAMs managing large support staffs that allow them to manage only the boards, while ACAMs manage the homeowners, maintenance coordinators manage the maintenance side and a Client Services department fields the large volume, high complexity tasks that take so much of a CAMs time.

Moving to this model will mean that CAMs can manage larger portfolios, and since most of the support roles can be done by remote staff, more money will be freed up in the budget to contribute to the bottom line.