Share
Like everyone else, association executives had to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic without a map in the glove box or a GPS on the dash. When the world was shut down, all lanes merged home.
Now, however, that single lane has opened into a confusing interchange of options and employee expectations, starting with what Tricia Thomas calls the “Why” question.
When the subject of remote work comes up, “that’s the first question anyone is going to ask,” says Thomas, rce, CEO of Bay East Association of REALTORS® in Pleasanton, Calif. “If I’ve been able to do my job and do it well in the last two years, whether hybrid or virtual, then why do I have to come back into the office?”
Not every AE has the same answer, but learning how others have navigated the return to business as usual—and thinking through the potential hazards along the way—can help you find the right answer for your association.
A Head Start
Before the pandemic, DaVina Lara, CEO of Bridge Association of REALTORS® in Berkeley, Calif., had already explored the work-from-home landscape by allowing a couple of key employees to relocate, including her chief operating officer, whom she considered too valuable to lose despite his desire to return to his home in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Now, in addition to her COO, she has one employee in Las Vegas and another in Washington state—and she lives in Southern California. “I’m a unique breed in the industry,” she says. “I’m running an association located in the north from the south.”
Thomas also got a jump on the pandemic. Given California’s history of earthquakes, floods and wildfires, planning for an office shutdown seemed like insurance against the inevitable. That insurance paid off in March 2020.
“We shut the doors by noon [in response to the state’s pandemic shutdown orders], and we were up and running no more than a minute later,” she says. “Because we’d done some dry runs, we were able to move quickly to virtual without being concerned about what the consequences were going to be. That made me as a CEO more open-minded about the possibilities to create flexibility for the employees moving forward.”
For Thomas, post-pandemic, flexibility doesn’t mean 100% remote. That’s because preserving the culture of the office is a lot easier to do when people are physically present, she says. Although fully remote during the pandemic, save one employee who checked on the property during the shutdown, her 33-member staff is now roughly 10% virtual, 60% hybrid and 30% in-person—a percentage that’s more organic than prescriptive.
“We looked at what the jobs had become and how performance was for each individual and tried to adjust to the needs of the organization,” she says. “If virtual was going to work for the organization, then we allowed them to remain virtual. But when the shutdown ended, we needed some of the positions back in the office, like meeting and event planning, which literally couldn’t be done remotely.”
On the other hand, Lara flipped Thomas’ “Why?” question on its head. For her, the question was “Why not?”
“As we started to transition back in, I started to look at the statistics and at how other, larger companies were embracing that hybrid or work-from-home environment. I approached my board members and said, ‘Let’s really look at the necessity of bringing the staff back in.’ ”
On the MLS side, Lara and her board decided there was not a need because there was no face-to-face interaction with members. On the association side, they decided there was not a need because what had become the status quo was working fine: Onboarding was being successfully handled online, lockboxes were being successfully distributed by appointment (a process that was developed and refined during the pandemic) and virtual training was being well received, even in the post-shutdown environment.
Now, the association does some live events, some hybrid events and some virtual events, but the day-to-day operations remain virtual, a practice Lara says is still very much supported by her membership and her board—as is the fact that she lives in Southern California. The attitude, she says, is “If we can call you up and you can get it done, get it done.”
By contrast, Meighan Harris, rce, CEO of Bonita Springs–Estero Association of REALTORS® in Florida, brought her people fully back into the office in the spring of 2023 after what she calls a “tapered” return.
“We’re here to serve the members, and when I started to see a bit of strain or that it was taking away from the service the members were getting, it was time to call it quits,” she says. “I told them I’d always make considerations, but [remote is] not our normal way to work anymore.”
Similarly, Jessica Coates, rce, CEO of the Sacramento Association of REALTORS®, had her staff report back to the office in October 2022. However, she allows all her directors to approve work-from-home requests based on individual, temporary circumstances. “Everyone is appreciative that they have that option when needed,” she says. “I think post-pandemic talent retention requires employers to be open to more schedule flexibility.”
That consideration—talent retention—is never far from a CEO’s mind. Even if leaders don’t all agree just where on the work spectrum the virtual and hybrid options belong, they do agree remote working won’t go away.
“The job market is so tight, especially here in the Bay Area, that a lot of employers can be 100% virtual, and I think I would lose some highly qualified, very valuable people if I said, ‘Nope, you have to come back,’” Thomas says.
Lara concurs, adding that she also considers the virtual option a great way to expand the talent pool. If, say, she wants to hire someone for marketing, she’s not confined to employees in the Berkeley area. “I can bring in the best of the best no matter where they live,” she says. “And that’s beautiful.”
