One person, three roles' work
From 2020 to 2022 I ran support, maintenance intake, inspections, turnovers and bills alongside marketing, while volume tripled. I kept it running with documentation and automation, then made the case to split it, and trained the people who took it over. Having my hands in all of it also gave me something lasting: a clear picture of how the whole operation fits together.
The problem
Requests came by phone, email and Slack, with no single queue. Volume roughly tripled with no one added.
Constraints
No extra headcount
For three years the answer was to absorb it.
Many channels
Calls, inbox, Slack and the property system.
Seasonal peaks
August turnover months brought the heaviest volume of the year.
Key decisions
Document while doing.
Writing guides as I handled each process meant the next person wouldn't need me.
Automate the repeats.
Forms, reminders and notifications took routine follow-ups off the queue.
Make the case with data.
Response times stretched as volume tripled, and that evidence supported splitting the role.
Train the successor properly.
A written training plan, live training and a help channel.
How it works
Outcome
- Answered up to about 80% of the company's calls before the role was split.
- The work was split across a support coordinator, a maintenance director and an accounts role; I trained each.
- Escalations tagging me fell from 211 to 53, which freed me for technology work.
What it gave me
Running support, maintenance intake, inspections, turnovers and bills at the same time meant I saw how every part of the work connected. I knew where a request started, who it passed through, and where it tended to get stuck.
That context shaped everything I built afterwards. The core database, the automations and the internal tools were all designed around how work actually moves between people and departments, not how it looks on an org chart.
What I'd do differently
- Raise the capacity question with data a year earlier, instead of absorbing the growth.