The age is generally too old, the physical skills are limited, and the service is difficult to meet the needs of residents
How can "aging" migrant workers make property services "better"?
Our reporter Zhao Chen
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At the end of the year, the property staff began to urge the payment of property fees.
Because the migrant workers in the security, cleaning, maintenance and other positions of the residential property are too old, they have insufficient skills and physical fitness, and cannot meet the needs of residents in the provision of property services.
In this regard, experts suggest that increase the hard skills and "soft skills" training of property personnel.
Older migrant workers also said they would try their best to learn new skills to meet service standards.
"Hello, are you the owner? This year's property fee can be paid." "Our building pays the property fee according to the standard of 1 yuan per square meter, and your home can be calculated according to the area."... At the end of the year, many residents began to pay Receive property fee payment reminders.
The reporter learned that in the field of property services, many of the staff engaged in basic positions such as security, cleaning, and maintenance are older migrant workers.
Under the trend of increasing coverage of urban property services, these property staff are the most common figures in the community.
They guard the residents' home life and grow old in the community...
Construction workers switch to property maintenance
Master Pu, who has lived in Beijing for a long time, still has a local accent in Mandarin.
He is from rural Gansu and has been doing property maintenance for more than ten years in a community in Haidian District, Beijing.
"There is a water leak in the kitchen, please come and help repair it quickly" "The ceiling at the entrance of the corridor has accumulated water, please deal with it as soon as possible" "The heating at home is not hot, is the pipe blocked?" In the community, Master Pu's daily work is Handle maintenance needs of owners.
Why choose to become a property maintenance personnel?
Master Pu explained that it was because he was getting older and needed to "transform".
Master Pu, who is 61 years old this year, was a construction worker when he was young. He has been to Gansu and Shanghai, and traveled around to make a living following various large or small projects.
He has worked in various types of work such as carpentry, bricklayer, and steelworker, and he is better at bricklaying.
"I'm getting older, and I can't keep up with my physical strength. I can see that the speed of bricklaying is getting slower and slower than that of young people and myself." Master Pu, who is getting older, decided to leave the construction site, "Compared with the construction site , the income of doing property is lower, but it doesn’t take so much physical effort, and we older people can handle it.”
"Where are there any young people, very few! They are all people in their 50s looking for property jobs." The reporter learned from the job search agency that migrant workers engaged in property service work are generally older, and they are mostly engaged in security, cleaning, and landscaping , Maintenance and other work, the salary level varies slightly depending on whether you have professional skills and other factors.
"I work as a property developer in the community," said Mr. Li from Henan when introducing his work.
He is 57 years old this year, and he is good at repairing water and electricity. He has been undertaking work such as repairing circuits in the community for more than ten years.
Whether the flowers and plants need to be trimmed, whether the garbage has been sorted, whether the vehicles are parked in an orderly manner, in their spare time, Master Li and his colleagues often walk around the community.
For him, the community is not only a place of work, but also a second "home".
Insufficient skills, communication skills need to be strengthened
As residents have higher and higher requirements for living quality, the skill requirements for property staff are also getting higher and higher.
"It is often necessary to communicate with the owners, focusing on solutions and coordination." Master Li said.
Although he is mainly responsible for maintenance of water and electricity, he can also handle small repairs such as changing locks and lights after serving in the community for a long time.
In his view, by the end of the year, the most common communication with the owners is the collection of property fees.
"There are some owners who do not cooperate with the payment, but there are a few of them, and they need to communicate." In Master Li's view, owners who are unwilling to pay the property fee are often because they feel that the work of the property is not done properly.
For example, I feel that this year's property management work is not done well, water leakage and other situations are not handled properly, and conflicts between neighbors have not been assisted in negotiation, etc., "When it comes time to pay property fees, doubts about property services will be superimposed."
In this regard, many property staff feel that they can understand, "It is normal for owners to complain, after all, property management may not be perfect." A property manager told reporters that the work undertaken by the community property is very complicated.
Taking his community as an example, according to the number of residents, there should be 15 to 18 staff including security guards, cleaning, maintenance, etc., but the actual staffing is only 10 people. Some jobs may not be as good as they should be."
In the opinion of some residents, the professional skills and communication skills of community property staff need to be improved.
"When the home urgently needed to repair the electric light, the property owner went to see it but found that it couldn't be solved. We still had to find maintenance personnel from outside. There are also some property staff whose service attitude needs to be improved." Ms. Li, a resident, reported to the reporter.
"Working in the community is different from working silently on the construction site. In the community, we must not only do the work well, but also properly handle the relationship with the owners." Master Pu believes.
Although not all problems can be solved, he and his colleagues still stay in the community and in front of the phone to ensure that they can respond to the needs of the owners as soon as possible.
Urgent need to improve hard skills and "soft skills"
For migrant workers living in big cities, the salary level of property staff engaged in basic jobs is not high.
Taking Beijing as an example, the reporter learned through the job-seeking platform that the salary of community property customer service work is mostly 3,500 to 4,500 yuan per month, cleaning work is mostly 3,500 to 4,000 yuan per month, and comprehensive water and electricity maintenance work is mostly 4,000 yuan per month. ~5500 yuan.
If you want to increase your income, you need strong skills.
Many older migrant workers said that due to their age, their ability to acquire knowledge and learn is not as good as it used to be.
Although I also want to learn new things and new skills, I don't know how to improve.
Migrant workers engaged in property services are older, which is in line with the changing trend of the age structure of migrant workers.
According to the "2021 Migrant Workers Monitoring Survey Report", the average age of migrant workers across the country is 41.7 years old.
Among them, migrant workers over the age of 50 accounted for 27.3%, an increase of 0.9 percentage points over the previous year.
"Young people can have more employment options. Therefore, in the traditional property service field, more older migrant workers are 'retained'." Associate researcher of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security Sciences, China Labor Society Modern Service Industry Han Wei, secretary-general of the branch, believes that the working scene of property management is in the living environment, which requires practitioners not only to have the skills and abilities to solve problems, but also to improve "soft skills" such as communication skills and social interaction skills. It’s a job that requires hard work and dedication.”
Han Wei believes that the current "soft skills" training for property staff is still lagging behind, and there is not much content involved in the relevant training.
Therefore, it is necessary to focus on strengthening to help relevant personnel improve their comprehensive working ability.
In Master Li's opinion, if the service is good at ordinary times, issues such as collecting property fees will not be so difficult.
For older migrant workers engaged in property services, this may be a job that will last until retirement.
"There are not as many pursuits and choices as when we were young. We will do our work in a down-to-earth manner, and we will try our best to learn and do what we can do." Master Li said.
(Worker's Daily)