by Rebecca Knight

A colleague opens up to you and says that he’s interviewing for a new job. He asks you to be his reference. Should you say yes? And if you do, what can you say to a potential new employer to best convey the applicant’s skills and expertise?

What the Experts Say

Providing a reference for a worthy employee is not only kind, it’s a smart career move. It’s “good professional karma to pay it forward,” says Jodi Glickman, the speaker, author, and founder of the communication consulting firm, Great on the Job. “Most people who are successful in their careers had help along the way,” she says. “And they’re happy to help someone else coming up.” Priscilla Claman, the president of Career Strategies, a Boston-based consulting firm and a contributor to the HBR Guide to Getting the Right Job, agrees: “If you’ve got someone who’s worked hard for you, and you can’t promote him or he’s moving to Minneapolis, you should try to support him however you can.” Here’s how to handle a reference request—and what to actually say (or write) to a recruiter.

Decide whether you want to do it

The first step, of course, is determining whether you’ll give the reference. If the person was a star performer and dedicated colleague, then the answer may be obvious. But if his track record was spotty or worse, be careful. “You’re putting your reputation on the line,” Glickman says. “If you refer someone, and he doesn’t perform, you look bad.” You should also consider whether your company allows you to be a reference. Claman says that many companies forbid employees from giving job references to current or former colleagues, stipulating that reference checks go through HR. While this rule is perhaps the “most violated policy in the panoply of HR policies,” it’s smart to know what you are allowed and not allowed to do.

Be honest

Whatever you decide, be truthful with your colleague about what you’re willing to do and say. If you feel you really can’t serve as a reference, say so, says Glickman. She recommends declining this way. “Say, ‘I am not going to be able to give you a strong enough recommendation. You need someone who can really sing your praises.’” If your appraisal of the candidate’s abilities is mixed, Claman advises having a “conversation [with the applicant] about what exactly you might say” to a reference checker. Be candid, but diplomatic about the particulars. “Say, ‘I could give you a reference about how well you deal with customers, but I can’t give you a reference that includes your ability to stick to a budget.”

Prepare

When you do agree to give a reference, ask the candidate for assistance. “If you don’t have enough information to speak off-the-cuff, or you worked with the person a long time ago, request an up-to-date résumé and then have her refresh your memory on her top accomplishments at your organization,” says Glickman. Savvy, smart candidates provide three references—often a mixture of former and current bosses, coworkers, and subordinates—that can speak to their different strengths. So ask the candidate what she’d like you to highlight, says Claman. Is it her rapport with customers? Her project management skills? Her technical chops? Also request information about the role she’s being considered for and why she wants the job. “Ask her, ‘Why is this the right next job for you?’”

If you’ve been asked for a written recommendation, which is still a prominent feature in some professions, such as teaching, as well as in graduate school applications, suggest that your colleague prepare a draft letter with all of the relevant information that you can then “edit as you see fit,” says Claman.

Use specific examples

Whether it’s a written recommendation or a telephone conversation, hiring managers are often interested in two key aspects of a candidate’s on-the-job performance. The first is behavioral, says Glickman. They want to know how the candidate relates to other colleagues, which is basically “a character reference.” The second aspect concerns his technical skills and expertise. “They want to know how he drove revenue by X%, or improved sales by X margin,” she says. In both cases, “be as specific as you can about the contributions” the candidate made to your organization, says Claman.

If the candidate is being considered for a job in which he doesn’t have direct experience, it can be tricky to come up with the right anecdotes. Describe the time when he picked up a new professional responsibility and what he achieved; talk about how he spearheaded a cross-functional project and the result he produced. The goal is for the hiring manager to infer competence. “Talk about specific and special circumstances—don’t be generic,” Claman says.

Be positive

“The level of enthusiasm you bring to the conversation and the superlatives you use to describe the candidate” should convey your opinion of the applicant’s abilities, says Glickman. “The highest praise you can give [in a reference check] is saying something like, ‘I would hire this person in a heartbeat. This is a person I want on my team.’” Sometimes reference checkers ask about a candidate’s weaknesses or press you to rank the candidate based on other employees. But you shouldn’t go there, says Claman. “Never give a negative reference—it’s far too fraught.” Trying to be funny or tongue-and-cheek is also ill advised. “Be careful about making a joke,” says Claman. “Things can so easily get blown out of proportion. Stick to the facts.”

Follow up

Many applicants are only vaguely aware of when and if their references are being checked and so it’s a thoughtful gesture to “let the candidate know you spoke to the hiring manager,” says Claman. Jobseekers are often hungry for information about their fate in the selection process and the very fact that you got a call “gives them a better sense of what’s going on and lets them know they’re a more serious candidate.” You needn’t provide a “blow-by-blow” of what was discussed, but if you are so inclined, candidates often appreciate it. “The candidate is responsible for letting you know if he got the job,” adds Glickman. But it doesn’t hurt to remind him of this. “Say, ‘Keep me posted.’ And then hope he does.”

Principles to Remember

Do

• Be honest about what you are and are not willing to say to the recruiter
• Ask the candidate to refresh your memory about his top accomplishments and contributions if you haven’t worked together in awhile
• Convey enthusiasm about your colleague and her ability to do the job well

Don’t

• Agree to provide a reference for someone you don’t believe in—remember: your reputation is on the line
• Be vague—offer specific examples of the candidate’s abilities and strengths
• Feel like you have to provide the candidate with a blow-by-blow account of what you discussed with the recruiter, but following up is a kind gesture

Rebecca Knight is a freelance journalist in Boston and a lecturer at Wesleyan University.  Her work has been published in The New York Times, USA Today, and The Financial Times.

Rep. Israel Renews Push to Make Condos, Co-ops, and Certain Common Interest Communities Eligible for Storm Recovery Grants

by RealEstateRama

Three years after Superstorm Sandy hit New York, Congressman Steve Israel (D –NY) renewed his push and announced legislation that would make co-ops, condo associations, and certain common interest communities eligible for the same vital assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) available to other homeowners. Currently, co-ops, condo associations, and common interest communities are only eligible to receive loans and not grants. Following Superstorm Sandy, Rep. Israel wrote a letter and urged FEMA to make co-op and condo associations eligible for storm recovery grants. Unfortunately, three years later many co-op, condo associations, and common interest communities are still in desperate need of repairs and deserve the same vital assistance that other homeowners are eligible for.

Rep. Israel said, “A storm does not discriminate where it hits, and FEMA should not be discriminating against what type of homeowners it helps. It is disgraceful that three years after Sandy devastated parts of Queens and Long Island, that New York co-ops, condos, and common interest communities still do not qualify for critical storm recovery grants. I will continue fighting for passage of legislation to allow co-op, condo associations, and common interest communities to apply for federal grants from FEMA so these homeowners are eligible to receive the vital assistance they deserve.”

“Three years after Hurricane Sandy, some co-op and condo housing properties are still struggling to recover. Damage from the storm placed staggering financial burdens upon the middle class families who reside in co-ops and condos. These co-op and condo communities must be eligible for federal FEMA grants when disaster strikes. For many families co-ops and condos represent affordable housing, but without the FEMA safety net, another storm could make them unaffordable,” said Warren Schreiber, President of the Bay Terrace Community Alliance, Inc., Bay Terrace Cooperative Section I, Inc. and Co-President of Presidents Co-op & Condo Council.

Co-ops are housing communities made up of individual apartment owners who help manage and maintain housing, common areas, and residential infrastructure. Housing co-ops exist in every neighborhood in New York City. FEMA classifies co-op associations, along with condos, as “businesses,” meaning they are eligible to apply for loans through the Small Business Administration, but not for FEMA grants. Currently, FEMA offers grants for recovery efforts through the Individuals and Households Program (IHP) as well as the Public Assistance (PA) Program.

Rep. Israel’s legislation would list co-op and condo associations as entities eligible to apply for assistance through FEMA’s Individual and Households Program (IHP). It would also add definitions for housing cooperative and condominium into the Stafford Act and expand the existing Stafford Act definition of Private Non-Profit Facility to include common interest communities, other than condominiums, that have common areas or own or operate facilities that provide services of a governmental nature, such as roads or bridges; therefore allowing them to apply for FEMA grants. The bill would also call for the rulemaking process to determine a new cap on IHP assistance for co-op and condo associations. Co-sponsors include Representatives Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Chaka Fattah (D-PA), Peter King (R-NY), Gerald Connolly (D-VA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), Grace Meng (D-NY), Michael Capuano (D-MA), Eliot Engel (D-NY), and Gregory Meeks (D-NY).

CAMICB would like to announce the launch of an online CMCA practice exam.  Now available!

The CMCA Practice Exam provides candidates an opportunity to familiarize themselves with exam content and question types. The practice exam contains 65 questions that have rotated off the CMCA examination. Candidates can view results immediately after selecting a response.

The CMCA Practice Exam is offered in partnership with TesTrac, a professional testing company.  The practice exam is delivered by TesTrac and can be accessed here: https://app.testrac.com/cmca/delivery

The cost to access the practice exam through TesTrac is $25.  The exam fee entitles candidates to two attempts at the practice exam. Please contact TesTrac at dbodell@testrac.com or 952.997.0641 with any questions regarding instructions, log in, or payment.

by Holly Weeks

In an office where overworking is a badge of honor — if not a competitive sport — a request for vacation can be daunting, even if vacation time is part of your compensation package. The worry is not so much the request itself, but feeling judged for making it. What if your manager makes it seem like you’re not a team player? Not quite as committed to your work as you could be? Not as ambitious as others are? And what if she says no?

To set the stage for a positive conversation, work out your manager’s perspective first. It is likely that your vacation request is one piece of a larger puzzle that has to fit together. Your boss has competing needs, like meeting incremental deadlines and coordinating your time and your colleagues’ time simultaneously. She may be dealing with issues of precedence, such as a longer-term employee who has asked for vacation time that overlaps incompatibly with yours. In fact, she may be juggling multiple out-of-office requests, not just for vacations, but for professional development, conferences, and trade shows, too. Taking her perspective into account helps you plan a request that’s easier for her to grant.

For example, if you work with a team, ask your manager well in advance whether it’s easier for her to schedule vacation after a big deadline is met — which may seem obvious, but some deadlines are moving targets or are just plain fictional — or to stagger vacations, or to try to combine multi-party time off. This isn’t to say that your preference and your manager’s will match perfectly, but she will know that you are trying to be accommodating and she’ll appreciate not being taken by surprise.

Here’s how not to ask for vacation time: A woman who worked in a research office had waived enough vacation time to accrue four weeks’ worth in order to travel abroad for a long-planned family wedding. In her mind, this was fair; she had earned the vacation, which was strictly true. Her strategy was that by accruing the time quietly, she would be bulletproof when she told her manager, because, by the letter of the law, it was hers to take. But the fact that she kept quiet and then took her manager by surprise made it clear that she also knew the request would be unwelcome: it came at the worst time of year for the office, and such an extended vacation was utterly atypical in the organization. (Her family, however, would hear of nothing less.) Her manager was more than angry and indignant; she felt undermined and manipulated. In fact, the manager discussed the situation with her own senior managers and denied the request. Angry and upset herself, the staff member went anyway. And she did not return to the organization. It was a lose-lose situation all around.

If you want a better outcome for a difficult vacation request, factor the rhythm of your work and customary vacation patterns into your strategy. If your own request is unusual, approach your manager with more openness than the staff member above did. Think less about how you justify your request to yourself and more about how it will appear to your manager and co-workers. Is your request problematic? If it might be, start by saying, “Let’s talk about any burden this creates, and what we’ll do about it,” with the emphasis on “what we’ll do about it.” Set the tone around how we can make this work out. You may be surprised by the amount of creative problem-solving you and a manager can bring to bear. Or maybe you won’t be surprised — it’s what your organization does most of the time with the conflicts of interest it faces.

Speak pro-actively about how your usual responsibilities will be handled in your absence: “My assistant is ready to spread his wings, the client knows and likes him, and one of my peers has agreed to backstop him while I’m gone.”

If it works for your family or others participating in your vacation, create an A plan and a B plan with a difference, for example, between length of vacation and particular dates, in order to give your manager some options. You might say, “My family is looking at two options to coordinate at my spouse’s firm and here in our company.” Your A plan might be two consecutive weeks, but maybe you’re willing to avoid the 4th of July. Your B plan may be three days off, including the 4th of July, and a week off during the kids’ winter break. This strategic how-can-we-make-it-work approach takes some planning even before you make your vacation request, but it improves the tone and content of the conversation so much that it’s worth it.

And this approach has another benefit — it protects you from stumbling into much weaker ways of making your request, like expressing guilt or apologizing over asking for a vacation at all, and talking yourself and your manager out of your own request even as you make it. It’s also worth noting that it does not help your working relationship with your manager to overshare details about how difficult it is to coordinate vacation schedules in the family, or how badly your spouse needs time off. Not because your manager doesn’t care about you and your loved ones, but simply because your manager’s task is a different one: to coordinate the players and the functions of the office. It is not wrong to take a manager who is your friend into your confidence, but at the point of making your vacation request, both of you may be better served if you realize that the best way to make an argument to your manager for time off is to give your manager a very good argument to use on your behalf if she needs to make your case to her own manager.

If you work where people don’t take their vacations, requesting one may raise an eyebrow. If it’s part of your compensation and you want to take it, be ready to speak positively about it, and frame it in terms your company values. You may find yourself spearheading a change.

The language you use may be less about the vacation itself and more about its results. You may want to talk about refreshing your mind, or opening up your thinking, changing your perspective, incubating some embryonic ideas, or letting some solutions percolate. You may want to be proactive, saying, “I never want to get in a rut. I don’t want to find myself working on auto-pilot.” There are, after all, organizations that encourage, if not require, vacation-taking for reasons like these.

Taking time away from the workplace is the flip side of taking a business trip away from friends, family, and home. If you talk through how to make it workable and comfortable for both sides, and plan how to minimize problems that might crop up while you’re away, it won’t be a case of attending to one side at the expense of the other, as it shouldn’t be. In fact, what you’ll really notice is that it’s great to be valuable, and to be missed.

Have you signed up for Community Association Management SmartBrief yet? CAMICB provides a free, weekly e-mail newsbrief specifically designed for community association managers. Sign up here.

This complimentary resource is aimed at bringing you a quick, two-minute read that will help you keep up-to-date with the latest news and trends in our profession. SmartBrief will provide short summaries of the news articles that will be of interest to you as a community association manager. We know it will save you time, keep you informed and add to your success. I hope you will subscribe.

Here’s what you missed this week:

Bipartisan House coalition protests lessened government role in condo financing A bipartisan group of 56 members of the House of Representatives has filed a protest regarding the lessened role of the federal government in the financing of condominium purchases. The Federal Housing Administration has set many restrictions on financing that have deprived would-be purchasers from selecting one of “the most affordable home­ owner­ship options for first-time buyers, small families, urban and older Americans,” said the letter, which was addressed to Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro. Boston Herald (11/1)

N.J. state senator introduces HOA transparency bill New Jersey Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean has introduced legislation that would require more transparency from HOAs in the state. If the bill passes, the Association Homeowners Protection Act of 2015 would make it mandatory for HOAs in New Jersey to provide its members with certain key information: copies of current insurance policies within a timely manner, a 24-hour emergency phone number, the most up-to-date budget information and board member contact information. WKXW-FM (Trenton, N.J.) (10/27)

Report: Fewer borrowers with high credit scores are refinancing Fewer borrowers with high credit scores are refinancing their homes, according to a report from Black Knight Financial Services. However, the change is likely because of previous refinancing by such borrowers. Meanwhile, origination volumes for buyers with lower credit scores have remained mostly unchanged. HousingWire (11/2)

In a major victory for one of the world’s most valuable startups, San Franciscans voted Tuesday against further regulating Airbnb and other short-term rental services.

Proposition F, which voters rejected 55 to 45, would have placed stronger restrictions on short-term rentals in the city to limit home-sharing’s impact on skyrocketing housing prices. The vote was the latest skirmish in the ongoing battle between San Francisco’s booming tech industry and residents concerned about gentrification’s squeeze on middle- and working-class families.

Currently, short-term rental units in San Francisco can only be rented out 90 days a year, unless hosts are also living in the unit during that period. Under Prop F, these rentals would have been further limited to 75 days a year, whether a host was present or not.

The measure also sought to allow any “interested parties,” including anyone living within 100 feet of the rental unit, to sue policy violators, and would have required hosts to notify their neighbors by mail of their intention to rent a unit. Hosts would have also been required to submit quarterly reports about their rentals to the city. In addition, Prop F would have outlawed the short-term rental of in-law units, would have required tenants to notify their landlords before subletting a room or unit to tourists, and would have made it a misdemeanor for online platforms, such as Airbnb and VRBO, to list properties that have not met those standards.

Airbnb, which is valued at over $25 billion, poured $8 million into fighting the ballot measure. The campaign sent out mailers, aired TV spots featuring California’s Democratic lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, and organized 400 workers to knock on doors across the city. While Prop F’s effect on Airbnb’s bottom line would have likely been negligible, the company worried that the proposition’s passage in its hometown would set a precedent across the country, as other U.S. cities consider adopting similar proposals.

“Tonight, in a decisive victory for the middle class, voters stood up for working families’ right to share their homes and opposed an extreme, hotel industry-backed measure,” Airbnb said in a statement. “This victory was made possible by the 138,000 members of the Airbnb community who had conversations with over 105,000 voters and knocked on 285,000 doors. The effort showed that home sharing is both a community and a movement.”

Proponents of Prop F argued that the measure would prevent San Francisco’s housing shortage from getting worse by limiting the number of homes that could be turned into pseudo-hotels and reducing landlords’ incentive to evict longtime residents in order to convert units into profitable short-term rentals. Airbnb, meanwhile, argued that the company helps individuals afford their pricey rents and mortgages by letting them make money off a spare room.

The Prop F vote came about a year after San Francisco imposed limits on how many days a year individuals could rent out rooms or their homes, and required companies like Airbnb to collect hotel taxes. Prop F’s backers said these restrictions were weak and full of loopholes, while Airbnb argued that the city had not allowed enough time to let the regulations go into effect.

The largest donor to the Prop F campaign was Unite Here, a union that represents hotel workers. The measure also had strong financial backing from the San Francisco Apartment Association, which represents rental property owners. Politicians like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos endorsed the proposal, while tech-friendly San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee opposed it.

Prop F was just one of several San Francisco ballot measures aimed at fixing the city’s housing crisis. Wealth has poured into the Bay Area as the tech industry has flourished over the past few years, causing housing prices and the eviction rate to surge. The city has struggled to meet the demand for affordable housing as some residents are forced to leave the city altogether

Lawmakers Struggle to Legalize Airbnb

Renting out a room, apartment or home to short-term guests was illegal in San Francisco until this February. Yet by the time San Francisco officials legalized home sharing, the city had identified between 5,249 and 6,113 listings on Airbnb.

Websites like Airbnb, HomeAway and FlipKey have fostered a booming short-term rental industry that’s giving policymakers a headache. A growing number of cities are trying to formalize the rentals (defined as 30 days or fewer) and make sure hosts charge hotel and sales taxes, which are an important source of revenue for cities like San Francisco.

States are starting to consider action, too. Nearly two dozen states discussed home sharing this year, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA). One California bill would let cities and counties require the rental websites to collect and remit sales or lodging taxes. Municipalities could also limit advertising to rentals that comply with local laws and require that booking information be reported to local authorities.

But as San Francisco has learned, it’s difficult to put reins on a market that’s already galloping ahead. City residents vote today on a ballot measure that would further restrict such rentals and, supporters say, make local rules easier to enforce.

Supervisor David Campos, who supports the measure, said it’s aimed at stopping landlords from turning housing into hotels. “Prop F is especially problematic for the commercial user, where you have entire buildings, entire units, that are being Airbnb’d,” he said.

San Francisco’s affordable housing crisis has given its short-term rental debate emotional power. The issue has become so contentious that last month, when Airbnb posted signs around the city to remind residents it pays hotel taxes, the backlash was so strong that the company had to take the signs down and apologize.

To Airbnb or Not to Airbnb?

Home rentals have always been popular in vacation communities like beach towns and ski resorts. But rapidly growing online platforms have made it easy for anyone to list rooms for rent and for travelers to choose homes over hotels.

One in four travelers stayed in private accommodation in 2014, up from one in 10 in 2011, according to travel industry research firm Phocuswright’s annual survey. “We have seen some unbelievable, I mean it’s really amazing, growth,” said Douglas Quinby, vice president for research at the firm. Airbnb has a particularly large footprint in big cities and dense urban areas, he said.

Short-term home rentals allow hosts to make extra money and can give travelers a cheaper option than a hotel. Home rentals can also draw tourists into new neighborhoods, where they spend money on local businesses.

When Airbnb studied its economic impact on San Francisco in 2012, it found that Airbnb travelers generated $56 million in local spending and that Airbnb guests tended to stay longer and spend more money than hotel guests.

But many online listings are illegal. In New York City, a state investigation found that 72 percent of the 25,532 units listed for rent on Airbnb from 2010 to 2014 appeared to violate state and local laws. The state prohibits renting out an apartment for less than 30 days in most apartment buildings, for example, if the host is not present.

Hosts who rent out their places are supposed to charge guests applicable state and local taxes—like sales or lodging taxes—and pass on that money to the government. To do so, they may have to apply to city revenue departments for permission to file taxes like a business.

Data from a number of cities suggest that few hosts are doing so. Airbnb rentals incurred an estimated $33 million in unpaid New York City taxes, the state investigation found. Dallas has about 700 Airbnb listings but just two hosts registered with the city, the Dallas Observer reported.

Cities are also finding that some hosts are essentially hoteliers. New York’s investigation revealed that 6 percent of Airbnb users controlled over a third of all bookings, and some of those users were managing 10 or more properties.

The hotel industry is not amused. “This isn’t the sharing economy; this is a new form of the hotel industry that’s not being taxed and regulated,” says Troy Flanagan, vice president of state and local government affairs for the AH&LA.

Websites like Airbnb and HomeAway hold hosts responsible for complying with government rules and regulations. But they don’t check hosts’ paperwork or remove listings by hosts who violate city rules. If the sites did so, they’d have a much smaller footprint in Manhattan.

The Legalization Question

In some cities and states, particularly those that want to encourage tourism, legalizing Airbnb hasn’t been particularly controversial. Across the Hudson from New York City, Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democrat, plans to allow short-term rentals throughout all residential areas, a move he says will encourage innovation and attract visitors.

Airbnb has agreed to collect and remit taxes on behalf of hosts in Jersey City, as it has in 13 other cities and four states. Jersey City thinks the agreement will raise $1 million per year.

“Our community wants to pay their fair share and we want to help,” an Airbnb spokeswoman said.

Rhode Island offered short-term rental services a deal in its fiscal 2016 budget: if they collect and remit state and local taxes, cities can’t restrict hosts from renting for short periods of time. The state calculated it would raise about $700,000 from the deal, which Airbnb took.

“We wanted to make sure Airbnb could thrive here, and the fact that it generated additional tax revenues made it all the better,” Rhode Island Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor said in a statement. Rhode Island is going to spend the new revenue to promote tourism.

In other places, like San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, legalizing transient rentals has meant years of city council debate and raucous public meetings. Both cities are already tourist destinations, and both are grappling with rising rents.

San Francisco and Portland now require people who want to rent out their rooms, apartments or homes to register with the city planning and revenue departments. The two cities allow unlimited nights of short-term rentals while the host is at home and limit rentals when the host is away.

The cities have other requirements, too. San Francisco requires hosts to get liability insurance and bans them from renting out rent-controlled homes. Portland requires hosts to install smoke detectors, get permission from their landlords, and tell their neighbors about their new business.

It’s proving difficult to impose these new rules on what has been, essentially, a black market. Airbnb has agreed to pay taxes on behalf of hosts in both cities. But Portland has sued HomeAway and assessed fines on eight other short-term rental sites for failing to follow city rules, including paying taxes.

HomeAway co-founder Carl Shepherd told the Washington Post in January that his company can’t be held responsible for remitting taxes. It operates like a classified section and doesn’t handle any money, he explained.

In San Francisco, only 728 hosts have registered units with the city so far, according to a new office set up by the mayor to monitor short-term rentals. The office relies on complaints from neighbors to track down hosts who aren’t complying with the law.

Although rental listings are prominently displayed online, the city has no way of knowing for sure how many hosts are renting properties and for how many nights a year. “What we’ve learned,” Campos said, “is that without booking data, there’s no way for us to really verify that the rules are being followed.”

Proposition F, the ballot measure San Francisco votes on today, grew out of Campos’ proposed changes to San Francisco’s new rental law. Among other things, the controversial proposal would require hosting platforms to tell the city the number of nights booked per unit per year and to only list rentals registered with the city. It would place additional reporting requirements on hosts, and give neighbors new power to report violations.

The result would be major regulatory roadblocks on Airbnb and other home-sharing startups that are trying to expand as rapidly as possible. Breaking the rules is part of the culture at companies like Airbnb, Campos said. That could be why the company’s recent ad campaign misfired. “It’s like, well, everyone else has to do that!” he said of the company’s reminder that it’s paying taxes. “You don’t get a gold star for paying your taxes and paying them three and a half years late.”

The CAMICB Exam Development Committee is hard at work in New Orleans, LA creating new test questions for the CMCA examination and reviewing current questions for reliability and validity.  The Committee is comprised of both domestic and international Subject Matter Experts – some have been in the industry for over 40 years!  The Committee works tirelessly for two days, twice a year to ensure that the CMCA examination accurately tests the body of knowledge needed by community association managers to do their job around the world.  CAMICB thanks these volunteers immensely for their contribution to the program.  One day down – one to go!

You’ve seen them (and felt your anxiety level rising).

The homeowner who takes four “guest only” parking spots for his cars. The board president who goes on a vendetta by holding secret meetings, making unapproved purchases and breaking confidentiality rules.

Or, as one Colorado CMCA shared as a recent meeting, the individual who felt insulted at a board meeting, threw a chair and then put up posters throughout the association attacking the manager’s character.

There’s no strict definition of a bully, but we know them when we see them, says anti-bullying expert Ben Leichtling. Unlike decent people who are angry about a particular issue but want to work out a solution, bullies:

• are never satisfied
• treat you like a servant or slave
• can be “professional victims” who take offense too easily
• can also be aggressors
• want to wear you down and beat you up

Bullies might be only 1 percent of the population, Leichting says, but they take 999 percent of your time, energy and emotional reserves.

So you want to fight?

Your attorney can point you to legal tactics to fight the specific actions of a board bully.

Check your governing documents. If the bully is an officer, your board may be able to vote the bully out of office, and back to a director position. (Officers are generally elected by the board; taking someone off the board may require a homeowner vote.)

If the problem is lack of confidentiality, the board may want to create a confidentiality agreement that spells out the director’s fiduciary duties in writing.

For other “irregularities,” your attorney may also want to take the board member aside. A simple “talking to” can sometimes derail particular behaviors, if not change personalities.

Overcoming Fear

But what if the problem isn’t a board member, but a homeowner? And what if the only tactics available are expensive (i.e. lawsuit) or scary (verbal confrontation)?

Now the human side of battling bullies becomes paramount. Leichtling, who runs http://www.bulliesbegone.com and has written numerous books bullying, advocates a six-step system:

1) Take care of yourself physically and mentally. Surprised? “Bullies want to wear you down, so that you’ll give up and give them what they want,” Leichtling says. “Your job is to keep yourself at your best.” So do whatever it takes to keep your humor, courage and strength.

2) Don’t take it personally. “Bullies want to make you think it’s your fault,” Leichtling says. “You can take it seriously, but not personally.”

3) Watch for early warning signs. Bullying is more likely when there’s someone new on the board, or when someone is going through a rough personal patch: a divorce or job loss. Keep your intuition up for these signs.

4) Begin with relationship: Don’t assume you’re dealing with a rational person. Assume you’re dealing with someone who is on the emotional razor’s edge. So get together with the bully, speak emotionally and calm them down enough so they can be rational.

5) Get on their side: Figure out what you can given the constraints of the situation, without backing down. You may even want to get on their side of the desk or table.

6) Meet in person: When people are upset, email is not a good strategy. Even if this costs you time and money now, a personal meeting is much less costly in the long run.

No, this won’t work with every bully, and every situation. Rather, it’s an escalating scale of actions to take before legal or board action. It gives you the assurance of having done everything possible to work it out, short of giving in.

by Annie McKee

Is your boss stressed to the max and making you miserable? Join the club. Stress is an epidemic among managers and leaders today, and burnout is catching up fast.

We all know the reasons: the rapidly changing economic landscape; fast-moving technologies; 24/7 work with little to no downtime. It all adds up to far too much pressure. We’ve all been doing too much for too long, which has left your boss (and maybe you) trapped in the Sacrifice Syndrome: Everyone’s been giving and giving and giving…and now we have nothing left to give. A boss who may have once been known to lead with emotional intelligence, build a great team, and motivate people becomes a grumpy, cynical, anxious person when stressed. He’s now hovering over you, or worse, disappearing when you need him most.

What happens next is where the real problems crop up: you become stressed, too! You literally catch your boss’s destructive emotions. You’ve become demotivated, frustrated, and even angry. You want out. If you can’t quit, you dial back your contribution and just try to wait it out. Now it’s a matter of your own survival.

Stress

Don’t let it get the better of you.

It’s stunning how quickly your stressed-out boss can turn you into a stressed-out team member. This is partly because of the contagious nature of emotions. They spread like wildfire among people—and even faster if one of those people has some control over our fate, as bosses do. Another reason our boss’s stress becomes our own is that many of us are already close to stressed-out ourselves. We too have been sacrificing and giving up a lot for a long time, and the cracks are showing. It doesn’t take much to push us into a bad place.

Let’s look at a real person—a friend and colleague whom I’ll call “Nathan.” Two short years ago, Nathan was quietly thrilled to step into senior management. Sure, he’d heard through the grapevine that his new boss Geoffrey was “tough”, but he’d had difficult bosses before. Nathan also knew he was tired from the climb to the top. He had been running hard for a long time, but this was what he’d been waiting for all his life, right? He could dig deep and find the energy for the big leap this job required.

During the first few months with the company, Nathan realized two things: first, he didn’t have as much energy as the last time he started a new job. Second, he was stunned to realize that the honeymoon disappeared before he could even enjoy it. Geoffrey was on him all the time. Nothing he did was right. At first, he thought it was his fault—maybe he needed to try harder, speed up, step up. He did so. It didn’t work. Geoffrey was still caustic and he just seemed so angry all the time. A year in and Nathan himself was getting ticked off. He’d go home and lash out—not at all like him. Nathan was catching Geoffrey’s disease, and there didn’t seem to be a cure anywhere in sight.

Despite a lifetime spent in an industry he loved, in a company he’d admired, he just couldn’t see the point anymore. In fact, neither Geoffrey nor Nathan’s team members seemed to care much about anything other than short-term results.

This leads to another problem with stressed-out bosses—what they aren’t doing. As long as they are focused on dealing with their own issues, they’re not spending time helping you to connect with what’s most important to you at work—that noble purpose your organization serves that inspires you, or that hopeful view of the future that makes you want to keep going. A sense of purpose was exactly what Nathan needed to counter the effects of the burnout heading his way, and it just wasn’t there.

So, if stress is epidemic and bosses are spreading it to us, what can we do? Let’s start by what you can’t do: you can’t change your boss or fix his response to stress. Learning how to deal with pressure is a very individual journey. If indeed your boss has tipped over the edge, no amount of perfection on your part, early-delivery of projects or compliments will help. Sure, do your job and do it well, but don’t expect miracles.

What you can do is work on yourself. First, you need to do your best to understand why your boss is burned out, then dig deep to find empathy—that unique human ability to understand another’s reality. It’s important to take some time to consciously try to recognize and understand the emotional state your boss is feeling. Engage in perspective taking by deliberately trying to see the world, events—and yourself—through your boss’s eyes. Empathy, by the way, is a key emotional intelligence competency.

This is what Nathan did. He made a conscious attempt to “get” his boss, veering away from defensiveness and anger . He tried to look at the whole picture, including his boss’s challenges with conflict on the team and a difficult chairman. Slowly, he found ways to hang out with Geoffrey, to have a laugh together now and then, and he got Geoffrey talking about his own life and family.

Empathizing with a man like Geoffrey is not easy, as our natural response to be defensive, even aggressive—not empathic. But if you can feel and express empathy, a) your boss will likely sense it, and this might help him and b) you will be able to remain grounded in the face of bad behavior, as you know it’s his problem, not yours. Paradoxically, when Nathan leaned in to this stressed-out boss, it helped to calm Geoffrey down.

Empathy also makes it easier to create appropriate emotional distance from your boss. This is a bit tricky, as you can’t shut down or have no relationship at all with him. Rather, you need to constantly monitor your own reactions and make a conscious effort to control your emotional response. Take stock and find that impermeable psychological boundary that separates you from your boss. What part of the stress and negativity belongs to him, and what belongs to you?

Then and most importantly, you need to take a good hard look at your own stress—at work and at home. How are you doing, really? Look at your relationships at home and at work. Are you testy? Irritable? Impatient? Or…nasty? We all act this way sometimes. And this kind of behavior (especially at home) is a good diagnostic.

If you see that you are heading for problems, or have entered into pre-burnout conditions, you need to do something now. Free up some time for renewal. And don’t be fooled: Renewal doesn’t happen as a result of a vacation. Remember that summer break? Seems like a long time ago, right? To deal with the kind of stress we all have at work today, renewal must become a continuous way of life, not an event.

There are a few things we know work for most everyone, such as laughing with coworkers (not at the boss!), doing fun activities outside of work, exercise, friendship, and setting healthy priorities. It’s becoming clear, too, that mindfulness meditation has a profound impact on one’s ability to stay grounded and manage stress. This movement is growing, in part because of the stress we’re all experiencing. Now, well-known mindfulness researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts, Michael Baime at the University of Pennsylvania and others have now led tens of thousands of people through mindfulness based stress reduction programs, in which normal people learn to incorporate breathing and meditation exercises into daily life while increasing their own self-awareness about their stress.

You also want to engage a sense of hope by imagining how you’d like things to be at work, with your boss and probably at home. It sounds so simple, and in a way it is. Hope is natural for human beings, and it really helps with the day-to-day burden of stress. Try paying some attention to what you would like to be feeling—and why. This will help you to be optimistic and more mindful about your reactions. This requires emotional self awareness and emotional self control—two more key emotional intelligence competencies.

And Nathan? He’s still on the job, though that wasn’t a given a few months ago. About a year in, he realized that he needed to get hold of himself, as he was fast slipping into dissonance and burnout. He started to shift priorities, then realized he had to shift his mindset, first. He actually took a course on mindfulness and learned a bit about how everyday people can meditate. He brought his family into the conversation, so it didn’t feel so lonely anymore. He’s doing ok. Geoffrey, sadly, is on his way out. He just couldn’t get a grip and the entire company was starting to feel the effects.

Annie McKee is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, director of the PennCLO Executive Doctoral Program and the founder of the Teleos Leadership Institute. She is the author of Primal Leadership with Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis as well as Resonant Leadership and Becoming a Resonant Leader.