Desert View Homes
By: Valerie Chavez, Alexander Chavez, and Alan Castrejon
A BRIEF HISTORY OF DESERT VIEW HOMES
In 1990, Randal O’Leary founded Desert View Homes and it became a privately held corporation. The main focus of the business was to build single-family homes in the El Paso, Texas area. What started as a two person project has now flourished to a company doing business in Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Throughout the years, Desert View Homes has achieved many awards including AVID Ratings Customer Service Award, Builder of the Year, National Housing Endowment Builder Achievement Award for Outstanding Community Service, and Better Business Bureau Award. Desert View Homes has also been recognized in both local and national top builders lists such as Builder Magazine's Top 100 Builders List and Professional Builder's List of Top 400 Builders. In 2008, Desert View Homes’ local and national reputation provided the company with the opportunity to participate and build a new home for the Ruiz Family for ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
With the every growing variety of floor plans and in home selection, Desert View Homes has acquired 75 employees with various managerial, technical, personal, and teamwork skills. The focus on entry-level home buyers has allowed the company to develop goals and values while providing a product at an affordable cost.
MISSION STATEMENT AND VALUES – DESERT VIEW HOMES
The following Mission Statement and Values can be found at the Desert View Homes company website:
Our Mission: We are the best homebuilding company in America. We sell our homes with enthusiasm, energy for our jobs, and respect for our customers. As a company, we seek to add value: To our customers, by providing them with a superior product at an affordable price; to our employees, by providing them employment, which encourages personal growth and pride at competitive compensations; to our communities, by providing taxes, charitable contributions, and community support.
Our Values: We exist to provide value to our customers with affordable quality and superior customer service. We focus on continual improvement in all the company does in planning, in quality, and in customer service. Our management team will lead with passion, commitment, and enthusiasm and will expect the same from our employees. We work hard, yet keep it fun.
SWOT ANALYSIS FOR ATTAINING #1 BUILDER IN EL PASO, TEXAS BY
DESERT VIEW HOMES
Below is a description of details pertaining to the improvement of Desert View Homes’ products and communication in order to attain #1 builder in El Paso Texas and increasing the company’s chances to remain in business. It is crucial to evaluate the company’s current communication issues, selection of floor plans and included amenities in order to identify areas of struggle, develop ideas and solutions for improvement, and follow through with implementing these changes. We must also assess the skills of the employees working for the company. Developing teams, two or more individuals working together to attain a specific goal by applying their specialty skills, will prove to assist in bringing Desert View Homes back as the #1 builder in El Paso, Texas.
Strengths:
Desert View Homes has a credited reputation with over 20 years of experience in the home building industry. The employees are selected based on the skills they have, the ability to work in teams, and the customer service experience needed to provide potential buyers with the home of their dreams. The management team is complied of individuals from across the nation, bringing diversity to the organization.
The overall product of Desert View Homes in itself brings the American Dream to life. People want to live and own a home, and Desert View Homes provides this service with incredible affordable homes. No matter where you live across town, Desert View Homes can find a location to build a home where the price is within the potential buyer’s means.
Weaknesses:
Desert View Homes is similar to a family orientated place of employment. Executive management teams have worked together for so long that they are like brother and sister. It is hard to motivate employees to accomplish a goal when the Executive Team struggles to agree on a direction to take the company. To add to the mix, the group of managers for each department is slow to make decisions because of conflict within teams. Communication to the employees who carry out the actual tasks is then tarnished as it trickles down the chain of command. Lack of communication can contribute to employee dissatisfaction and increase turnover rates or absenteeism.
The product variety for Desert View Homes is minimal to benefit the company and not the customer. Desert View Homes is not a custom home builder but instead are a track home builder. Track homes are homes that are built the same way every time the home is selected for construction. The only difference in each home is the buyer’s selection of paint colors, appliances, upgrades, and options. The varieties of the homes consist of only six different floor plans with two different elevations, stucco and rock. Because of the fear of change by management, these six floor plans have been available to potential buyers for the past seven years with only slight updates such as centering a window, or adding pop-outs around the garage doors. The included amenities, such as laminate counter tops, swamp coolers, vinyl flooring, and brass hardware have now become outdated. Certain options and upgrades are only available in packages which include certain items that some buyers do not want at all. If the product is not updated to fit current and future buyers, it will be safe to assume that the fewer buyers will purchase a home with Desert View Homes. Not only will Desert View Homes fail to regain its title as the #1 Builder in El Paso, but it may be that much harder to employee their staff and remain in business.
Opportunities:
There are plenty of resources to market the product for Desert View Homes. Home Expos, referencing participation in Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, community outreach programs, website and social networking, radio and television commercials can all contribute to marketing the product and included amenities to entice the potential buyers to become familiar with Desert View Homes.
Employees and managers in each department are known as task groups, two or more individuals who exchange information to attain or share a common task. A company can have several groups, and the majority of them are task groups; what Desert View Homes needs are teams. Since the management team is composed of such a diverse group of individuals, Desert View Homes can use the available resources to train their managers bi-monthly to work as teams in diverse situations. All employees can train on a quarterly basis on proper communication flow in order to ensure tasks are accomplished.
The current system used by Desert View Homes to evaluate its product based on the buyer’s perspective is through AVID Ratings. AVID Ratings provide the buyers with enough time to live in their home and request that they complete a survey that provides Desert View Homes with vital feedback from color selection, floor plan variety, customer service experience, overall sales, loan, and closing process, and finally warranty issues and concerns. Desert View Homes can use this opportunity to attain buyer expectations of the product they are looking for nowadays. The section of the survey with respondent comments always provides the ideas behind what the buyers are looking for and what is important to them. This form of communication comes from outside of the company.
Threats:
When communication has failed to assist the company, deviant employee behavior can threaten the company’s well being. Emotions can come into play and lead to unwanted repercussions. Conflicts between employees can redirect the focus to work together and become the #1 builder. A breakdown in trainings will without a doubt leave the managers with no knowledge of how to handle conflict and regain the primary goals of the company.
Refusing to implement change in product and amenities will give other builders the advantage. Fulfilling a customer’s wants and needs will attract more buyers. Desert View Homes has fallen victim to this threat already. While other builders are able to close more homes, increase their building rates, and employ more people, Desert View Homes will have to reduce starts and reduce overhead. It may even be possible that layoffs will encourage Desert View Homes employees to turnover and take their essential skills to the competition, where business is booming. Failing to communicate the direction the company is going with products will leave Desert View Homes at the bottom of the top builders lists.
THE NATURE OF THE COMPANY’S COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE
Desert View Homes currently communicates all business correspondence with its employees at monthly employee meetings. Sales and closing goals and actuals are discussed, along with events, company updates, and announcements. Announcements can include holidays, new employee introductions, and changes to processes. The idea behind the employee meetings held monthly are to update non managerial employees of upper management decisions, and give an update on the overall well being of the company.
On a weekly basis, community meetings are held once a week. Employees from each department in the company who work specifically with a particular community meet to exchange information about items that need to be included on an already purchased home, which inventory homes need to be refreshed, warranty concerns to avoid frequencies, evaluate current status on hitting monthly goals, and develop a plan of action to accomplish goals. The main principle of these meetings is not to make changes or decisions, but to ensure all departments are on the same page with what is already taking place.
Desert View Homes also communicates with its potential buyers that they are providing a better product with its company slogan, “Desert View Homes: The Affordable Solution.” Making the homes affordable would suggest that the product is better because buyers will be able to purchase the home. However this can be interpreted wrong. Other builders will be more expensive because they have included more in their homes as a standard and better suit the buyer’s wants and not just their needs.
THE CURRENT COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE
Communication is strictly downward at Desert View Homes and hardly ever upward, unless it pertains to personnel information. There are no meetings to brainstorm ideas that include non-managerial employees. Although most companies do not have these types of meetings, Desert View Homes should organize a meeting to include non-managerial employees. Regular employees at Desert View Homes are the second best source of information, customer feedback being the first. They work with the buyers day in and day out. They are the first set of ears the buyers vent to about their expectations and wants. Regular employees can give insightful ideas and recommendation.
Omitting valuable information to the employees can prove to be a setback. When manager of Desert View Homes tells its employees that they are hitting their goals but do not admit that the goals they have set do not even allow for the company to attain its overhead, it provides the employees with filtered information. Be upfront and do not make the journey easy. If you can set difficult but obtainable goals, employees will feel more motivated to achieve the goals. You can also avoid the shock if layoffs come in to play.
THE CURRENT PROPOSED SOLUTION TO THE COMMUNICATION CHALLENGE
Training managers and employees on the crucial importance of communication downward, upward, and laterally will assist the company with ensuring all parties are in sync. Managers should be trained bi-monthly, while employees are trained on a quarterly basis. Trainings should consist of teamwork exercises and activities that emphasize on climate of trust, proper communication process, and different communication pros and cons.
In addition, do not communicate bad information to the employees by setting easy goals. Desert View Homes will never become the #1 builder in El Paso and stay in business if the goals are too easy. Social loafing, lack of motivation, and other conflicts will arise as a result of this. Goals should be tangible and measurable, but at the same time they must be difficult. The competition in a person is a natural instinct. If employees are told that they must strive harder, the motivation to attain these goals will inspire them to work harder. Motivate employees with these new standards for goals and provide valuable feedback. Employees will then gain a new sense of job empowerment resulting in higher job satisfaction.
Finally, Desert View Homes should look to its non-managerial employees to be the new innovators for the product line. Regular employees can vouch for what the customer does and does not like, what the competitors are doing to win over buyers, and can suggest ways to improve the product line such as:
· New floor plans are a must. The market is of a different generation now. What was once acceptable a decade ago has now changed. Although Desert View Homes is not a custom homebuilder, it should provide potential buyers with more floor plans and elevations to choose from. Develop at least eight new floor plans with three more elevations to increase the number of floor plans by 24. Provide each floor plan with “flexible rooms” that can covert into another bedroom, a private den, an office, a formal dining room, or a game room.
· Disregard the idea that packages are better for the buyer. Packages only help regulate and standardize processes internally for the company. Instead offer smaller packages for the more common items like upgrades on ceramic tile, countertops, carpet, and hardware. These items can also be available a la carte along with trim, paint colors, appliances, landscaping, drip systems, patios, islands, security, surround sound, extra outlets, and garage door openers. Standardize common requests like nickel hardware, refrigerated air, and mini-blinds. Encourage buyers to landscape their backyards after closings with landscaping discounts and pool installation coupons or flyers.
CONCLUSION
Desert View Homes can certainly become the #1 builder in El Paso, Texas again. Improving certain aspects of the company will be a key factor in acquiring this task. We would like to thank you for allowing us to work on this case study, and we look forward to observing Desert View Homes’ climb to the top.
WORKS CITED
Unknown author. Desert View Homes: About Us - Awards. 2012. Desert View Homes. Retrieved 28 Jun 2012. http://www.desertviewhomes.com/Awards
Unknown author. Desert View Homes: About Us - History. 2012. Desert View Homes. Retrieved 28 Jun 2012. http://www.desertviewhomes.com/About-Us
Unknown author. Desert View Homes: About Us - Values. 2012. Desert View Homes. Retrieved 28 Jun 2012. http://www.desertviewhomes.com/Our-Values
Robbins, Stephen P., Judge, Timothy A. Organizational Behavior, Fourteenth Edition. Prentice Hall. New Jersey. 2011.
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