Employer Solutions
Have Solutions Will Travel
Mortgage Production Solutions is a nationally recognized authority in production management and production personnel recruiting both individual and branches
Fixed permanent payroll overhead can be eliminated. The manager(s) and their positions(s) can be eliminated. But their duties and responsibilities will continue to require management attention and expertise! Wish you had a solutionto this dilemma?
Since employment in the Mortgage Banking industry began taking a nose-dive, outsourcing has emerged as an effective alternative to traditional employment relationships. Less than one year ago, there existed a drastic shortage of production and production support personnel. Currently, the industry is over saturated with unemployed human resources that rank from trainees to top level talent on the experience chart. The only employees perceived to be in short supply are originators with an established customer following who can contribute to the “P” side of the company P&L. However, even with all the pain, there is also a magnificent opportunity for gain in this scenario.
The “bay-window” of that opportunity is out-sourcing. Now it can be incorporated into your business plan at the executive level, too! There are a number of experienced production management specialists available for temporary employment assignments as a result of company acquisitions. Those assignments can range from simple professional and objective second opinion evaluations of a production employee or production branch to assisting the permanent Production Manager with a total reorganization of an entire multi-branch production department. They can be as temporary as required. Other than the fee or salary they earn while on assignment, these “clone” production managers, as independent contractors, represent no additional overhead to a company such as benefits, workman’s compensation or unemployment insurance risk.
Value Added Benefit
A significant amount of the inquiries about the services offered by Production Solutions is related to the desire or need to rebuild or reorganized existing production centers which have ceased to maintain an acceptable market share and/or cost effective performance levels. It is difficult to determine without investigation whether personnel relations is the cause or effect of a specific lender’s production problems(s). However, it is certainly a predominant factor that plays a significant part in the majority of the solutions to the problems.
Understanding Why
There is a so-called “Culture Clash” resulting from a real culture difference taking place as commercial and savings banks enter the mortgage banking business in record numbers. The out-sourced production specialist can help bridge this “culture gap” by acting as a guide to both sides of the equation. Many of the nation’s mortgage banking organizations are now owned by banks, and banks seem to be determined to “pound a square peg in a round hole.” They manage their mortgage banking operations with commercial banking driven policies and business plans. If this conversion ever fully occurs, it will not be in the near term, nor will it occur without great expense in terms of lost and wasted investment capital and material opportunity cost to all parties involved. Why buy a mortgage banking company that includes a successful production operation, and is priced accordingly, if there is a high probability that plans to change the operation will certainly result in the loss of some, if not all, of the personnel responsible for the success?
Businesses have personalities that principally reflect the philosophies and behavior of its upper level management. That personality is either compatible or incompatible with the very nature of the loan origination business. Make no mistake, compatibility is a key to success. If a company is merely indulging the demands of the mortgage origination function as a necessary evil for fee income or servicing opportunities, they will lack the level of commitment to the business required to overcome the self-imposed obstacles necessary to sustain a successful and cost-efficient production effort. When the production staff recognizes the lack of commitment or intent to impose change without understanding, they will respond by leaving.
In the context of the mortgage production side of mortgage banking, profitability and volume are often stated as obvious objectives when, in fact, they are not so obvious. They are actually only two principal by-products of good employee relations which results in increased levels of customer satisfaction. Production is at least as much a people business as it is a numbers and papers business. Management might consider redirecting its focus in this regard.
To a lessor degree, there is also a “culture clash” when a mortgage banker recruits or purchases the origination personnel of a mortgage broker. Perceptions of conflicting agendas and unresolved cross-purposes between upper management and origination personnel are the most prevalent obstacles. This prevents the teamwork concept from growing within the majority of companies whose representatives I interviewed. This is evidenced by a proclivity of both sides to discredit data and/or conclusions that contradict or conflict with each others opinions or philosophies. This is accomplished by proclaiming “this business has changed a lot recently and is changing more every day” as their dis-qualifier of choice.
While much of the business of mortgage origination has changed and is ever-changing, most of the changes have occurred in the areas of technology, “trendy programs,” regulatory issues, secondary marketing / investor relations, and consumer consciousness. The majority of mortgage loans being originated are still being solicited, processed, underwritten, closed and insured by employing the same techniques, satisfying the same needs of the customers and clients and confronting the same obstacles and issues as they were twenty-five years ago.
It takes one to know one!
While there is very seldom an easy “just add water” solution to low production or inefficient operations, identifying the principle problem(s) within an operation can be relatively simple. An experienced production management specialist with no emotional ties or prejudiced opinions of the individual personnel or the operation as a whole is capable of extracting information critical to making objective judgments and decisions regarding corrective business plans.