The Maine Self-Storage Association (MeSSA) successfully submitted changes for the states Self-Service Storage Act to the Maine Legislature this month. Sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Jonathan Courtney and co-sponsored by Senator Ron Collins, the bill changes are designed to streamline the lien process for self-storage operators across the state. The proposed modifications include the removal of the newspaper-advertisement requirement for lien sales, and an update of notification requirements to allow electronic mail.

MeSSA will be looking for facility owners/operators to appear in defense of the changes. Interested parties do not have to be a an association member to show their support.

Information about MeSSA can be found at www.mainessa.com.

Delaware State Police destroyed the belongings of an accused pedophile Jan. 26 after removing them from a self-storage unit in Rehoboth Beach, Del. and taking them to an offsite, undisclosed location.

Dr. Earl Bradley, a pediatrician accused of rape and abuse of more than 100 children over 10 years, had been storing belongings at Secure Self Storage in Rehoboth Beach and eventually went delinquent on his account. The facility, at the urging of the community and the state attorney general, did not auction the items in a lien sale but instead allowed law enforcement to seize the items. Many feared if the items were made public, alleged victims may experience emotional trauma.

Secure Self Storage has three locations in Delaware and 16 locations across Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Washington, D.C., and Ontario, Canada.

USSelfStorageLocator.com, a website that helps consumers find and locate self-storage units, has joined the INSOMNIAC Self Storage Network (ISSN), an open reservations network that allows any third-party marketing company to communicate securely in real time with several self-storage management software systems.

Created by OpenTech Alliance Inc., ISSN is designed to allow self-storage operators to easily leverage the marketing efforts of third-party companies. All facility and unit data is obtained from each facilitys property-management system at the time of the search. When the consumer has selected his unit, the data is immediately stored in the software.

USSelfStorageLocator.com, founded by CEO Victor Dante, is a search engine that locates self-storage facilities from its nationwide database and allows consumers select and reserve/rent units. 

In addition to ISSN, OpenTech provides INSOMNIAC self-storage kiosks and INSOMNIAC Live!  call-center services.

Franklin Self Storage, Store All, a Canadian private company, is purchasing 30 composite containers from Innovative Composites International Inc. (ICI) to launch a mobile-storage business.

The self-storage company has developed a container-handling system that significantly reduces weight, and offers a foldable design with increased durability.

The first 30 containers, engineered specifically to meet Franklins requirements, will be used in a Cambridge, Ontario, facility that will house several hundred containers once fully operational. Franklin is planning to roll out the concept as an agency business across approximately 50 cities in North America over the coming years. Every agent would initially commit to purchasing 27 containers and order additional containers as needed. Each location should have a target capacity of approximately 200 containers.      

"The quality of the product being produced by ICI and the cutting-edge technologies used by the firm are a natural fit for Stor All and we felt confident in choosing ICI to engineer and manufacture our proprietary storage containers, said owner Tony Campbell. Our business is built on a premise of expansion and we feel having ICI as a supplier can help us grow exponentially."

Storage Asset Management Inc. (SAM), a third-party management company, was awarded a management contract for a self-storage facility in Tennessee.

Scenic City Storage in Hixson, Tenn., is a 62,646-square-foot facility with 444 climate-controlled units, 50 outside parking spots, and two office spaces for rent. A management office, which includes retail sales, is at the entranceway to the facility. Built in 2006, the store is located on the heavily traveled Hixson Pike.

 We are very excited to work in Chattanooga, and look forward to a long relationship with the owners of the property, said Alyssa Quill, SAM vice president.

Storage Asset Management Inc. is a full-service self-storage property management and consulting company formed in May 2010.  SAM currently manages 27 self-storage properties in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States. 

By Jack Singer

We live in a stressful society, filled with uncertainty in the job market and the economy. A large percentage of employees admit to being unhappy and disengaged at their jobs. Recent research shows that among the least happy and least engaged employees, the annual per-person cost of lost productivity because of sick and personal days is more than $28,000, compared with $840 among the happiest and most engaged employees. Furthermore, job stress alone is estimated to cost U.S. industry at least $300 billion a year in absenteeism, diminished productivity, employee turnover, and direct medical, legal and insurance fees.

Below are five powerful prescriptions for enhancing employee morale and job performance, and minimizing job stress at your self-storage organization.

Provide your employees with empowering goal-setting strategies. 

People are significantly more likely to reach a goal when they write it down as opposed to simply thinking about it. Have regular meetings with your team where, in addition to encouraging them to discuss their areas of discontentment, you join them in writing down short- and long-term specific and action-oriented goals.

For example, a manager might say, For this month, we will have four meetings in which we will design and implement our new plan for developing a psychologically healthy workplace. Bring an idea with you to each meeting. In the meetings, ask people to visualize themselves feeling successful once they have accomplished those goals. Ask them to imagine it as if they have already accomplished the goal. Finally, have them write down ways in which they can sabotage their own efforts to accomplish those goals. Encourage them to be honest about the kinds of self-talk or self-defeating behaviors they have engaged in before.

Provide your employees with a sense of control over their jobs.

Studies reveal how important it is to give employees a legitimate say in how they conduct their jobs. Not only does the perception that management actually cares about their feelings positively influence morale, but giving workers some control over their own schedule and how to approach their work tasks dramatically reduces job burnout, absenteeism and turnover.

Have frequent meetings with employees where you listen to their issues and allow them to suggest resolutions. Encourage workers to determine their own specific strengths and put them to use on their jobs.

More examples of providing employees involvement in their work are self-managed work teams, employee committees or task forces, continuous-improvement teams, team-centered hiring processes in which employees select their peers, and participative decision-making projects.

Provide growth and development programs for employees, such as brownbag learning.

Most employees want the opportunity to gain new skills and knowledge so they dont feel stagnant. Information provided by outside experts will help them on their jobs and in their lives and can serve these needs. Providing lunchtime seminars and workshops on topics such as stress and anger management, enhanced wellness, and clear communication enhances organizational effectiveness and improves work quality. Providing free college courses after work in your company is also a wonderful benefit for employees.

Provide a variety of planned and spontaneous employee-recognition events.

Its a no-brainer for companies to provide the best possible service for their customers and clients, but they often forget that their most important assetstheir employeesneed the same. Why not make your staff feel as valued as your customers? By acknowledging their efforts, not just their productivity, you can increase employee satisfaction, morale and self-esteem.

Examples of providing recognition include:

• Give unpredictable rewards, such as movie tickets and gift certificates.
• Create a volunteer committee from across different departments to plan special events.
• Provide free, healthful lunch options for employees to encourage them to stay in the office during lunch hours.
• List the births, birthdays and other news of interest about employees in the monthly newsletter. Have the CEO or president send out personalized cards to the families listed in the newsletter each month.
• Encourage friendly competition off the job, such as bowling and softball leagues, and post pictures and results around the work sites.

 Provide a warm, accepting and fun workplace atmosphere.

If you want your employees to look forward to Monday mornings, create an atmosphere that includes fun and camaraderie. Acknowledging employee needs and allowing talent and creativity to flourish will keep employees motivated and happy. 

Examples of providing an accepting workplace include:

• Have a whine and geeze area where employees can go to melt away stress.
• Inject funny quotes and cartoons into company memos.
• Have positive parties funded by negative people (every time a colleague is overheard making a negative comment, he puts 50 cents into a kitty).
• Have monthly theme contests for which goofy prizes are awarded.
• Have a surprise treat day once a month, such as having the manager serve the employees bags of popcorn, or ice-cream bars, etc.

If you begin to employ these five potent strategies into your self-storage workplace, you will see amazing results.

Jack Singer is a licensed industrial, organizational and clinical psychologist as well as a professional speaker, management coach and trainer. Singer trains everyone from CEOs and human resources professionals to elite athletes throughout the world. He is a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, Fox Sports and numerous sports talk radio shows across the United States and Canada. He is also the author of The Teachers Ultimate Stress Mastery Guide. E-mail him at [email protected].

Stor-Age Self Storage, a property-management group based in Cape Town, South Africa, opened its sixth self-storage facility in the country this week. The 80 million rand property is in the Gardens suburb, at a prime entry point to the Cape Town central business district.

Stor-Age Self Storage is a member of the Stor-Age Group, which also comprises Steel Self Storage Systems, a supplier of roll-up doors and hallway partitions for the South African self-storage industry, and SASSI (SA Self Storage Investments), South Africas largest self-storage investment trust.

Stor-Age completed its first self-storage facility in Cape Town in late 2007. The company now has more than 255 million rand of property under management, with six new stores coming to the market this year in Bloemfontein, Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Self-storage call center and marketing firm PhoneSmart is promoting the use of QR (quick read) codes and mobile technology as a means of efficient self-storage facility operation, referring to the combination as similar to having a self-storage kiosk in your pocket.

The company has built a website at self-storage-kiosks.com to help operators generate and use QR codes that will drive customers to one of several places, including a facilitys website, Google maps page, phone number or billpay site. PhoneSmart has also posted a video demo of the technology in action at YouTube, viewable at www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaULdQaF-Ns.

QR codes are similar to barcodes and can be read by any smartphone to direct a user to a Web page, phone number or text/SMS generator. They are easy to generate for free using a number of online services. To capitalize on growing consumer use of smartphones and tablet technology, self-storage operators can add QR codes to facility signage or advertising.

Most self-storage software applications allow facility operators to take payments, reserve units and rent space online. Mobile technology including QR codes and scanner applications allows customers to easily access these virtual services on their mobile devices.

PhoneSmart provides contact-center services, sales training, secret shopping and customer-service audits for more than 700 self-storage properties across North America. Now celebrating its 10^th anniversary, the company has generated more than 750,000 reservations and leads for its self-storage clients through its rollover call center.