Multifamily training and compliance are top considerations as many new recruits venture from industries outside of property management and require more specialized and focused onboarding and training.
By Greg Lozinak
Multifamily is facing a hiring challenge significantly greater than in past decades.
The unemployment rate has hovered around the 3.5 percent since February 2022, making it more difficult for owner/operators to attract top talent to their communities. Companies of all sizes and in every market are continuously recruiting and onboarding new associates, hoping not only to attract them but also retain them.
Many new recruits venture from industries outside of property management and require more specialized and focused onboarding and training. To execute their programs efficiently, operators are clamoring to find a blend of technology and standard training to prepare their team members and retain them. To be successful, organizations must deliver the new onboarding processes and tech integrations seamlessly and add clarity to job roles and functions.
The real estate industry has always been people-centric.
Hiring and retaining talent is integral in growing tomorrow’s leaders and innovators in the space. Well-founded and purposeful training, in combination with today’s proptech and digital landscape, can be the ultimate catalyst for pushing our industry forward. These tools can help teams and management continue to engage and elevate the resident experience.
Create Solid Onboarding Right from Start
Starting off on the right foot is essential for a successful training program.
If your new team members have poor onboarding, this could create deficits in performance and future learning. Onboarding helps to establish your company’s goals, values and expectations, as well as provide insight into the distinctiveness of your organization. Entering a new position or joining a new company can be stressful and onboarding provides an opportunity to connect with new team members, make their transitions easier and reduce turnover risk.
Tailor Training for Your Organization’s Needs
Your company is unique, as are your teams, so a “one size fits all” approach to your training won’t work.
Tailoring your training better facilitates training materials and is more likely to keep team members engaged. A variety of methods can be used when designing training, including hands-on, virtual, individual and team-based. What’s important is crafting a program for your teams that provides a more effective outcome.
Communicating with each of them will provide insight into their preferences, and it’s important to solicit feedback after training to understand if it’s functioning to design.
View Training as a Strategic Company Investment
Training your teams well will cost money, but it doesn’t compare to how much you’ll spend recruiting and training a revolving door of team members.
The average cost to replace an employee is $4,700, according to data collected by the Society for Human Resource Management. This figure, however, does not include all the costs your HR department and leaders bear in finding replacements. This is time that could be spent training current teams or working toward the company’s goals. These real costs can soar into the tens of thousands.
Team members with high levels of engagement are five times more likely to be working at the same company in a year, according to data from the Grace Hill Kingsley Index, which can result in extensive cost savings. View your training program as an investment in your financial health, as well as your personnel.
Focus on Making Content Digestible and Retainable
Your teams have busy schedules including interacting with residents, strengthening their communities and growing net operating income.
The days of gathering your teams into the conference room for an afternoon of training are long gone.
Training should fit within the demands of your team members’ day. If you want your teams to be well-educated, the optimal approach is microlearning, which breaks training into small, highly-focused pieces of content.
Each team member will have an opportunity to apply their newfound knowledge in a real-world setting while it’s still fresh in their minds. They’ll also digest the information in a more beneficial way, and they won’t be stressed about how their training schedule will fit in with the rest of their work schedule.
Make it Easy to Access
Even if you’ve built the perfect training programs for your leasing and maintenance teams, it’s going to go to waste if they can’t use it.
Teams will be less engaged with training if they struggle to find training material, so it’s important to keep your files in a centralized location that’s easily accessible. Companies also shouldn’t restrict the devices that can be utilized during training. A digital platform makes training easy to complete at any time and on any device.
Your team members are seeking a prosperous career with opportunities for growth and advancement when they join your company. If your training doesn’t provide that, they most assuredly will move on.
Communication, feedback, support and mentoring are the key factors to grow your company and avoid the unwanted costs associated with the revolving door. Creating a solid training program that meets their desire to learn, as well as fits with their work lives, will encourage your team members to stay, providing you with a better return on the investment you made in them.
About the author:
Greg Lozinak is the SVP of Account Management at Grace Hill, joining the team in 2023. Having spent most of his career as a senior operations executive, Greg has a strong track record in commercial and multifamily real estate investment management, delivering above-benchmark investment returns.
