Apartment HR Executives Offer Hiring and Retention Strategies

The battle for talent has never been fiercer, and apartment companies are adjusting their compensation packages in an effort to hire and retain qualified workers.

Some are listening closely to employee recommendations, offering customizable plans, supporting working parents with children at home, and accepting flexible work environments.

Strategies were presented Tuesday during “Labor: A Proactive Approach to Finding New Talent,” at the MFE Conference hosted by Zonda in Las Vegas.

The panel featured Ashley Napoli, Vice President, Human Resources, Continental Properties; Marcella Eppsteiner, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Training and Revenue Management, Mission Rock Residential; and Allison Dunavant, Vice President of Organizational Development, Camden.

Compensation is King

Eppsteiner said that “compensation” is the No. 1 reason why voluntary terminations took place at 70 percent. 

“When hiring, you should sell the career path opportunities at the company, but also the financial growth that comes with, by emphasizing salary bumps that come with promotions” or other job titles.

She said Mission Rock is also seeing that if it can keep an employee on board for a full year, then they are 3x more likely to stay at the company for three years. It found an average time employees left was at about the six-month mark, so it added a few kicker bonuses at that point to try to get them to the one-year anniversary.

Focus on Total Rewards Program

Napoli said benefits are being presented to employees as a total rewards package that includes a full compensation offering along with perks such as dress code, paid time off (PTO), learning and development assistance.

“We solicit input from employees and take their suggestions into consideration,” Napoli said. “They’ve helped us to formulate rollover PTO and flexible work locations and hours. Our company has never been so aggressive in addressing those arrangements. They love our ‘summer hours’ and how we are closing offices for holidays rather than just offering optional, floating holidays they can use.”

Napoli said even before the pandemic, Continental Properties began offering tele-health programs and a robust employee assistance plan. “Today, we’ve never seen employee participation so strong in those areas,” she said.

Napoli said Continental Properties has added financial support in the form of child care for employees who have children and who needed to stay home when schools and daycare closed. They also offer financial planning assistance such as the support from investing and saving consultants.

‘You Can’t Offer Everything’

“Whatever you offer, be sure to do a cost-analysis of the program,” Napoli said. “You can’t offer everything, so you have to ask, ‘What’s the risk of not offering it?’ You have to constantly review your program so you stay relevant.”

She said the company’s HR team needs to repeatedly sell the benefits because employees will forget what they are receiving soon after the first time you describe it to them.

Dunavant said companies must get creative so they remain competitive and not simply do the same that their competitors are doing. She said her company’s stipend to parents who had to stay home with their children was very popular.

Eppsteiner said offering customizable plans have been well received, and that the past 10 hires she’s had selected different types of plans. “Just make sure they are all fair and equal,” she said.