How Apartment Managers Find Strong Candidates for Onsite Roles

As more apartment onsite teams are being tasked with running lean and doing more with less, associate retention is crucial.

From hiring and training to staffing and compensation, the employee lifecycle requires attention to maximize both results and job satisfaction.

Lacy Jungman, Senior Vice President of Client Success at OneDay, led a panel of industry professionals who discussed strategies and best practices at the Apartment Innovation and Marketing Conference’s operations track in Huntington Beach, Calif.

While companies might get 150 resumes per day for a position, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find strong candidates, according to Michele McWilliams-Tate, National Director of Leasing at Toll Brothers Apartment Living.

“Don’t waste a lot of time going through those when you can use that time to better support the employees you do have,” she said. “If you don’t, then there’s a chance they’ll leave.”

One company tried the “open call” method of hiring when dozens of candidates are brought in and are told about the position and the skills that are required, and one by one, those candidates can leave the event if they determine the job is not suited for them.

Tate said “stay interviews” are an effective retention tool. Toll Brothers meet regularly with its employees in a setting not designed like a performance review meeting.

“Supervisors meet with staff to discuss what the supervisor or company can do to help them such as through support or a career advancement, find out what the employee likes about their job, and why they have chosen to stay with the company,” Tate said.

As for the exit interview, the panel said those can reveal the obvious about a company’s culture, such as how it accommodates work-life balance and flexibility.

“You can see the reasons employees left in the results – all signs pointed to the need to take swift action, but we didn’t do it at that point,” one panelist said.

As for staffing, the apartment industry’s standard ratio is one employee per 100 units.

Lindsay Duffy, Director of Marketing & Training at Western Wealth, said that’s not always ideal, especially for portfolios focused on a value-add strategy where older properties are bought and fixed up.

“These are older buildings that tend not to have a lot of new equipment, such as systems, so they will need more and more frequent attention,” she said, adding that having extra maintenance staff onsite can be necessary.