Recently, Entrata hosted Swift Bunny President Jen Picotti and VP of Education Kara Rice as part of our Resident Experts series. The pair discussed trends they’re seeing in the industry gleaned from employee feedback received by their customers. The following are some of the key highlights from their conversation with Virginia Love, Industry Principal at Entrata.  

Survey Surprises

The biggest surprise is the sheer amount of positive feedback you’ll receive from your employees. Before starting, you’re likely bracing yourself for an onslaught of negative feedback, but it’s not all gloom and doom. Sure there is always room for improvement, but by and large, most multifamily companies are doing a good job supporting team members and helping them do a good job.

One thing to keep in mind is there may be a disconnect between leadership and their site teams. One area that was cited related to promotions. At the corporate level, you think you’re being fair and prioritizing internal candidates, but your site teams might think differently. If that is the case, take it as an opportunity to learn and improve.

Invest in Employee Experience

The resident experience is always top of mind, but when you get beyond the surface level, you realize that investing in the employee experience improves the resident experience as well.. “You’ve really got to go back and enhance that employee experience because once the employees are satisfied, they’re high-performing,” said Rice. Additionally, improving the employee experience significantly reduces employee turnover, which helps keep costs down because you’re not constantly onboarding  and training new employees.

What Employees Want

One of the biggest benefits team members have seen from increased competition for new employees is an increase in compensation. Swift Bunny research shows that one area where some businesses need to level up is the non-salary benefits offered. If you want to attract and keep the best employees, they’re going to need high quality health benefits. If they’re not getting that, don’t be surprised if they jump ship at the first opportunity.

Today’s associates also value a little more flexibility, especially when it comes to their schedule. They need to know that it’s okay to use PTO as it accrues and not feel the pressure to keep working because things are too busy.

Finally, regional managers need to feel supported. With an increasing number of new units being brought online every quarter, they are feeling the crunch the most. They need to know management is there for them and that they have the tools in place to be successful, including centralization tools that make it easier for them to do more with the same amount of resources.

Attracting Top Talent

There's more than one way to successfully build an employee experience; each business must identify what their employees value and what they value as a company and build programs around that, whether it be philanthropy/making your community a better place, providing leadership development opportunities, or something entirely different. Make sure you know what your company’s strengths are and look for ways to take advantage of them to find the right team members to help you better exploit those strengths.

Prioritizing Employee Development

Training shouldn’t be a one-time thing for your employees. Not only is it impractical, given the pace of change in today’s markets, but a one-and-done training strategy fails to provide associates with ample opportunities to grow and develop in their career. Give veteran employees opportunities to build and broaden their skill set. This will keep employees interested and engaged while reducing overall employee churn

A Tech Stack that Creates Efficiencies

Finally, it’s important to invest in a tech stack that is creating efficiencies not making your employees' work life more difficult. One way to accomplish this is when evaluating new technology make sure either it integrates with what you’re already using or consolidates multiple solutions into one single solution. And, when possible, get the input of associates who will actually be using the tool when choosing a solution.

Learn more

To learn more about how to improve employee satisfaction and retention, check out our entire conversation with Jen and Kara by clicking here.