Training with Yardi

At Braddock and Logan

By Erica Rascón on Nov 2, 2015 in People

For more than 60 years, Yardi client Braddock & Logan has been a trusted real estate developer in the San Francisco Bay Area. The diversified home builder and property management company hosts a portfolio of more than 33,000 new homes built and sold, over 3,000 apartments, and 300,000 square feet of retail and commercial facilities owned and managed.

We had the chance to chat with Jim DeMartini, Corporate Controller for Braddock & Logan. In his nine years with the growing company, DeMartini has welcomed new software systems and employees. During the most recent transitions, Braddock & Logan relied on Yardi eLearning, an on-demand employee training module.

“The platform allows our regional managers to train staff in disparate areas around the West Coast. It makes it unnecessary to travel out to those sites to conduct the training – they can do it right from our headquarters,” he shared.

DeMartini expanded on his experiences with eLearning.

How has Yardi eLearning assisted you in your daily job?

DeMartini: One of the key benefits that we gained from eLearning was to make it more than just a “training website” by creating more of an employee reference tool.  Beyond the numerous training courses we offer, we also built out a comprehensive library of company-specific policies and procedures that can assist employees in their jobs on a daily basis.  And not just Voyager-related content, but reference materials associated with other aspects of our business, such as homebuilding systems and procedures, to general employee onboarding information.  We feel eLearning acts to supplement the employment-related information provided by our HRIS systems, which is not as easily customized and tailored to our company.

How do you use eLearning at Braddock and Logan?

DeMartini: Our property management business operates with a fair amount of employee turnover.  Our regional hiring managers are able to immediately provide a complete training curriculum for our new hires, one that is specific to their role and customized to the way we do business and the way we use the Yardi Voyager suite of products.

How has it helped your Yardi users better grasp the correct way to use Voyager and other Yardi products?

DeMartini: We are grateful that the eLearning team at Yardi provides such a comprehensive and professional catalog of training courses that spans the breadth of Voyager functionality, including many of the add-on modules and third-party solutions that we have implemented through the years.  We take those courses and customize them to include our company-specific procedural requirements along with incremental content that we feel is important to our employees.  We are a small company and we would never be able to build out such a professional and effective system of training tools for our employees.  Without eLearning, we would still be issuing binders full of paper-based policy and procedure documents that become outdated frequently due to changes in our business or to improvements in Voyager software capabilities.

What do you feel are the most beneficial aspects of Yardi eLearning?

DeMartini: It’s the standardizing of training across our portfolio of properties and property managers.  Our property managers and their regional managers are excellent.  However, we noticed a lack of consistency in the way property managers and their support teams ran their business and performed many functions in Voyager.  Regional managers did their best to communicate the intent of our company’s policies and procedures, but as operations grow in terms of staffing and asset proliferation, that message can get distorted.  Our centralized accounting staff noticed a wide range of procedures being followed by our field personnel. eLearning allows us to provide a singular and accurate message to our staff.

Is there anything you would do to change or improve it?

DeMartini: I do provide input to my Yardi eLearning project manager about specific issues we run into or about possible improvements or features.  But for the most part, the eLearning team has been very proactive and thorough in their preparation and release of new features and improvements to the eLearning platform.  They are the experts in producing quality and relevant training tools.  That allows me and my management team to stay more focused on running our various businesses.

What reference would you provide a fellow industry member looking for information about your Yardi experience?

DeMartini: As it relates to Yardi eLearning, I would simply suggest that they request a thorough product demonstration to understand the ease and simplicity of rolling out a complete and professional training and resource platform into their company’s infrastructure.  The eLearning team has built the tool.  Companies need only to license the product and champion its use within their organizations.  The eLearning product speaks for itself.