Property management staff members are burnt out. We hear your concerns: addressing financial issues, public safety and frustrated residents have added additional stresses to an already demanding job. As property management leadership, you play an essential role in preventing burnout for yourself and others. Leasing agents are discouraged and need your support Social distancing is dragging on and very, very few people are happy about it. Property management must decide how to reopen multifamily amenities and enforce social distancing policies—decisions that are bound to upset people. Additionally, while many employers are grasping for business as normal, others are closed or operating on a skeleton crew. This financial uncertainty is challenging for residents and the staff that tries to assist them. Your staff members need your support and insights. Perhaps once a week at the end of the day, host a meeting that allows staff to share the challenges that they’re facing. This is an especially important time for you to listen as listening reduces the frustration of conflict. To help you get started, we’ve identified a few common pain points that might arise and how to address them: Help staff communicate a fair, consistent message for residents Agents are receiving lots of calls and emails. Many are from residents who want refunds for amenities and services that they haven’t been able to use as expected. Encourage staff to listen and mirror residents’ concerns. Then ensure your staff knows how to address residents’ concerns and offer a fair response. If you will be offering concessions, create consistent guidelines that staff can use. If you are not offering concessions, help staff craft the verbiage needed to explain why. When agents understand your expectations and know what to say, you can reduce the frustration of communicating with...

In our previous article link, IT specialist Linda Greenwaldt explained how CommonBond Communities implemented Yardi RentCafe for subsidized housing to improve efficiencies. Yardi eLearning helped the organization optimize their use of RentCafe. It is also the nonprofit’s go-to tool for employee education. The eLearning Solution eLearning provides on-demand training through a convenient online platform. Administrators can choose between pre-written classes, customized classes, and any combination in between. The fully configurable courses offer quantifiable insight into employee learning and content retention. “eLearning is perfect for rolling out RentCafe,” said Greenwaldt. “For introductions, this is perfect, perfect, perfect. During training, it has been great to prepare what onsite staff need to know, when they need to know it, without making them feel overwhelmed.” “Most people only pick up 10 percent of information their first time through it,” shrugged Greenwaldt. “We structured [the courses] in a way where they can always go back and review it. The 10 percent that I tell people that they can’t forget is going to eLearning and retaking the class!” Greenwaldt using eLearning to issue high-priority courses like Fair Housing first, followed by role-based learning for RentCafe and Yardi Voyager for PHA and Affordable housing. Customized Learning eLearning offers an extensive library of courses written by Yardi industry experts. Administrators are welcomed to use the courses as-is, but they are also encouraged and empowered to customize content. “A lot of times, I’ll reach out and see what Yardi has and modify it or do something slightly different. It’s helpful because I can copy the class and add the CommonBond content,” said Greenwaldt. Learning assessments promote information retention while helping leadership identify topics that need clarification or review. Greenwald said, “I love the ability to throw in a test or quiz. I can...

A major trend in 2017 was the prevalence of discussion around sexual harassment in many workplaces. Seemingly every week heard new reports of high-profile offenders, despite decades of preventative efforts by employers and government regulators. In 2018, it’s likely that major changes are on the horizon. PBS provides an excellent overview of the history of harassment policy, and how training has evolved since being first introduced in the 1980s. The article cites a report from a task force set up by the United States Department of Equal Employment which found that training likely failed to prevent harassment because it were too focused on simply protecting employers from legal liability. One example of an evolving training policy is happening in California. State legislators passed a bill in the fall of 2016 that requires managers receive training which includes the topics of gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. The requirement applies to companies with more than 50 employees and went into effect on January 1, 2018. “Training is vital to prevent harassment from occurring, but it’s clear that the curriculum must evolve as the issue changes over time. That’s one of the great things about online training, it can be quickly updated and efficiently rolled out to learners at very little cost compared with producing and shooting a new video,” said Patty Evans, director of corporate training for Yardi. Yardi recently announced that its Yardi eLearning sexual harassment classes are fully compliant with the new California law. The team worked to update courses so that California-based clients could comply with new state law as it went into effect. “Gender identity and sexual orientation are long past due when it comes to inclusion in harassment training. We’re proud to make this important instructional material available not...