One of the best ways to maximize a training budget is to avoid repeat instruction. When staff learns materials the first time, property managers avoid redundant training costs and quickly enjoy the benefits of properly trained staff. Did you know that assessments play a big part in making sure knowledge is properly absorbed? Assessments are most easily described as the quizzes and tests that pop up during a training session. They aren’t there just to make learners sweat a little bit before wrapping up a course. The real purpose of those tests (more specifically referred to as assessments) is to make sure learners have absorbed the material being taught. When properly written, an assessment can document that a student has gained some knowledge and strategically determine which concepts need to be reinforced before the course can be completed. Here are some tips to consider for your course assessments. Identify the true purpose of the assessment. Before writing test questions, ask yourself what exactly you want to measure with the assessment. Keep all questions focused on that goal. If you include anything else in an assessment, no matter how benign, you may wind up with extraneous, perhaps conflictive data that is not useful in measuring how well the course taught the material. Make sure questions ask about the core learning objectives. Including fun, obscure information during training can be a good way to make training interesting. Just be sure to leave those fun facts out of your post-class assessment. You want to know that learners are acquiring critical knowledge, not the extra stuff that a course may cover. It’s okay to have difficult questions, just don’t make them tricky. Assessments should make students think, but shouldn’t be at all devious or crafty. Trick questions are...

Could the most important component of technology be the instructions? It’s arguable that a complex piece of software cannot live up to its potential without well-trained users, no matter how well it is designed. Fortunately, Yardi has taken user training beyond a manual with Yardi eLearning, a dedicated learning management system just for Yardi users. Property management companies such as Viridian Management have found Yardi eLearning indispensable considering the benefits it offers vs. traditional training methods. Getting Started with Yardi eLearning Yardi eLearning arrived just in time for Viridian. Late in 2018, their leadership team was developing a training curriculum for staff to use Yardi Voyager, the property management, accounting and affordable housing compliance software used by Viridian. They soon found it was very difficult to craft training content for their users, even with all of the support documentation available for Yardi software. “We were in a bottleneck because there is so much to cover. As we inventoried the skills we wanted our staff to master, we found it would take hours and hours of training to get users where we wanted them to be. When we saw the courses included with Yardi eLearning, we discovered that about 70% of everything we wanted to teach was already available and ready to use,” says Patrick Patterson, president of Viridian. Training on Affordable Housing Viridian manages 120 properties with more than 4,000 affordable units spread throughout Oregon, Washington and Idaho. They specialize in developing and managing tax credit properties, and have experience with USDA Rural Development, HOME, HUD Multifamily Housing, as well as state and local sources of funds. Training for each of those housing programs is facilitated by specific learning tracks in Yardi eLearning. Viridian can simply assign staff to those learning tracks based on...

You never know where life will take you. Many of us find ourselves in jobs which may be unexpected. Fate, it could be argued, has as much influence on our professional path as our our conscious decision making. That type of fateful, unexpected turn is what Michael Joiner, manager of Yardi eLearning Client Services, seems to have experienced five years ago. While finishing up a PhD in Musicology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Michael began to teach writing courses. That step in his professional career came with a new appreciation for learning, as well as new options for the future. “Towards the end of my dissertation, I began to weigh options such as becoming a music history professor, a writing instructor or to work in the nonprofit industry with a focus on higher education,” said Michael. Teaching and learning is a common theme to each of those pursuits, so it was natural for Michael to become intrigued when he was referred to apply for a position on the Yardi eLearning team. “I realized I could use my passion for teaching and education in a new way with Yardi. It was also a chance to build on my experience in video and audio multimedia development,” said Michael. The rest, as they say, is history. Michael now manages of team of staff supporting Yardi eLearning, and is heavily involved in product development, creating new courses, implementing new clients and anything else that comes his way. “Working with clients is something that gets me going—I get pumped to create more courses or help them find creative ways to train their staff to help them use Yardi products as best as possible, and to be amazing property management professionals in general,” said Michael. Away from work,...

No one likes to pay for things they don’t use. Hundreds of cable channels never to be watched. Millions of songs you’ll never listen to yet included with a subscription. Thousands of streaming movies and TV shows you’ll never get a chance to see. Thankfully, Yardi eLearning clients have some relief. New features recently added to the learning management software platform come with options for Yardi clients to choose which feature sets best fit their organization’s needs. To be specific, Yardi eLearning clients can now choose from four package tiers: Yardi eLearning (base solution), Yardi eLearning Pro, Yardi eLearning Plus and Yardi eLearning Premium. Yardi eLearning The core of Yardi eLearning includes more than 800 online courses that cover every piece of Yardi software and service. Users have unlimited, online access to courses. Courses can be curated into learning tracks personalized for users. Users access courses anytime, even on the job as a convenient knowledge resource. Yardi eLearning interfaces with many types of software products such as human resources information systems and webinar management tools. Yardi eLearning Pro Yardi eLearning Pro adds digital signatures and surveys to the base Yardi eLearning solution. Digital signatures, called eSign, allow users to execute documents without printing, signing, scanning or emailing. Simple and discreet digital signatures instantly and securely track agreements between organizations and employees. The new surveys feature in Yardi eLearning makes it easy to ask staff anything, any time. Without the need to license or log in to a web-based survey software, administrators can quickly set up a poll to determine gaps in training, course effectiveness or even just what’s for lunch. Response data is immediately available in Yardi eLearning – no need to import data from a web-based service. Yardi eLearning Plus Yardi eLearning Plus...

Do you find that your internal staff training program lacks engagement or consistency? Yardi eLearning’s featured topic for this month focuses on creating effective and sustainable training programs for busy real estate companies. Take the pressure off of your training team with these best practices. The Balance Sheet caught up with Michael Joiner of Yardi eLearning’s client services team to get the inside scoop on what this valuable training platform has to offer. What does it mean to have an Effective and Sustainable Training Program?  Joiner: An effective training program is one that meets the training needs of a company. A sustainable training program requires a balance between the administrative tasks—like scheduling training, assigning courses, communicating between instructors and students, validating student work, running reports—and maintaining existing training with the development of new training that meets additional needs of the company and its employees.  What’s one common hurdle that keeps clients’ training programs from being effective?  Joiner: Not identifying the needs of the learners. For instance, you can assign a ton a courses, but do those courses help bridge a skills gap or correct a behavior? Ineffective training programs assign courses for the sake of assigning content that someone thinks is necessary, but it may not be relevant or applicable to an individual. What’s one common hurdle that keeps clients’ training programs from being sustainable? Joiner: Focusing too much on developing new training and letting existing training become out dated. Out-of-date training leads to a lack of engagement and trust on the part of the learner. A sustainable training program creates new training initiatives while regularly updating existing content. How can users access this information after the webinar? Joiner: We’re teaching this class at YASC Washington, D.C. May 30- June 1, 2018. We’ll also be...

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...

We have the perfect holiday gift for Yardi eLearning users: fewer usernames and passwords to remember. Yardi eLearning is the newest addition to the YardiOne platform, which means users can get to training resources at the click of an icon. “There are a lot of benefits that come with being part of YardiOne,” said Patty Evans, director of corporate training and Yardi eLearning. “First and foremost is easy access. Being able to get to training materials quickly, including on the job, helps prevent mistakes and boosts productivity. Our clients’ employees now have the fastest and most efficient access ever to Yardi training.” The YardiOne interface was a popular topic at both Yardi Advanced Solutions Conferences in 2017. After each demonstration at YASC, clients asked when their favorite app could be added to YardiOne. “Our eLearning clients expressed a strong demand for YardiOne support. We’re proud to accommodate that demand with this new feature,” said Yves Hajjar, director of product development for Yardi eLearning. Automated User Accounts Also new is the ability for client training administrators to use Yardi eLearning to create user accounts much more efficiently. “Users can have a Yardi eLearning account instantly and automatically set up for them the moment they log in to Voyager for the first time. That saves a lot of time and manual data entry,” said Evans. Trainers can also take advantage of a hybrid option, which automates online user account setup even for users who do not use Yardi software. “This makes it possible for organizations to deliver a consistent experience to employees across the organization, include temps, cleaning crews and other staff who may not use Yardi software,” said Evans. Integrated with Leading SSO Software All of this is made possible by single sign-on (SSO) technology,...

Shortly after the passing of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, Congress expanded the Civil Rights Act to protect equal access to housing resources. Fair housing protection is a crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. Fair housing legislation makes it illegal to impede access to housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, (and as later amended), handicap and family status. Nearly every state has expanded protection for residents beyond the national Civil Rights Act. State housing agencies and advocacy groups often test property managers and real estate agents for fair housing compliance. It’s unlawful for an agent steer a prospect to or away from a unit based on perception or opinion of prospective residents. Advertisements can’t target only one segment of the community or purposefully omit another community. Yardi eLearning streamlines access to role-based training resources for more than 44,000 active users. It replaces traditional classroom instruction with web-based, interactive courses and live webinar events. Users can access Yardi eLearning from any device with Internet access, including tablets and smartphones. Patty Evans, manager of the Yardi eLearning team, announced the addition of new fair housing curriculum to Yardi’s library of property management training courses. “Proper training makes leasing agents aware of fair housing concerns they may not even be conscious of – it’s not always easy for an agent to know when they may be treading into fair housing territory. That’s why fair housing training is so important for every real estate management company,” says Evans. Yardi eLearning fair housing courses and learning materials cover topics applicable to every state and residential real estate market, including the affordable housing and PHA industries. Yardi eLearning can also specialize content for states or cities. For example, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs...

New hire onboarding is a necessary process for all growing multifamily organizations. It is also a major pain point. Dominium, a Minneapolis-based leading apartment development and management company, set goals to double in size by 2025. To reach its goals, the company needs an innovative and efficient training solution. Maya Kasangaki, Senior Service Desk Technician and Yardi Trainer, explains how Yardi eLearning has prepared her organization for growth. Onboarding Dilemmas Dominium faced challenges that are familiar to other property management firms: high turnover and costly, inefficient training processes. The organization hosted monthly weeklong trainings for new community managers at the corporate office.  In addition to regular conference calls, these nearly six-hour training sessions consumed the majority of Kasangaki’s time. Once complete, she lacked a consistent way to track students’ understanding and content retention. “If we have training with 12 people on the call, it’s hard to make sure that everyone is absorbing the information. They aren’t as comfortable bringing up questions or starting a discussion in the midst of a training,” she observes. High turnover exacerbated the already frustrating situation. “Because of the staff turnover in property management, we would train someone but they didn’t have basic knowledge of the industry. The information we provided  was maybe going over their head. Then we would hire someone to replace them and we would have to begin this process all over again,” says Kasangaki. Dominium sought a training solution that would simplify and expedite new hire onboarding. Online Solutions for Onboarding and Growth In 2016, Dominium implemented Yardi eLearning. The company customized the curricula to include soft skills courses, videos, webinars, and more. Kasangaki appreciates the ability to deliver content in different formats, allowing learners to receive the information in a way that appeals to their...

The story of Janice Hill reflects the dilemma of many managers in the affordable housing sector: she wades through an endless stream of work while juggling several responsibilities at once. All this is done while dealing with, what seems to be, fewer hours in every day. “My title this week is business analyst,” chuckles Hill. She follows with a telling sigh. Also like many others in the industry, she loves her job. Hill has worked with New Directions for 18 years. She takes pride in helping people secure housing, giving them a stable foundation upon which they can build their dreams. But the demand for affordable housing continues to grow. Staffing and other resources can’t keep up. That’s why she and the small, dedicated staff at New Directions Housing Corporation are exploring how to help more people using fewer resources. The organization turned to Yardi for help. In 2000, New Directions implemented Yardi Advantage before upgrading to Yardi Voyager® property management platform in 2002. The web-based platform facilitates operations management, leasing execution, and easy analytics. The team recently updated to Voyager 7S with enhanced functionalities. Voyager 7S runs on any device using any browser. It also hosts user-friendly mobile apps and add-on products that allow New Directions to improve efficiencies and deliver competitive services to residents. Hill explains, “We chose Yardi Voyager because it was Windows-based and it had everything we needed it to do: management, maintenance, affordable, payroll. Everything was in one place. We got rid of a database and [two competitors] for the financials. Voyager got rid of all of these different programs that we were using to run New Directions. Voyager simplified it.” Voyager has helped New Directions do more with less. Streamlined and automated workflows promote efficiency, accuracy, and transparency...

A leading property management company requires a software company that is able to accommodate the management of its developments. McCormack Baron turned to Yardi property management solutions to facilitate growth and improve efficiencies across its diverse portfolio.   Yardi Voyager Project Manager Karen Pruiett has been with McCormack Baron for nearly 30 years. She ushered her company through its first Yardi Voyager® implementation in 2004. Since then, she has seen McCormack Baron flourish and adopt new Yardi software to meet its needs. “We chose Yardi Voyager because of its excellent accounting background and the property management capabilities in the software,” says Pruiett. “We looked at different companies and you guys have the best accounting background. Also, the number of property types that you all support is amazing. That was a necessity for us.” Yardi Voyager is a web-based platform that enables clients with larger portfolios to smoothly manage operations. It is ideal for clients like McCormack Baron that manage a spectrum of properties. With Voyager, McCormack Baron executes leases, runs analytics, and issues innovative resident, tenant, and investor services. The software automates workflows and permits controlled transparency that enables the firm to collaborate with greater accuracy and efficiency. “Voyager has definitely improved our efficiencies,” Pruiett says. Yardi PAYscan Pruiett recalls notable savings with Yardi PAYscan™, a Voyager ancillary product that automates invoice processing. “PAYscan has totally saved our lives. We were doing a lot of manual invoice processing. Now that we can scan our invoices into PAYscan, it’s absolutely wonderful to have the image attached to the invoice, especially for auditing purposes.” Before PAYscan, the accounting team had to dig through file cabinets to find invoices during audits. Now, auditors receive limited access to PAYscan and they are able to pull images of invoices...

If you are still conducting live training courses, you are missing out on the opportunity to save time, save money, and customize the learning experience for your employees. Why eLearning?  The 2014 State of the Industry report states that the real estate industry experienced a reduction in classroom training at 51%, down from 55 percent in 2013, and an increase in eLearning to 19%, up from 16 percent in 2009. This industry-wide shift away from costly classroom education in favor of eLearning is partially due to the perceived and calculated costs of live training courses. With Yardi eLearning, organizations can save on learning and development costs in four key areas: * Personnel This category includes the cost of all people involved in producing the training such as content designers, IT professionals, reviewers and approvers. eLearning software significantly reduces administrative costs through the introduction of technology. The software also allows users to eliminate travel and lodging expenses. * Technology The cost of the eLearning solutions, computers, web conference system, and any other technology involved in conducting the training are included in this category. These costs are the primary reason many companies choose to invest in eLearning. * Content This category includes the cost of content production and the cost of acquiring content from a vendor. By recording an instructor once and delivering the recorded course online, organizations can maximize the use of content and decrease costs associated with instructors. * Administrative Such factors are some of the most time-consuming and overlooked features of live training programs. Significant time is spent recording training activities, setting up training opportunities, and communicating with trainees and instructors before and after the event. Decreasing administrative costs offers benefits throughout the organization. In two recent polls conducted at Yardi’s bi-annual Training...

Multifamily real estate development and management firm Simpson Housing LLLP® has streamlined its employee training by making Yardi eLearning™ the gateway to hundreds of company-sponsored online training classes. Simpson Housing uses Yardi eLearning to deliver webinars, in-person classes and on-demand self-study courses on various aspects of property management directly to employees. “We present about 400 classes at our property sites every year, and eLearning makes it very easy for the trainers to register attendees, track attendance and completion, and distribute course material beforehand,” said Cindy Sheahan, national trainer for Simpson Housing.  “We also use it to create specialized tracks that give management, maintenance employees, consultants and others the advanced knowledge they need to progress in their careers.” Yardi eLearning, which is accessible from any Web browser and mobile device, includes assessment tools, certification, post-training follow-up, and retraining activities.  Its multimedia format allows for a variety of content including HTML, documents, images, videos and podcasts. Yardi eLearning’s automated notification feature reduces manual labor for Simpson Housing’s training staff.  “Calling every person who’s attending every class would be too much for the staff, so it’s very helpful that every participant receives an Outlook calendar appointment for each class,” Sheahan said.  “There’s also a signup sheet function that helps the trainers determine how much material to bring when we visit the communities. “In addition to our own courses, we used eLearning to present a number of Yardi-designed modules to the entire company after we selected Yardi Voyager® as our property management and accounting platform in 2012.  Our employees become familiar with the dashboards, terms and everything else in Voyager, and this gave them a step up on the system even before the trainers arrived at the offices for advanced training.” “Having an organization’s entire training program in...