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Saying Goodbye to High Employee Turnover: How to Keep Your Team Happy and Productive

Saying Goodbye to High Employee Turnover: How to Keep Your Team Happy and Productive

Saying Goodbye to High Employee Turnover: How to Keep Your Team Happy and Productive Saying Goodbye to High Employee Turnover: How to Keep Your Team Happy and Productive

 

 

A major challenge that the multi-family industry faces is high employee turnover. With an annual employee turnover rate of 70%, property management has much higher turnover rates than other industries. This is notably higher than the national average of 22% pre-pandemic.

This high turnover rate affects not only the workforce but also the operations of the company and the residents' satisfaction. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the factors causing high employee turnover in multi-family and how to overcome them.Residential Property Manager with blue vest typing on computer.

 

  • Workforce Crunch: Burnout is a top contributor to employee turnover in multi-family. On-site teams have high-stress jobs. They are responsible for the day-to-day operations of the properties, handling resident complaints and issues and ensuring compliance with regulations. But unmanageable workloads leave them feeling frazzled and frustrated. This can lead to burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. When employees are burned out, they are more likely to leave their jobs and find something less demanding.

 

  • Inadequate Benefits: Many multi-family professionals report feeling their employers' benefits packages leave much to be desired. In today's job market, employees look for more than just a paycheck. They want to work for a company that values their health and well-being. Many employees are willing to take a pay cut to work for a company that offers better benefits. When employees feel that their employer is not providing them with adequate benefits, they may look for a job with a better benefits package.

 

  • Aging workforce: As fewer college graduates enter the field, the multi-family workforce is aging. Many top property managers, maintenance professionals, and leasing agents are reaching retirement age — but with no one to replace them. This can lead to a lack of experienced workers and high turnover rates. In addition, when experienced employees leave, they take their knowledge and expertise with them. This can lead to a loss of productivity and increased workload for the remaining employees.

 

  • Work satisfaction: Many property management firms provide little to no room for growth or career development. Additionally, many workers feel undervalued in their roles. This leads to dissatisfaction among employees, making them more likely to seek employment opportunities where they feel appreciated and valued.

 

Companies must take a proactive approach to overcome these factors that cause high turnover in multi-family.

Solution?

First, create an environment conducive to employee well-being and job satisfaction. One of the ways to do this is to invest in employee development and provide opportunities for career advancement. This can help employees feel valued and important.

Second, address the workload. This can be done by hiring more employees or by utilizing a tool that streamlines tasks through automation.

Lastly, companies must have a positive work culture and encourage open communication and feedback. Promoting a positive work-life balance and not being upset when employees take advantage can help employees feel appreciated making them more likely to stay with the company.

 

Resources

Images -JourneyMatters.AI 

How Multifamily Owners and Operators Can Cultivate a Happy Workforce

Surviving the Great Resignation

 

 
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

I think the high-stress workload is growing larger by the minute and it's now consuming Regionals as well. On-site managers and regionals are clocking long hours AND IT STARTS AGAIN EVERY MONTH. Owners are demanding more as the market tightens and the high returns they expected are not being met because of the softening rents. A key to solving this issue is to restructure the work using centralization and automation. Let the managers do the managing and peopling and use tech and off-site for admin and a good chunk of the leasing.

  Donje Putnam
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

@Donje, I'm curious about what will happen if rental prices start to decrease significantly. I've been hearing about some very high salaries for onsite teams. While I believe it is deserved because of the intense stress, it seems like something will need to be adjusted in the budget to balance the high salaries and the cost of maintaining the properties. Have you had any thoughts on it?

  Lidia Zaragoza
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

There are a lot of things that you can trim, but people aren't the right part of the budget to cut. Low pay = low talent and turnover, and that = resident turnover, more turn costs, more vendor costs, more marketing costs, low reviews, incomplete and lost work tickets, product loss, and ultimately, more money spent.

  Donje Putnam
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

Excellent overview!! You can't replace the people aspect of on site multifamily management, at least not yet. It seems our industry is caught in a cyclone of turnover or short lived careers because of everything you noted. As we rush to get new people in the doors, others are fleeing out the back. Address and fix the true issues, budget for more personnel, higher wages, training & engagement with teams.

  Laura Bruyere
This comment was minimized by the moderator on the site

Thanks for raising this very important topic, Lidia. It's such a difficult cycle to break: On-site team members are stressed to the breaking point. -> On-site team members quit -> Remaining on-site team members are now extra burdened by being short-staffed and demoralized by the loss of their work partner -> More on-site team members quit. And all in the background....service suffers and residents are frustrated.

Our employee survey data at Swift Bunny supports your proposed solutions. Employees tell us in their confidential survey responses that these things especially matter in terms of whether they will stick around:
- Fair compensation
- A bright future - meaning learning and career growth opportunities
- Good communication at all levels of the organization
- A reasonable workload

Sounds simple...but each one of those can be hard to deliver on, especially when you are short-staffed and time-crunched.

My advice to leaders and supervisors would be to start by improving communication. Employees, especially those who are less than satisfied, desperately want to be heard. When leaders make time to talk and listen, good things happen.

And, I love Donje's advice to "let the managers do the managing and peopling and use tech and off-site for admin and a good chunk of the leasing." YES to all of that!

  Kara Rice

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