What Makes a Company a Great Place to Work?

We asked executives at companies in our industry who were recognized as being a top place to work.

By Lynette Bertrand, Communications Manager, CACM

There’s been a massive shift over the past decade in company culture and how employers relate to their staff. In recent years, Human Resource departments across the board have moved away from a top down approach focused on black and white protocols and procedures. Before, organizations pushed out rules and plans and employees complied. But more recently, the power has shifted.

Relationships between employer and employee have become more personal. These days, many companies spend just as much time surveying their employees as they do their customers.

The 2020s will be all about putting people first, according to LinkedIn’s 2020 Global Talent Trends report. The report, which analyzed survey results from more than 7,000 talent professionals in 35 countries, LinkedIn’s own behavioral data and interviews with experts, found that empathy is reshaping the way employers hire and retain talent.

“Companies are becoming more empathetic not only to attract candidates, but to retain their workforce amid increasing expectations of what employers owe to their people,” the report said. “Companies will work to understand their talent more deeply than ever before in order to better serve them.”

Community management companies that have been rated and recognized as “Best Places to Work” all share certain characteristics. They all also report hiring staff despite the COVID pandemic this year. Here are some areas these companies focus on.

EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT

Powerstone Property Management, ACMC, which has been recognized as a Best Place to Work by the Orange County Business Journal for the past three years, hired Katie Bellows last fall specifically to bolster the company’s in-house training. The Powerstone Academy is an internal training program for managers that covers everything from new legislation impacting HOAs to how to create a budget or interpret association financials. Up until the pandemic, training was held in-person at its offices. Now much of it takes place on Zoom.

“A lot of our employees come from outside of the industry,” said Bellows, Director of Talent Acquisition & Growth. “As long as they have customer service and people skills we can train on all of the industry specific skills like how to create a board packet, the CC&Rs, or putting together budgets.”

In-house training is in addition to outside education and certifications offered by CACM. Powerstone classes are led by industry vendors and senior-level employees of the company.

Strong, compelling culture is a recruiting and retention tool

“Our senior leadership is so employee centric and focused,” Bellows said. “Growth and development is important to making sure everyone has a path.”

Powerstone employs roughly 170. The company has hired more than 25 people during the pandemic, Bellows said.

Associa developed its Associa University, an internal training program entirely online five years ago. It includes a mix of videos, business articles and in-house courses to train employees based on their role in the company. The company has also invested in leadership training and increased its internal promotion percentage with most branch presidents promoted from within.

Chelle O'Keefe, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Associa

“If you read about why people leave a company, it’s their leader,” said Chelle O’Keefe, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for Associa, recognized as a Great Place to Work nationally for the past four years, a certification based entirely on employee feedback. “Certainly, compensation is there, but not as high. So we’ve invested in leadership development."

Their investment in me and others as team members has kept me motivated and engaged.

“Associa has been a fantastic place to work throughout my career,” said Kelly Zibell, Branch President, Associa Northern California. “They have offered leadership development training and the opportunity to participate in stretch assignments and different roles within our industry. Their investment in me and others as team members has kept me motivated and engaged. It also fuels my desire to give back to others in our industry and invest in growing them throughout their careers.”

WELL-DEFINED COMPANY CULTURE

Executives agreed that a strong, compelling culture is a recruiting and retention tool.

“Culture wins. Most people would prefer less pay and really strong culture than the reverse,” said O’Keefe.

At The Management Trust, the company’s employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) drives its culture. As employee owners, each employee has a vested interest in the success of the company. This organizational structure creates a unique system of accountability and teamwork. The Management Trust transitioned into employee owned in December 2005.

“When the company does well so do the rest of us,” said Jamy Worthing, Division Vice President of Operations for The Management Trust, Northern California, ACMC. “That’s why it’s so important, if one division might be struggling and others are not, that’s when we get the communication lines open and help each other. We aren’t wasteful with supplies and hold each other accountable.”

Worthing said the ESOP often comes up in new hire interviews. The Management Trust – Northern California was recognized in the Sacramento Business Journal’s Best Places to Work in 2019. The newspaper bases its list on results from employee surveys asking about teamwork, trust, compensation and benefits. The NorCal division has 145 employees and a “really high retention rate,” Worthing said.

PROVIDE THE JOB TOOLS

Tiffany Hannah, CAMEx, CCAM-ND, had been at her new job only four days when shelter in place orders went into effect in California. Hannah, who made the move to Associa after nearly 16 years at her previous employer, said despite the unforeseen circumstances, her onboarding experience was “amazing.”

“They were able to quickly pivot and utilize the resources and technology available to create more of a virtual onboarding experience,” she said.

In addition to an online training portal where she was able to learn new software, process and procedures at her own pace, Hannah also has access to real-time data at all times. In her role as Regional Vice President, West Region, “it’s instrumental to have data to base decisions on,” she said. “To have that readily available to me to support the decisions I’m making in a self-service environment, that’s the biggest positive by far.”

SUPPORT AND REWARD

Rene Decker, CEO of Powerstone Property Management, ACMC, is big on team connection meetings, which are held quarterly. He provides a state of the company address, introduces new employees, celebrates anniversaries, mentions new clients brought onboard and hands out awards.

Emails from homeowners complimenting his staff are read to all, and those employees are presented with a certificate and monetary gift.

“It’s fun to be honored in front of your peers,” Powerstone’s Bellows said. “We see in our industry so many of our employees get beat down. We pride ourselves so much on being team Powerstone. The team feels supported in everything they do. Their jobs are stressful but they feel supported and that there’s a team of people backing them up all the time.

“You spend more of the waking hours at work than anywhere else, you have to love where you work,” Bellows added. “It’s a people industry. We’re in the people business. So making sure our people feel valued, appreciated and supported. That’s helped our retention.”

We’re in the people business. Making sure our people feel valued, appreciated and supported has helped our retention.

The Management Trust’s Worthing said with the pandemic and half of staff working from home, the company holds weekly all-hands Zoom meetings to see each other, share news, Google reviews and the like. Each employee at TMT has an email signature that asks “How did we do?” with a link to a survey, and a phone and email to the person’s direct supervisor for feedback. Information from this survey and feedback is shared during these weekly video calls.

Providing an exceptional experience to the internal team, as well as the external clients, ultimately helps with staff and client retention.

“We’re in a relationship-driven industry,” said Associa’s Hannah. “I’m a huge proponent of building and fostering that culture of people who want to come to work and enjoy the people they work with. That will trickle down to the service they provide to clients.”