The best way to keep star employees is with a career path.

Long before Diane Batayeh became CEO of Village Green, she had a brief career in the food service industry as she was working her way through college. When Batayeh discovered food service wasn’t a good fit, she looked for another part-time gig to help finance college at the University of Michigan and ultimately law school.

So, in the days before Glassdoor, Monster and Indeed, Batayeh started looking at the “Help Wanted” ads section of the newspaper. “I saw an ad for a part-time leasing agent, called the number and was interviewed over the phone,” she says. “It was a 20-minute interview. I was hired over the phone and given an address to show up for work. The address was for the building in which I lived. Talk about fate.”

And that’s how Batayeh began her career at Village Green, starting down a path that would make her decide to forego law school and dreams of ultimately becoming a public servant, and eventually rise to the top spot at a property management company.

“Upon graduation, I was offered a full-time position at another property as an assistant property manager. So, I had to make the choice between that and continuing my education that would have led me down a very different path,” Batayeh says. “I chose Village Green not necessarily as a career choice but for personal reasons at the time. So, looking back, I think serendipity played a role.”

Batayeh soon rose to property manager. She saw even more opportunity as the company expanded into new markets. In a shrewd decision that gave her exposure to other parts of the business, Batayeh took a role in acquisitions and development, including overseeing construction activities when Village Green opened an office in Denver in the early 1980s. From there, she continued to expand her experience on the asset side of the business, taking a lead role in acquisitions, dispositions, development and finance, and eventually becoming Chief Investment Officer. In 2011, Batayeh was promoted to president/COO and once Jonathan Holtzman (the last active member of the family that founded Village Green), left the company in 2016, the board promoted her to CEO.

“Over the course of my career, there were times where I had to ask for that next level,” Batayeh says. “But in general, with hard work, good results and a lot of patience, my ascension through the ranks happened organically as opportunities arose and I was prepared to take on that next level of responsibility.”

But the days of employees asking for the next opportunity are a fading memory. With the tight labor market and a new generation of workers demanding a career path, companies have found that funneling capable associates into management training can boost retention. But first, they need to identify these rising stars. Once these people are selected, forward-looking apartment firms provide training, mentorship and regular career conversations with their managers. “We kind of guide them to do the job before they get the title,” says Vanessa Siebern, Senior Vice President at FPI Management.

The Need for a Career Path

Promoting from within is a natural move for apartment firms. “Our industry, like many others, provides opportunities to promote from within so that we can help individuals carve out a career path,” says Tina West, CPM, Chief Operating Officer for Capstone Real Estate Services.

This practice has many benefits, including passing institutional knowledge through the organization, rewarding high performers and showing others that there truly is a career path. “I do believe strongly in promotion from within,” Batayeh says. “It gives high-potential people incentive to stay and not to look for other opportunities.”

Batayeh contends that talented staff are always being recruited. “In this tight labor market, [it’s] a huge risk for any company if their employees aren’t feeling engaged and satisfied,” she says. “It’s also so important for them to feel they are making a difference and have a key role in the success of the company.”

Blue Ridge has found that if an employee stays for three years, retention thereafter is almost a given. “We did a survey of our employees, and most of the employees who stayed with us for three years ended up staying with us forever,” says Gina Carter, Vice President of Portfolio Operations for Blue Ridge.

So, the company began investing in those employees who hit year three. “If we could get them into the leadership program after year three and we know they’re going to stay with us forever, then why not invest in their growth. We wanted to invest in these people that are going to be with us long term,” says Carter.

At the same time, developing a career path provides organizations with an opportunity to have a backup if someone does leave. “I think you’ve got to constantly be strategically thinking about succession planning,” Batayeh says. “You have to always be prepared. You can’t ever be left without a plan for backfills, especially in key positions.”

Village Green is constantly investing in high-potential talent, training and mentoring and preparing them for the next level, says Batayeh. The company makes it a point to have a bench of people ready for key executive positions as they may become available, she says. “This applies not only for current key positions but for new ones that may be created as the company grows and evolves,” she adds. “It’s always our first choice to promote someone from within to fill those important positions because they have institutional knowledge and have already built internal relationships.”

While promoting from within has many advantages, if you don’t properly identify the right candidates and train them effectively, things can go wrong. “Sometimes we unintentionally promote people to their level of incompetence, which you never want to do, so we have to be disciplined in ensuring proper training and support during move-up opportunities,” West says.

To get beyond that, and to avoid falling into the trap of promoting people to their level of incompetence, companies need to identify top performers and then train them to reach their potential.

Identifying the Right People

Given Batayeh’s experience, it’s no surprise that Village Green works to identify high-potential associates in every part of its organization. “We want to identify their goals and passions,” she says. “Then we continuously work with them to develop them and encourage them to take advantage of certain targeted training programs that will bring out their highest potential. We are always investing in our people.”

Village Green isn’t alone in this focus on career development. “Our executive team is really looking at who our players are, building our bench strength and creating clear paths for everyone,” says FPI Management’s Siebern. “I know that the people that I work with know what their next steps are.”

FPI looks at what associates are good at and passionate about when it thinks about building its bench, Siebern says. “One of our full-time recruiters was a manager for many, many years. She told us that she was really passionate about interviewing people, picking really good employees and wanted to get into recruiting. So, we tried it out. She loved it and she was good at it. And now she’s doing it full-time.”

For Bell Partners, identifying strong candidates to climb the ladder starts with career conversations with managers to find out who is interested in taking on greater responsibility. These conversations also help Bell understand how its workforce is evolving.

“We’re also looking at what people want out of their job versus what they wanted many years ago,” says Chris Gilmore, Bell Vice President of Training. “People want development opportunities, and they want to know that we’re utilizing their strengths.”

Such conversations have been especially fruitful with maintenance technicians. “When we had the conversations with the maintenance managers, they were a little caught off guard at first because nobody had ever really asked them questions [about their career path] before,” Gilmore says. “[But] they were happy with associate development and career conversations, and the managers thought it helped them to get to know their people better.”

The conversations have also helped the managers discover that some maintenance team members have other areas of interest. “I [found] that one technician wanted to learn more about all of the electronics and programmable stuff with maintenance now,” Gilmore says.

Making the Cut

Having the right people on your bench is important, but training them to move up the ladder is even more vital.

While promotions traditionally started with someone expressing interest in moving up, as in Batayeh’s case, nowadays it usually takes more than that to get a seat on the bench. “Everyone wants to have some sort of career path and leadership training,” says Steve Hallsey, Managing Director for Wood Partners.

At Wood Partners, there is competition to get into the leadership training program, which accepts new entrants twice a year. “They have to be sponsored by their direct supervisors,” says Hallsey. “Then they have to be passed through a senior vice president for sponsorship, and then they’re selected by a committee for a written nomination. It has become something that is sought after.”

Leasing professionals who want to become community managers at Capstone also go through an assessment to see whether they have the proper skills. The company provides multiple opportunities to help team members achieve their career goals.

“If a leasing professional wants to be an assistant manager, they’ll be enrolled in a program and they’ll go through the training,” West says.

Having the potential trainee mirror someone who’s already in that position can also help companies determine if that person is a good fit for a management program. “The goal is to ensure success in the new role,” West says. “We have a Capstone coach program where a team member is partnered with a coach to walk them through training initiatives as well as provide real-life, side-by-side training.” During this process, each team member assesses whether they actually wants the role and has the skill set to be successful, adds West. “So, there’s this dual-interview process.”

Once the associate goes through the process, that individual gets a seat on the bench and is considered for a promotion when positions open or are created, West says. “Timing isn’t always perfect, but we want to be certain our teams are ready when the opportune time arrives.”

Pinnacle took a deeper look, identifying where it might not be as strong as an organization from a core competencies perspective. “We did an exercise where we evaluated the regional property manager position and looked at what skills and competencies we needed in that position,” says Erinn Cassidy, Vice President of Human Resources at Pinnacle. “We’ve redefined our job description, and we’ve even redefined expectations on performance evaluations.”

In addition, Pinnacle uses that as a guide when grooming regional property managers. “We are targeting our training opportunities and development assignments on an individual level so we can prepare our regional property managers to not just be very effective in their jobs, but also identify the regional property managers that could be the next regional vice president or head of a market area,” Cassidy says.

The Development Path

Selecting the correct people to groom is only part of the battle. Then you must prepare those associates for larger roles. That process often involves a mix of training and mentorship.

Mentorship also helps trainees build their Rolodex of contacts. “You’re finding mentors in that position who [trainees] would be aspiring to and they’re also developing relationships,” FPI Management’s Siebern says.

These mentorship programs don’t only help the trainee. “When you’re using them to teach others, it gives those people we tapped to be mentors a greater sense of value with what they’re doing to contribute to the organization,” says Batayeh of Village Green. “It’s this multiplier principle that works so effectively.”

Developing a leadership program and proper training is also important. And once that is in place, it’s important for companies to highlight stories, like that of Batayeh, who stayed with the company, grew and was able to assume a leadership role. That not only shines a spotlight of strong, long-tenured performers but also shows junior associates that there is a path for growth.

That is what FPI Management is trying to do. “We want to share those stories with our teams and show them that with hard work and dedication, the sky’s the limit,” Siebern says.