NAA Education Conference & Exposition, NAA Education Institute highlight full offerings for all management positions.

Growing numbers of the next generation of apartment industry leaders are taking advantage of an expanding list of year-round resources and opportunities that NAA provides to equip them to succeed and prosper in their careers.

These opportunities are offered through education programs, peer-to-peer networking and conference events geared toward sharing the latest strategies in operational best practices, workforce management, conflict management, technology, human resources and more.

This practical information is designed for multiple levels of leadership—from onsite staff to regional managers to upper-level executives. The curriculum provided is intended to expand the knowledge of professionals at any level of experience. One is never too young or old to learn the apartment industry.

The most comprehensive offerings come at the 2017 NAA Education Conference & Exposition in Atlanta from June 21 to 24. There, more than 65 education sessions, spanning more than 85 hours of learning, are part of a blockbuster lineup at the largest apartment housing industry conference.

Included is an Executive education session track, geared toward executive-level attendees (rising C-Suite execs) on topics including cyber-targeting, economic trends and outlook, deal-making, acquisitions and mergers and corporate social responsibility.

As part of this program, on Friday morning of the Conference (June 23), NAA is hosting an Executive Exchange networking breakfast, highlighted by an Executive Panel discussion, featuring current and past NAA volunteer leaders. The Executive Panel will give upwardly-aspiring executives a proactive strategy to position themselves to be “first off the bench” as opportunities for promotion to top leadership roles arise.

Another cornerstone of the year-round training NAA offers is the NAA Education Institute (NAAEI). A recent partnership with Grace Hill has created NAAEI’s new era of online learning through Visto  — an online hub with all the NAAEI credential programs and continuing education that professionals need to take their careers to the next level.

Since NAAEI’s inception in 2006, its mission has been to encourage the apartment industry’s adoption of best practices and the highest professional standards. NAAEI continually updates the body of knowledge for the industry and has credentialed more than 30,000 qualified professionals in a wide variety of roles.

Now with Visto, the apartment industry has even more opportunities to expand education, professional development and leadership skills, including: 

• More online programs than ever before, including for NALP (leasing), CAM (property management), CAS (industry supplier) and, in Q3, CAPS (portfolio supervisor) credential programs.
• A streamlined platform, making it easy to find the right course and get started.
• Personalized course recommendations for advancing in specific career paths.
• Automatic reporting to NAAEI of any continuing education credits earned, keeping credentials records current.
• Easy-to-use tools that local apartment associations can leverage to design their own custom courses and record live webinars.

“Ultimately, through the NAAEI credential courses offered through Visto, it can help fast-track career advancement — increasing your earning potential, your company’s net operating income and employee engagement,” says NAAEI President Stephanie Puryear Helling, CAM, CAPS, Greystar. “As the president of NAAEI and an industry professional for more than 20 years, I’ve experienced firsthand the career benefits of earning new credentials. Visto will boost your own industry knowledge, on-the-job skills and leadership potential. NAAEI is proud to be your team’s partner in improving the company bottom line and helping you stand out.”

For years, Susan Passmore, CAM, CAPS, Executive Vice President, Blue Ridge Companies, has invested in its employees by enabling them to earn NAAEI credentials.

“We analyzed the performance of our CAM-credentialed managers,” Passmore says. “They outperformed non-CAM managers across all measures and delivered an extra $918,008 in net operating income. This convinced us to offer NALP, CAM and CAMT to all our employees through corporate training. By purchasing the programs from NAAEI, we can provide the instruction for these high-quality programs and use Blue Ridge Companies’ examples in the appropriate parts of the curriculum.”

NAAEI’s customizable Corporate Training Program makes available all of its credential and leadership programs. Companies can use their own instructors while delivering the programs that meet their unique needs with flexible scheduling and delivery in an optimal format for their employees. Programs also can be tailored to meet a company’s business goals.

Additionally, responding to the need for leadership training within the industry, NAAEI partnered with Dale Carnegie Training to design and deliver a world-class program called the NAAEI Leadership Experience in 2017.

With the goal of cultivating successful leaders who empower their teams, these full-day seminars will teach what it takes to be a leader, creating confident and enthusiastic teams that grow a company’s net operating income.

The 2017 seminars are offered as pre-event programming at three of NAA’s major conferences: the NAA Capitol Conference was in March, the NAA Education Conference & Exposition in June and the Assembly of Delegates in November.

Brad Williams, CAPS, CPM, Lincoln Property Company, says executives recognize that while most companies do a good job training onsite staff, when onsite staff are promoted to regional or corporate department positions, few companies have training programs that help turn that good manager into a successful leader.

“[Companies want to hire those] who will inspire and motivate, rather than direct and dictate,” Williams says. “If you work in a regional position or as a corporate department head and would like to learn how to lead effectively across generations, delegate tasks to develop and train others and, most importantly, find time to work on future business growth, the NAAEI Leadership Experience is an investment that will pay dividends.”

Sherry Jordan, CPM, Regional Property Supervisor, LumaCorp., says the program has “given me some tools to lead better, to be a better coach and to develop my associates so that I’ll see increased productivity.”

Also presented as an ongoing learning series as part of NAA’s three major conferences is the NAA Leadership Lyceum: Powered by NAAEI.

Leadership Lyceum prepares its participants for volunteer leadership roles with NAA at the national level, says Mike Holmes, Easlan Management, and 2017 NAA Treasurer.

“It presents a well-rounded view of the mission of NAA, how we have been organized to accomplish that mission, the array of services and support offered to assist in achieving the mission, interaction with high-level leadership to make important connections and participate in interactive dialogue about NAA experiences and a sense of what leadership qualities NAA is seeking.”

To participate, candidates must be identified by a colleague in the organization as potential leaders.

“Graduating makes them a priority for leadership positions, and places them in a better position to be a successful leader for NAA,” Holmes says.

“Multifamily Housing–The Essential Industry Text” was developed for industry professionals, leaders and students to present the 10 subject areas that frame apartment housing and provide a comprehensive resource with best practices and guidelines that complement the on-the job experience of property management professionals.

NAA, NMHC, IREM have collaborated to develop this book which contains case studies, a glossary, learning activities and industry resources. Now available as an interactive, online text at naahq.org/multifamily text.

In the ever-changing, fast-moving apartment management industry, ambitious professionals need to stay on top of the latest opportunities offered to advance their careers. They will find this valuable information year-round at NAA.

Weidner Values NAAEI Courses

As a longtime supporter of NAA, Weidner Apartment Homes has benefitted greatly by enrolling our employees in many of the different credential programs that are offered by the Education Institute. Over the past 40 years, our in-house team of four training professionals have worked with Regional leadership to develop our own internal training programs and philosophies. While many of these offerings are unique to our company and help us train both our new hires as well as veteran staff, we rely upon the vast array of NAAEI courses and designations such as the CAM, CAMT, and NALP to help augment and expand the knowledge base of our team members.

Because the coursework offered by NAAEI is specific to the work that is done on an everyday basis by our employees, we’ve found that they tend to enjoy the classes more, and look forward to completing the course to earn their designations.

We’ve also found that there’s an aspirational component that we benefit from by encouraging career development. In fact, some of our team members have elected to attend classes that teach fundamental skills not typically found in their current job. Take for instance the CAPS course – we’ve seen a number of our onsite managers take this course in order to prepare themselves for future promotion opportunities within the company. 

The annual NAA Education Conference & Exposition gives our employees the chance to learn from world-class speakers and industry experts.

As a million-dollar donor to the recent NAAEI Now Capital Campaign, Weidner couldn’t be happier with the returns we’re seeing from our investment in, and partnership with NAAEI. We feel that we’re well on our way toward reaching the goal of attracting deeper streams of talent, and providing training and leadership development opportunities that will best ensure the success and retention of new talent into our industry. - Greg Cerbana, Vice President, Public Relations, Weidner