Solving the Multifamily Training Crisis: How guided. Transforms Software Training
Sep 11, 2024
Is your team drowning in software training while struggling with the fundamentals of property management?
Are the challenges with implementing a new software solution holding you back from using a product you think would be impactful to your organization?
Is the majority of your new hire onboarding focused on navigating software and not the nuances of someone's new job?
If these sound familiar, don't worry, you're not the only one facing this growing challenge. Over the past decade, the multifamily industry has experienced a paradoxical shift that's creating a hidden crisis in training and operations.
Picture this: A new leasing agent, eager to start their role, spends their first week navigating through a maze of software platforms instead of learning the nuances of building relationships with potential residents. Or a maintenance technician, skilled in their craft, struggling to input work orders into a complex system, leading to delays and resident frustration.
These scenarios are becoming all too common in our industry. While technological advancements have simplified individual tasks, they've also dramatically increased the overall complexity of property management roles. This shift has led to a critical, yet often overlooked, consequence: employee training has pivoted dramatically, now focusing primarily on navigating an ever-expanding array of software rather than core property management skills.
As someone who spent years managing training and software stacks early in my career, I've witnessed firsthand the struggles that property management companies face in creating effective, engaging, and accessible training content. This shift in focus is not just a minor inconvenience; it's at the root of many challenges our industry faces today, from high turnover rates to operational inefficiencies and decreased resident satisfaction.
Today, I want to shed light on these challenges and introduce a solution that could transform how we approach training in our industry, potentially addressing the root cause of many issues we see manifesting at properties every day.
The Multifamily Training Dilemma
Skyrocketing Turnover Rates
Our industry grapples with an alarmingly high turnover rate, fluctuating between 35% and 45% annually. This constant churn creates a perpetual cycle of hiring and training, putting immense pressure on teams and resources. Importantly, the challenges with training and the increasing complexity of software-related job responsibilities are often contributors to this high turnover rate, compounding the already substantial onboarding workload faced by companies across the country.
Software Overload
In our quest to leverage technology for efficiency, we've inadvertently complicated the role of property managers. Instead of teaching vital property management skills, training teams are stuck spending most of their time navigating employees through a sea of software. This imbalance leaves teams ill-equipped to handle the nuances of resident interactions, market fluctuations, and property operations. When you stop to break down the volume of niche, single purpose products we’ve adopted as an industry, it can make your head spin.
Core property management software system
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool
Procurement platform
Market comparison software
Multiple Internet Listing Services (ILSs)
Resident services app
Resident portal
Resident rewards program
Resident-prospect conversation app
Lease generation and management software
AI leasing assistant
Dedicated maintenance app
Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) software for budgeting and reporting
Inspection software
Energy management systems
Access control and security software
Package management solutions
Amenity booking platforms
Business intelligence and data analytics tools
Learning Management System (LMS) for ongoing training
This extensive, albeit not comprehensive, list underscores the overwhelming number of systems that property management professionals must navigate, in many cases daily.
How many different software systems does your team use daily? what about monthly? Share your number in the comments – you might be surprised how it compares to others in the industry.
Rushed Onboarding
The desperate need to fill positions often results in rushed onboarding processes. New hires are frequently thrown into roles they're not fully prepared for, leading to a cascade of issues that far outweigh the perceived time savings of expedited training.
For example, consider a leasing agent who receives minimal training on the nuances of the property's management software. A work order for a broken sliding door lock, instead of getting entered directly into the system during a call with a resident, finds its way to a post-it note due to a lack of software training and easily accessed reference materials. That post-it note gets lost, the apartment is broken into, and the management team is now facing a completely avoidable problem.
Similarly, a maintenance technician has only been trained on how the procurement software system works to order parts but not trained on how to operate with a limited budget. Without the context of not just how to read a budget but strategies on how to manage spend in challenging times, the maintenance technician continues ordering supplies and ends up leaving the property with very limited cash with which to operate.
These seemingly small gaps in skills and knowledge can have outsized impacts on a property's performance, resident satisfaction, and ultimately, the company's reputation and profitability. The rush to get new hires "up and running" often sacrifices the depth of understanding necessary for truly effective property management.
What's been your experience with onboarding in the multifamily industry? Have you seen the impacts of rushed training firsthand?
Inaccessible & Substandard Quality Content
When employees or customers need information, it's often buried in lengthy manuals or scattered across various platforms. The lack of easily accessible, context-specific guidance leads to inefficiencies, errors, and frustration.
Today’s landscape leaves all but the largest property management companies without the resources to produce the volume and quantity of content needed by their teams. Even at the largest companies, training departments often have to create one-size fits all content due to time and labor constraints, missing out on providing the local market nuance that would be transformative for the people they’re trying to support.
Early in my career, I would spend hours upon hours painstakingly capturing screenshots for guides and using complex tools like Articulate or Captivate to make interactive training content. What would have taken minutes with guided. consumed entire workdays and even once complete, felt woefully inadequate for the needs of the teammates who consumed them.
Even when companies implement the best Learning Management Systems (LMS) available, the sheer volume of content often becomes overwhelming and difficult to maintain. It's not enough to simply put quality content in place initially; companies must continuously update, adapt, and keep it relevant for their employees. This ongoing maintenance is a significant challenge, often resulting in outdated or conflicting information.
The Ripple Effect
These training challenges don't exist in a vacuum. They lead to:
Decreased resident satisfaction as undertrained staff struggle to meet expectations
Increased operational costs due to mistakes and inefficiencies
Higher stress levels among team members, further fueling turnover
Difficulty in adapting to market changes and implementing new strategies
Technology implementation fatigue among employees, leading to resistance to new, potentially beneficial tools
Implementation friction that often results in companies settling for suboptimal solutions rather than adopting the best available options
A New Approach: Introducing guided.
Recognizing these industry-wide challenges, we've developed guided. - a platform designed to transform how multifamily companies create, deliver, and manage training content. Here's how guided. addresses the core issues:
Multi-Format Content Creation: From a single capture, guided. produces an Interactive Tour, Step-by-Step guide, and Video overview, all from the same streamlined interface. This ensures content is cohesive, no matter how employees choose to learn.
Accessibility: Create interactive guides that employees can access exactly when they need them, reducing the reliance on memory or bulky manuals.
Consistency: Ensure uniform training experiences across all properties, regardless of location or trainer availability.
Adaptability: Quickly update materials as software or processes evolve, keeping your team always up to date without extensive retraining sessions.
Engagement: Develop interactive content that enhances learning retention, making training more effective and enjoyable.
Contextual Content Generation: Leverage AI to automatically generate relevant descriptions and explanations, saving time and ensuring comprehensive coverage.
AI Voiceover: Easily add professional narration to your content with our AI-powered voiceover feature, enhancing engagement and accessibility.
How guided. Works
As someone who's been in the trenches of multifamily training, I designed guided. to be the tool I wish I had during those challenging years. It's built to address the real-world problems I faced daily.
guided. simplifies the process of creating interactive training content:
Capture: Use our browser extension to record your screen as you perform tasks.
Generate: Our AI-powered platform automatically creates Interactive Tours, Step-by-Step guides, and Video overviews from your single recording.
Edit: Easily refine and enhance your content, adding contextual explanations and custom voiceovers as needed.
Publish: Share your multi-format guides instantly across your organization or with specific teams.
Analyze: Track usage and engagement to continuously improve your training materials.
Above, you can see a demonstration of guided. in action, showcasing how quickly and easily interactive, multi-format content can be created.
See the Interactive Demo created in the video above.
Real-World Impact
Imagine a world where:
New hires can confidently navigate your software systems within days, not weeks, learning 'on-the-job' without extensive time away for training courses
Existing employees have instant access to step-by-step guides for complex processes, including when they're promoted, changing roles, or moving to new markets
Training teams can create and update content in minutes, not hours or days
Resident satisfaction improves as staff are better equipped to handle inquiries and issues promptly
Property owner satisfaction increases as a byproduct of better-performing assets and more competent teams
The focus of training shifts from teaching 'how' to do the job to explaining 'why' certain actions matter and how they're interconnected, fostering a deeper understanding of property management
By simplifying and streamlining the creation, deployment, and consumption of software training content, guided. frees up valuable time. This allows training teams to refocus on teaching critical skills for operating communities effectively, moving beyond mere software proficiency to comprehensive property management expertise.
I've seen firsthand how proper training can transform a struggling property into a high-performing asset. With guided., I believe we can make this transformation more achievable and sustainable for properties across the industry.
Imagine being able to create professional training content in minutes instead of hours. How would this change your approach to team development and operations?
Beyond Internal Training: Expanding Use Cases
guided. has applications that extend far beyond internal team training. For example:
New Resident Onboarding: Create interactive guides showing new residents how to set up their online portal accounts, submit work orders electronically, and pay rent online.
Resident Move-Out Instructions: Develop step-by-step guides for the move-out process, ensuring residents understand all requirements and procedures.
Vendor Instructions: Provide clear, visual instructions for vendors accessing small properties or performing specific tasks.
Prospect Self-Guided Tours: Design interactive property and neighborhood tours that prospects can follow on their own devices.
Benefits Across the Multifamily Ecosystem
guided. has benefits for many stakeholders in our industry, not just management companies:
For Property Management Companies
Streamline onboarding and ongoing training
Reduce errors and increase operational efficiency
Improve resident satisfaction through better-trained staff
If you’re a smaller management company, guided. let’s you create the type, quality and quantity of training and support content that would have previously been impossible for your small team.
If you’re a large management company operating across a diverse group of markets, each with their own challenges or regulatory requirements, customize your core training content to reflect these needs and give your teams the tools they need to deploy the nuance required to truly thrive in our industry.
For Proptech Companies
Enhanced Customer Support: Create detailed, interactive guides for your software, reducing support tickets and improving customer satisfaction
Streamlined Feature Rollouts: Easily announce and train users on new features as they're released, increasing adoption rates
Improved Sales Demonstrations: Develop engaging, interactive product tours to showcase your software to potential customers, enhancing your sales process
For Residents
Access clear, on-demand instructions for various processes and amenities
Experience smoother move-in and move-out procedures
Benefit from interacting with more knowledgeable and efficient staff
For Property Owners
See improved property performance due to better-trained teams
Experience faster lease-up periods with well-prepared sales staff
Benefit from reduced turnover costs as employees stay longer in their roles
Which of these benefits resonates most with your current challenges? Let's discuss in the comments how we can address these pain points in our industry.
Ready to Transform Your Training Process?
Don't let software overload hold your team back any longer. Experience firsthand how guided. can revolutionize your training and operational efficiency.
In just 30 minutes, we'll show you how guided. can:
Cut your training content creation time by up to 70%
Improve information retention with multi-format learning materials
Streamline your onboarding process for new hires
Click here to book your personalized demo and take the first step towards more efficient, effective training in your multifamily organization.
What's your biggest training challenge in property management? Share in the comments below, and let's explore how we can solve it together.