Jeffrey I. Friedman has his hands full trying to manage about 13,000 apartment homes in 52 communities across nine states. But as chairman, president and CEO of Associated Estates Realty Corp., he doesn’t worry nearly as much about the properties as he does about his people.
“The things that we believe are important at Associated Estates really revolve around what we call an employee-centered culture,” Friedman says. “In many of our publications, you’ll see us talk about people, processes and portfolio — the three P’s of our business — and we intentionally lead with the people side of it.”
Leading with the people part of the business is crucial at Associated Estates (AEC). With an estimated two people living in every apartment, the apartment property management company has nearly 26,000 residents and turns over about half of those each year. That means 13,000 new people move in every year, but employees actually see about four times that many people. With so many prospective residents coming in, it’s crucial that Friedman has the best people at every property to provide top-notch service in order to win their business. Beyond that, employees have to work just as hard to please current residents.
“We have to educate our folks in the field to understand what it is to deliver this high level of customer service to keep our existing residents happy as well as sales techniques to capture sales prospects as best we can,” he says.
And those educational efforts are only going to pay off if the employees stick around long enough to use them. One of the benefits AEC has seen to an employee-centered culture is a low voluntary turnover rate. The company averages about 27 percent voluntary turnover, which is about 6 percent less than the industry average.
“Employee retention is very important … because the time and the cost involved with educating someone, understanding the way we do business, take a lot,” Friedman says. “It’s a tremendous investment both on the part of the employee in terms of their time and commitment as well as on behalf of the company.”
Here’s how Friedman built an employee-centered culture that has taken AEC to $135 million in revenue and continues to drive growth.
