We're happy to announce the news that so many of you have been waiting for! The next Annual Multifamily Housing Brainstorming Sessions™ and Executive Brainstorming Sessions™ will be held...

September 14-16, 2011
(with pre-event Meet & Greet on Tuesday, September 13) at the
Renaissance Glendale Hotel & Spa, Phoenix, Arizona

Registration is now open at http://brainstorming.multifamilypro.com/2010-sessions/register-now/. We're offering a special Super Early Attendee rate of ONLY $395 for paid registrations before December 30, 2010, so hurry and reserve your seat NOW!

For more information, email info@multifamilypro.com and stay tuned to Multifamilypro.com!

May all your challenges find solutions!
Tami & Team Multifamilypro

Motivating Your Millennial Employees
By Dr. Joanne G. Sujansky and Dr. Jan Ferri-Reed

When Amanda Ross learned that her company was planning to place several recent college grads in her customer service department she started to worry. Amanda herself had joined the company right out of college. Now 37 years old, Amanda has supervised Customer Service for the past five years and has worked almost exclusively with employees her age or older throughout her career. The prospect of supervising these “20-something” employees fills her with dread.
Part of Amanda’s fear is based on stories she’s heard about how different (and difficult) the younger generation is proving to be. Other supervisors in the company have suggested that Millennials expect instant job promotion and aren’t afraid to challenge company practices if they don’t agree with them. They also say that Millennials are constantly asking for feedback on their performance and demand a lot of face-time with their managers. One supervisor in another department even told Amanda that his new employees have the audacity to request flexible work schedules, even though they’re brand new to the job and the organization. Amanda’s worried that the challenge of dealing with these demanding new employees will eat up a lot of her time and disrupt the high department morale that she’s worked so hard to achieve.
It’s not that Amanda lacks managerial skills. She understands how to conduct effective performance reviews and she is skilled at confronting employees to solve job-related issues and problems. However, with this new batch of Millennial workers coming on board, Amanda realizes that she is going to have to figure out how to motivate her new, younger employees before their job performance becomes an issue. But guess what? Amanda isn’t the only supervisor facing this dilemma these days.
With Millennials now entering the workforce in large numbers your employee team could turn into a volatile mixture of four different generations. But, employees from the Mature generation (born between 1909 and 1945), the Baby Boomer generation (1946 to 1964) and Generation X (1965 to 1979) have all had time to adjust to each other in the workplace. It’s the newest generation – Millennials who were born between the years 1980 to 2000 – that are now shaking things up.
Millennials possess a unique set of skills and a somewhat different work ethic than previous generations. They will have a profound impact over the next five years. There are already around 35 million Millennials populating the workplaces of America and by 2014 there will be more than 58 million members of Generation Y employed in U.S. organizations.
Without question the culture clash between Millennials and earlier generations has already ignited. Veteran employees from the Mature, Boomer and Gen X generations frequently complain about the different attitudes and workplace expectations of Millennials.  Many do not understand why they are the way they are, hindering Millennials’ full engagement in the workplace.  Often this biased thinking prohibits managers from finding Millennials’ unique talents and skills that can contribute to company growth and profitability.
Yet … writing off your Millennial employees before they have a chance to prove themselves is a big mistake! Generation Y is already one of the best-educated generations in American history. They’re technologically savvy, embrace diversity, and have a strong preference for collaboration to solve problems and seize opportunities. They also have a strong sense of work-life balance or, as they would say, “we work to live” philosophy. If Millennials seem over-confident that’s because they’ve been taught to expect success by teachers and by “helicopter” parents (so-called because they hovered over their children).
In short, Millennials may be a challenge to integrate into your work teams, but over time they’re just as likely to become among your most energetic and successful employees. It is important, however, to adjust your  management strategies to take advantage of Millennial preferences and strengths.
Following are four strategies to help leaders adapt to the unique needs and perspectives of these new Millennial employees:
•    Ramp Up Your Onboarding Process – This is not your father’s new employee orientation program! In the old days new employees watched a video on company history, received a policy and procedures manual, and heard a welcome speech from the CEO or senior manager. Today we bring new employees “on board” by assimilating them into the company culture, providing exposure to different parts of the business, providing resources on the intranet for them to use at their own pace, and helping them to build relationships with current employees. Onboarding is ongoing, with lots of feedback, plenty of checkpoints and close mentoring. The goal is to ensure that all new employees – especially Millennials – become valued contributors while reducing turnover and increasing morale.

•    Profile Your Talent – An important part of onboarding, as well as career management, is to make sure your people are filling positions that are well matched to their talents, skills and interests. You can’t always rely on a resume to find the right fit, but you can use employee profiles and assessments to make a good match. But make sure you use well-designed instruments with high reliability and share those results directly with each employee. Profiles are not tests in the strictest sense of the word, but rather learning opportunities that can increase job satisfaction, provide valuable coaching suggestions to employees, and guide career pathing.

•    Correct Your Corrections – No matter how carefully you onboard your new employees and create a good job fit, the potential for performance problems always exists. But you have to be careful when providing corrective feedback to Millennials.  They’re accustomed to receiving a great deal of praise from parents and teachers and some may have a hard time accepting seemingly negative feedback, especially if overloaded with it or if provided in absence of recognition for work well done. Your corrective feedback needs to be specific and concrete, creating a clear picture for the employee of what was done well and what needs to be improved. Also be sure to refocus on your Millennials’ job goals and career path with the feedback so they can see how their actions affect others in the organization. When you keep your corrective feedback specific, solution-oriented and forward-focused, you can keep your Millennials motivated and engaged.

•    Create a Fun and Challenging Atmosphere – Millennials, like most employees, prefer to work in an atmosphere that’s productive but also fun. That can mean everything from changing the office layout to creating new opportunities for social interaction. Instead of classic “cubicle farms,” many organizations are adding open workspaces to encourage more employee interaction and collaboration. Managers can also reinforce teamwork by sponsoring “social” events, such as Friday afternoon “happy hour” (alcohol-free, of course) or teambuilding activities, such as scavenger hunts, Nerf battles, etc. Fun social activities are also a good way to celebrate victories, such as an important project milestone or a major goal achieved. The only limits are the leader’s imagination, but looking for ways to encourage social interactions is a powerful way to build a productive, high-energy workplace.
As you begin to recruit and integrate Millennials into your work team don’t be afraid to “change up” how you orient, train and manage new hires. Too often in the past, the members of preceding generations were thrown into a new job without much guidance. This “sink or swim” approach won’t work for Millennials, who have experienced extremely attentive teaching and parenting styles as they grew up. Given a fair chance they’ll make strong contributions to your organization and may lead the way to a more collaborative, productive and energetic environment.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Joanne G. Sujansky, CSP (Certified Speaking Professional), has more than 25 years of experience helping to create cool workplaces that attract, retain and get the most from their multi-generational talent. As founder of KEYGroup, she and Dr. Jan Ferri-Reed, KEYGroup president, provide businesses with insightful information to create engaged, productive and profitable organizations. Together, they’re co-authors of the best-selling book, “Keeping the Millennials: Why Companies Are Losing Billions in Turnover to This Generation and What to Do About It.” To hire them, visit: www.KEYGroupConsulting.com or call 724-942-7900.

It’s Not Just About Profitability and Survival: Leaders Need to Lead
By Pat Heydlauff

Political and economic influences have great implications for today’s leaders as they maneuver their way through ever-expanding mine fields.  This economy and political climate are forcing leaders to re-think their operating plan. This is a time for action not reaction; a time for decisive leadership to guide the company safely through a quagmire while preparing for the future.

“Maintaining market share, maximizing operational tightness and propagating the long term view for the company are critical during an economic downturn,” said the CEO of a major privately held corporation. This thought process isn’t just common sense but crucial for economic survivability and mobility once the economy starts to move forward again.

The CEO went on to say, “a company cannot afford to lose any market share nor erode operating capital during a downturn because there will be nothing left for marketing, advertising and hiring when the economy does turnaround. A business gets into real trouble when it loses its market share and depletes its capital; it will not survive – no matter how good the economy might get. Therefore, leadership needs to focus on the long-term view while getting everyone aboard to think survival, expense reduction and increasing income without any negative financial impact on existing capital.”

When leadership focuses on short-term business survival, assets are protected, jobs continue to exist and market share and profitability is maintained. Once a carefully laid out short-term plan for survival has been accomplished it is crucial that leaders not get so bogged down with survival that they forget to look at the long term view.

These are the kind of times, circumstances and events that require leaders to make hard decisions and realize there is a way to behave during an economic crisis. Survivability is all about reducing expenses, making profits and maintaining capital. Company leaders who understand how to make money are the survivors and will be the change makers who help turn the economy around and ensure their companies thrive.

The longer the downturn the more the consumers will dig in and hold onto their hard-earned money. Once the economy does turnaround, they will pay down their accumulated debt before spending. To bridge these turbulent times, leaders need to have a plan that includes a long term view covering everything from being prudent on expenses and increasing employee efficiency to eroding the competitions market share.  Here are some easy-to-implement survival principles that focus on the future.

·    Shift everyone’s thinking. Move from a cost-cutting mode to a money-making and increasing-market-share mode while not digging into existing capital. Employees tend to spend capital so they need to be engaged from the bottom up to look for ways to either save money or increase sales and revenues.  When encouraged to participate in the company’s survival, they take a piece of ownership in its survival and become part of the solution team instead of an individual trying to survive.
·    Increase employee efficiency.  Eliminate energy drainers and clutter in the workplace and organize it so employees can find anything they need at a moment’s notice. Time is money, and employees are a huge investment. Clutter is a distraction that prevents an employee from maximizing their productivity and the company’s profitability.
·    Upgrade your organizational chart. Be an all inclusive organization and share this philosophy with your employees. Eliminate the old 19th Century Newtonian pyramid-shaped organizational chart and replace it with one that works from the center out like a spider’s web where everyone is connected, productive and within the playing field. Employees do their best work when they feel they are relevant and make a difference in the outcome.
·    Leaders need to lead.  Focus on the long-term view. Once you’ve devised and implemented a plan for survival, focus all your energy on the big picture and where you want the company to be when the economy starts moving upward. Let someone else worry about the number of paper clips being used. It takes a leader to move safely through today’s economic mine fields. Followers need a leader with a vision to lead them into creating the future.
·    Eliminate stress.  Being a leader is stressful enough during normal times. The stress is greatly magnified during this difficult economic and political environment. Plan some creative time during hectic days to get the right side of the brain working. Stress comes from logical left brain thinking not being balanced by creative right brain thinking. It’s the right side of the brain that helps you create new ideas and solve problems such as getting through this economic downturn.

Leaders need to find ways to solve problems improve survivability and increase market share while protecting existing capital. This type of breakthrough thinking comes through creativity.  Add some right brain activities to your schedule such as creative writing, painting, listening to classical or new age music, quiet walks in nature or meditation. If you’re stuck at your desk, take a few minutes to do some creative visualization. Close your eyes and mentally visit a place you love – remembering to breathe deeply while in that frame of mind.  You will feel refreshed and the creative juices will flow, helping you solve the most complex of problems.

It takes a leader with vision and the creative know-how to turn things around and have everyone in the company think as one instead of as a number of individuals.  Leaders must realize they cannot use 19th Century leadership tools in the 21st Century – especially those that are narrow and top down instead of inclusive.

Leadership is all about creating tomorrow’s vision while living through today’s difficult times. Profitability and maintaining the company’s market share while not dipping into capital must be the long term objective which builds a fertile foundation for company growth when the economy turns upward.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pat Heydlauff is president of Energy Design, a company that uses proven Feng Shui design principles to improve the bottom line. As a consultant and speaker, Pat helps organizations and businesses of all sizes remove stress and clutter, while increasing creativity, employee retention and productivity.  Her book, "Feng Shui: So Easy a Child Can Do It” outlines the small changes that can lead to a big improvement in one's personal and professional success. For information, visit: www.Energy-by-Design.com or call: 561-799-3443.

© Pat Heydlauff, all rights reserved 2009

So 2009 is drawing to a close, and of course, I’m reflecting on how much has happened over the past year. Social media conversations have loomed large in my life this year, and they are still continuing to amaze me when it comes to the way they can change or channel my thinking process. I read a post or speak with someone on the telephone and zip, zam, zow, pow, bam!  All of a sudden, my thoughts and the thoughts of others have become a chain of words; and often not just words, but supporting information that further broadens my horizons and gives me more information to bring to the next conversation’s table.
This week, one word chain started with the word “caution” which led to “cautious” and then to “careful” and continued until it lead, as it often does, to a link … in this case, an interesting little tidbit on Everett Rogers’ theory of the Diffusion of Innovations.  Rogers’ Innovation Adoption Curve is a model that classifies adopters of innovations into various categories based on the idea that certain individuals are inevitably more open to adaptation than others.  In the simplest of terms, it talks about how people deal with new ideas.
Innovators: Brave people, pulling the change. Innovators are very important communication.
Early Adopters: Respectable people, opinion leaders, try out new ideas, but in a careful way.
Early Majority: Thoughtful people, careful but accepting change more quickly than the average.
Late Majority: Skeptic people will use new ideas or products only when the majority is using it.
Laggards: Traditional people, caring for the "old ways", are critical towards new ideas and will only accept it if the new idea has become mainstream or even tradition.
One of the things that the diffusion of innovations curve addresses is that it’s useful to remember that trying to quickly and massively convince “the masses” of the validity of a new, controversial idea is useless. And this made me laugh. Why? Simple…  having “been there” myself several times over the past 20 years has made me sensitive to those people going through the process themselves right now.
Over the past many years, I’ve heard lots of people classify our industry as “slow to adopt,” but the fact is, our industry is made up of individuals, and has a delightful mix of Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards. Of this mix, it is the Early Majority group that tend to ask questions before making statements and decisions. Late Majorities and Laggards are the groups that I am cautious and careful of listening to because they tend to be naysayers. But anyway, I found myself thinking about the Innovators.
That’s when I found myself thinking about Eric Urbane.
Let me tell you a little about this guy who started his career 32 years ago, building apartments for his father’s construction business while he was still in high school. You won’t find a college degree on his resume, but you will find that he’s built/rehabbed and developed over 14,000 units that include tax credit, assisted living, market rate and luxury apartments. He’s worked for only three employers over a thirty year period: fourteen years at Village Green Companies (twelve of the fourteen as a Senior Vice President, reporting directly to the CEO/Owner) and at one point responsible for $150,000,000 a year in construction volume scatted over seven states and concentrated in the Midwest.

In 2003, Eric set out on his own with Village Green’s blessing (and, in fact, he continued to work for VG part-time while he grew his business).

Now, let me introduce you to Urbane Apartments, which operates in the Detroit/SE Michigan, ranked #8 in The Largest 50 Metropolitan Areas and their Major Constituent Cities , and specifically in the cities of Birmingham and Royal Oak in the heart of Oakland County. While Oakland County is the fourth wealthiest county in the nation, Michigan continues to rank #1 nationally for unemployment for the fourth year running, making it tough as hell to do business there, period.

Urbane’s communities have achieved the highest rent per square foot/unit in SE Michigan, some exceeding $3.00 per S/F in a market where the “competition” is priced at less than a buck. In fact, one of their challenges with financing has been that they created their own real comps, because they’ve essentially created their own market. While it’s true that Urbane has only a total of (310) units at (14) scattered locations, it’s important to note that the multiple locations are more difficult to manage profitably than (310) units at a single location. And yet keep them profitable, at 92% occupancy and holding, is exactly what Eric does.

But that’s not what makes Eric an innovator … this is what does:  Since 2004, Eric has marketed his communities entirely, 100% via social marketing online.

Today, and thousands of inbound links later, UrbaneApts.com, UrbaneLobby.com and UrbaneBlog.com receive over 15,000 visitors month (and in case you’re not sure how good that is, we know of one major player with 42,000 apartment homes who drew 38,000 visitors per month to their web domains; another whose monthly visitors start at under 3,000 for 4,500 units; and yet another that does better than most at around 8,000 monthly visitors against 2,500 units, and is better approaching Eric’s example thanks to a noticeable surge when social campaigns are deployed).  Eric has a year-long consulting contract with Paragon Properties to help them enter the Social Media marketing world. Eric has set some lofty goals that demonstrates how someone can scale his efforts.

Performance goals for 2010 for Paragon Properties:
Increase Web Traffic by 60%
Increase Physical Traffic, (Guest Cards) by 20%
Decrease Market Costs by 30%

And on Eric's own sites I quote: "We have achieved some excellent results at Urbane with our internet marketing strategies, and we have figured out "How to Move the Google Needle"."
·    Increased on line web site traffic by over 110%,
·    Increased actual walk-in the door traffic by 58%and our rentals (net rentals) by over 68%,
·     LOWERED, our Cost per Lease by 50%.

Now that you know Eric a little better, let’s circle back to old Rogers and his Innovation Adoption Curve … because, not remarkably, what has made Eric Urbane infamous in thought and word chain circles throughout our industry has less to do with his success than his innovative strategy.
Checkout an Resident Event Eric created and then promoted on Facebook . The recent Draw on the Walls Sharpie Party was over the top, and was brought to national attention by Sharpie!

In short, Eric Urbane has rocked the web; and because he has, I know that the rest of us can, too.
Stay tuned to this blog for a series of posts in 2010 titled “Multifamily Innovators” Do you know someone we should feature?

I have never shared a link to an article as a single post on this blog until now. If you are using or planning a fan page on Facebook you need to read this article, in fact read it twice and bookmark it!

From the article:

Facebook recently announced a series of changes to its platform, and the roadmap has a substantial impact on how brands approach building a Facebook presence. While changes to Facebook's platform are nothing new, this is the first time the company has announced a series of 19 changes that will be implemented over the coming months.

That’s it!
Tami