A Fresh Approach To Training And Talent Development In the Multifamily Industry With Lori Agudo

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A Fresh Approach To Training And Talent Development In the Multifamily Industry With Lori Agudo

Our guest is Lori Agudo. Lori is the Director of Training and Talent Development with Royal American Management. Welcome to the show, Lori.

Thank you for having me.

For starters, let's get you introduced to the audience. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

My story begins in Brooklyn, New York, where I'm originally from. I am an only child. I've had two wonderful parents. One unfortunately is not with us any longer, but my dad is my hero. He proudly served this country in the Army. We still talk morning, noon, and night every single day. I'm daddy's girl proudly, so shout out to dad. I'm now in Orlando, Florida, where I have been for well over ten years. I've lived more than half my life in the State of Florida between Tampa and Orlando. I've been in Central Florida and that's become home.

I still identify with New York where I'm from. That's always going to be home but Florida has been good to me. I certainly appreciate it. There are charms to living in Orlando, being in Theme Park Central. I’m very much looking forward to heading out to theme parks this weekend. One of our biggest events that launches every year is the spooky season or the Halloween season. I’m a big Halloween Horror Nights fan and it opens up this Friday. That's where you'll find me on Friday.

Aside from that, professionally, I started in retail management. I was in the retail management space for many years. When I was out looking for an apartment in downtown Orlando, the community manager was touring me around the property. We got into a conversation. She learned a little bit more about my background. She then asked me the question that ultimately changed the course of my career, "Have you ever considered a career in property management?" I didn't know anything about multifamily, but I was at a crossroads where I was looking to make a change. Her timing was impeccable.

I decided to look into it, and then I interviewed for a leasing consultant position. The rest, as they say, is history. That was under seventeen years ago. I've held every position at the site level from leasing to management. I was a multi-site manager. I was an area manager. Under seven years ago, I became part of what was then a department of one, our training department at Royal American, as a regional trainer. I was a regional trainer for about three years before getting promoted to my current position as Director of Training and Talent Development.

The commonly asked question is, "How do you transition from being onsite to being in a corporate-level position? How did you find your path to that?" Going back to being onsite, many of us feel like the natural path for a property manager is you might be an area manager or a district manager, and then you move on to a regional manager, and so on. My path took a turn and I took a different path, and I'm grateful for that. My passion has always aligned with professional development and continuing education. Here I am telling you a little bit more about it.

Is it safe to say that you have a passion not just for training and development, but for people?

Absolutely. Passion for people is at the base of everything we do in multifamily. This is very much a people business and you have to be passionate about people, especially helping people. At the core of everything, every one of us does. One of my biggest supporters and one of my biggest inspirations is Dr. Debbie Phillips. When I first saw her at a conference years ago and we met, she said something that stuck with me then and will always stick with me. That is, "The two most important days in your life are the day you're born and the day you realize your why." I realized my why many years ago. My why is to live a life in service to others. Once I figured that out, everything else fell into place. Everything I have done from that point on has been intentional to live a life in service to others.

I'm going to switch gears a little bit and I want to stay with the people aspect of the business, which I'm very passionate about, by the way. One of the challenges we have in the industry is to retain personnel and to build tenure of 10 to 15 years. You've been with your current company for many years. I won't say it's unique, but it's very rare in the present environment. People change jobs every 6 to 9 months a year.

Also, in today's environment, if you get someone to get a one-year commitment out of them, that's a good time for me. Maybe other people might have a different standard. How do we build a type of culture that makes people feel valued, makes people want to work or be part of something bigger than themselves, and a culture that focuses on their internal customers first before they even go out and take care of the external customers? How do we build that type of culture?

I've been with Royal American for over ten years at this point. One of the reasons I have stayed with this organization is because they have supported me as an individual. They've supported my professional development and my continuing education. They've had a strong company culture. How do we retain the employees that we have? What does your employee experience look like? Your employee experience starts when they first apply for a position within your organization. What does your onboarding experience look like? I recently did an internal webinar with our company that I had also done within another organization. It was focusing on the employee experience.

We spent so much time focusing on the customer experience and making sure that our customers, our owners, and our residents are satisfied. Do we spend enough time focusing on our people happy? One of the ways that your people can feel happy is if they feel seen, heard, and valued, and if they feel like their contribution matters. How are you supporting that? How are you promoting that as an organization? Do your employees have a voice within your organization? Do they know how to speak up and be heard?

For example, one of the things that we have at Royal American is we have a suggestion box. It's an email linked within our company intranet where our policy and procedure are housed. An employee can jump on at any point in time and make a suggestion or recommendation and talk about what they would like to see, whether it's training or something that they feel like they need at the site level, or an idea. That's available to them always. We're always promoting that through our company dispatch, which is open to all of our employees.

How are you finding a way for your employees to be heard? If they don't feel heard and they don't feel seen or valued, or that their contribution matters, they're likely going to lose interest. We live in a very instant gratification society. If people don't see a clear path, they tend to lose interest pretty quickly. That in itself could be a reason for turnover. Do they see a path to upward mobility within your company? Is there a career path laid out for them? Do they know how to get there? Do they know what they need to do to get there? Are you promoting that?

One of the things that's accessible to anyone is SWIFT money. I know you know SWIFT money. You've had Kara and Jen on your show. They specialize in employee engagement surveys. Is your company doing employee engagement surveys? Are you asking your employees how they feel? Are you asking them for their contribution? Are you creating that circle of safety for them to where they know if they speak up, there won't be retaliation if what they say is hard to hear?

Those are some of the things internal as an organization that we're always looking at. We do send out surveys to our employees. We do ask them directly. I'll be perfectly transparent here. Sometimes those things are hard to hear. However, they need to be heard. We as leaders need to take a step back, assess what has been said, and then, "What are some actionable items that we can take out of that feedback to impose positive change within our organization?"

If you're not focusing on your people, if they don't feel like they have a seat at the table, if they don't feel supported, if there are no training and development opportunities for them, or if there's no upward path to mobility, they're on loan to you until the next best offer comes along, which is why you're seeing high turnover. We could all do a better job by focusing on our people on their experience. Again, it starts from the beginning. Were the warm fuzzies there before I started working there? On day one, they knocked it out of the park and it was such an overwhelmingly warm welcome. People will often decide whether or not they stay with an organization by how they were welcomed to that organization.



What does your onboarding experience look like? Are you checking in with your employees 30, 60, or 90 days into their employment? Is there regular communication in the meantime? If you look at some of the data available out there, you will see that as an organization, we feel like we're communicating clearly and regularly. Does the employee feel that within your organization? If you have open positions within your organization, are you promoting from within? Do your employees know what opportunities are available and where to find out what opportunities are available?

You might think as an organization that you are being transparent with that information and that you're sharing it, but does the end-user feel that? Do they know where to look for an opportunity on your company website? Are you promoting positions that are available to your employees that are already employed? Another reason for turnover is people get passed over. An opportunity comes up that they would've been interested in and they were not able to apply for it, and somebody was hired in from the outside.

These are all little things that you have to take a step back and go, "How does my company handle that?" It's not just, "Here's day one, welcome to the company," then they disappear into the fold. We then check back in when it's time to do their annual evaluation. You have to have strong lines of communication. That is critical mass. It’s not just with your senior leadership, your regional managers, regional vice presidents, presidents, or VP. It’s not just that group of leadership. Everybody, your site employees included, needs to feel a part of the organization. They need to feel like their contribution matters. When they don't, they lose interest, and then they start looking elsewhere.

The reality is you and I both know that everybody is hiring. If you start looking for an opportunity, you're going to find one because everybody is hiring. With the number of apartment communities coming into the state of Florida alone, there's rapid growth happening here. With that rapid growth means a lot of opportunities out there. Ultimately, if you're not taking care of your employees, they're going to go elsewhere because they can. Some of the most successful people in business have a very simple business motto, "Take care of your people. They in turn will take care of your business." That could not be truer.



Richard Branson had a famous quote, “If you take care of people, they're going to take care of business for you.” It doesn't have to be complicated.

It’s simple. Find the ways to take care of your people. In this job market, it's tough to hire and it's tough to retain, especially certain positions like your maintenance positions, which have always been historically difficult to fill. One of the things that I have discovered is not only being an industry educator but teaching for our organization is to take care of your maintenance folks. They also want training and professional development. They also want a path to upward mobility. I feel like over the years, that has been lost on us. As companies, there hasn't been as much maintenance-related training offered by your local affiliates and your local partner associations. There haven't been enough maintenance sessions at our conferences.

That's something thankfully in recent years has changed and improved. I'm sure, it will continue to improve. That was the core of my departmentalized session this year. That was how you take care of your maintenance employees. We're talking about how you train the next generation of maintenance tech. You have to train that next generation of maintenance tech. That is something you have to provide. One of the difficulties that you're going to have with keeping maintenance employees is the fact that everybody is hiring.

If you're not offering them a real future or if you're not offering them training and development, that's going to get them to that higher level, which ultimately gets them to that higher level of pay along with that higher level of responsibility, then they're going to go seek it elsewhere, and they're going to continue seeking it elsewhere because again, everybody's hiring.

One of the things that we found here locally, like our local affiliate, AAGO, they offer a leadership and training program specific to maintenance. In this program, they talked about leadership skills and leadership training for maintenance. They had budget training for maintenance. How profound? If everybody did that and that was a training development that was offered, it would be much easier for you to hire for attitude and train for skill because that training would be available to them. They might have a basic skill set when you hire them, but if there's training available for them to perfect their craft and you invest in that as a company, that tends to lead toward longer-term employment. It tends to lead to longevity because you've invested in them.

That in itself is what made them feel valued and that the contribution mattered because you invested in their education, you invested in their professional development, and now they wouldn't dare leave because they might not get that somewhere else. Again, we've got to do a better job of creating value for every single employee that we have.

I love that you talk about the leadership program for maintenance. I've been saying this for several years. We should have certifications at a national level to have Certified Service Managers. I heard this argument that we have the KMT with leadership, but that still says Certified Apartment Maintenance Technician. You're not Certified Leasing Agents with leadership, you're Certified Apartment Managers. Your service manager and your manager shouldn't be a servitude type of relationship. They're co-managing assets that are $70 million, $80 million, or $100 million.

I can't believe that in the year 2023, we still do not have something comprehensive to take a very talented person or individual technician and teach them how to become a manager of people. These two jobs, service manager and service technician, have very little overlap. The technical part has very little overlap right there. For the most part, they are two different jobs. In a larger property, they're almost completely different.

The technical part is 5% to 10%. Everything else is managing people, inventory, vendors, and everything. Teaching them would say, "Your boss got fired or walked out of the job. Here are the keys. Congratulations, you got promoted. You got a raise." Okay, but you are hitting them with $100 million worth of real estate and you expect them to figure it out on their own. That's unbelievable. Nobody does that in any industry.

That is what's happening.

That's the reality. I applaud your association initiative. I hope it gets to be the beginning of creating a certification for service managers because we need that so badly in the industry. We're failing our people.

That's why internally at our organization, we are working on a career path program. We're going to pilot it with our porter position because many of our porters ultimately get promoted to maintenance tech. They learn on the job, so to speak. On-the-job training is effective. It can show and tell and that's important. What are the other aspects? What is the formal learning that they need to know before they can successfully move into that position?

We're creating that right now with the intention of ultimately laying a path to every position within an organization. How do you get from point A to point B? Maintenance is part of that. It’s important for us to teach leadership skills to our maintenance team members. They're managing people. They're managing all these other things, but they're managing people. Showing them how to effectively do that is important. We can't lose sight of that.

As a Director of Training and Talent Development, you oversee all training programs for over 850 employees. I think that's the number. Can you tell us about the challenges and rewards of managing such a large-scale training operation in our industry?

It’s challenging but rewarding, I like to say. The positive aspect is we provide them the training opportunities to feel more comfortable and more confident in doing their jobs and that leads to better performance. This is one of the things that has always come up over the years of sitting on education advisory councils and different committees as such. When you're talking about education and training, what's the difference between the two?

We all seek an education for the purpose of knowledge. The purpose of training is performance. Providing training increases performance, which affects your bottom line, but it doesn't come without its challenges. It's a very rewarding thing to offer as a company. It's received in an overwhelmingly positive manner, but it has its challenges. Your site employees are busy. They're inundated in many cases. They have these large assets that are very demanding or they have a challenging asset that's maybe a little bit older or requires a lot more attention for so many reasons.

As much as they want to attend a class, it's difficult to physically get them to class. When you're doing a virtual learning program, it's convenient for them to be in their environment and be able to sit down on a computer and pay attention to class, but can they pay attention to class? They're in their environment. The phone is ringing and somebody is knocking on the door. A resident has to see them right now. We all know that. That makes it challenging not only for them to get to class, but once they're there to be able to focus.

You then take them offsite and you bring them to a classroom environment for a few days. Now they're offsite and things are happening on the property. Their attention is still divided because they're still getting those emails on their phone. They're still getting those phone calls from maintenance in a panic. Even in a classroom environment, it's hard to get their attention in some cases and keep their attention because there are still things happening at their home sites. Now, they're away from home and things are happening that they can't immediately get to.

There are a lot of distractions when you think about training. How do we overcome that? Repetition is key. We offer a management training program that's more policy and procedure-based. I'm not teaching you how to be a manager. I'm setting up, "This is Royal American expectation. Here's our policy and procedure. Here's how we expect you to do your job." We offer this virtually and in person. The virtual program is on a loop. We teach the modules every single month essentially. We'll start with, for example, operations procedures, and we go from module to module. When we're done with that cycle, we hit the reset button and we start again.

What change have we made that has been beneficial to us? We've opened up the audience. Training should be available to everyone, not just a select group, not just a certain position. With the modules, we let the audience know, "Here's the target audience for this particular module. Here's the content that's going to be covered.” We have a training intranet where we have an interactive calendar. You can see what class is being offered, the day and the time, the target audience, and a little mini description of the course. They have the ability right from that intranet to add it to their calendar.

Any employee can see any training that we're offering at any given point in time. If it's relevant to them in their position, they can go ahead and add it to their calendar and show up to class. We open up the audience. Even a seasoned manager who's been with us for many years can take a class as a refresher. Things change. Policy and procedure change. Documents you use internally can change, especially if it's human resources related. Constantly having that opportunity that anyone can join, including maintenance in certain modules, there's no reason that maintenance shouldn't be encouraged to participate in a risk management module.

They understand that they have to look at their property with a set of risk management eyes. Creating those opportunities and opening up the audience has allowed us to overcome some of the challenges of getting them to class and getting their attention. Maybe on the day we first hosted that class, that wasn't the best time for you to take the class and you have to take it again at another point in time, but there will be another point in time. You'll be able to take the session at a time that's convenient for you and that's live instructor-led.

We also record all of our sessions. We have a robust library of recordings where even if you participated live, you can go back and watch that recording when you need it. Maybe you missed something, or maybe now, you're finally arriving at that task and you're like, "How was I supposed to do that? Wait, there's a video for that." It's easily accessible to them at all times. They can go back and watch something that they've previously participated in.

How are you creating those opportunities to extend the learning to all and have it on a rotation where it's available enough to where if the day you were offering it live did not work, there's another opportunity to participate live? There's at the very least an opportunity for them to watch what they missed at another time that's convenient for them. We're going to have challenges with training. It's how we overcome those challenges.

That's something that internally within Royal American we're always reassessing. How can we reach the mass? What can we do? What can we offer them? What do our regional managers need? What do our regional vice presidents need? What do our senior regional directors need? What are the needs in the field? We then can apply that to make changes to our programs or even create new ones.

I love that you say that you're opening up your training to everybody. Maintenance should learn about risk management. I go even further. I say maintenance should learn about all the aspects of the business. One of the best pieces of advice that I've had in my life was back in the early 2000s. I was reading Grace Hill. It was like a blog. It was not the huge company that it is today. Someone wrote a blog piece and said, "Understand and speak the language of business." That stuck with me up to this day. I said, "How do I get to understand? How do I get to learn this language of business so I could speak the language of business people, so they could understand me?”

I could communicate in such a way that I could relate to the higher-ups at a company so I could get the resources that I needed to be getting. That's again very commendable that your company does that. It goes a long way for people that want to improve. They have an internal drive. They're driven to learn to become more. That's an amazing tool that you put out there for them to become more successful.

For us, it's about support. When you're training department, human resources, or contracting. Whatever department you're in, our entire role is to support. How do we best support you? What do our employees need from us? That will change from time to time. We have to change from time to time to keep up with the needs of the people we support but never lose sight that we're there to support them. That is our entire role within the organization.

As a support person, that has to be a priority. Never lose sight of the fact that you are there to support your operations group so that they can be successful in managing these $70 million, $80 million, and $100 million businesses. If you're going to look at each property is its own individual business. How do you support the needs of the business? Training directly affects their ability to handle the needs of the business. The reality is even if you're not hiring for attitude and training for skill, or even if you're hiring somebody who's seasoned and who's been in the business for a long time. They're great at what they do. They are high-level performers. They have a long history of excellence and top-performing properties. You're never too seasoned to learn something new.

Even for your seasoned employees who have always performed well and they're top-level performers, always be learning. On LinkedIn, my first tagline and my description or my bio says, "Lifelong learner." That is how I view myself. That is how I maintain my approach as an instructor. I have to continue learning to continue teaching. That's at the core of what I do. Any public speaker or educator is going to tell you the same. To keep your approach fresh, you have to maintain the perspective of a student and you have to continue to learn.



The world is changing every day. Why shouldn't we?

Especially when it comes to technology.

Technology is a big one. Since you're mentioning technology, I'm going to switch gears a little bit once again. How do you envision maintenance training in 2023? When you describe your vision for this maintenance training, what type of place does technology have in your picture?

I'm glad that you asked that because technology needs to play a larger role in the maintenance component of your property. One of the things we're piloting through our resident management software platform is a Facilities Plus product. It is a robust system that allows your maintenance technician. Some companies have been already doing this for years. It allows your maintenance technician to essentially have access to this entire resident management software dashboard but for the purposes of their role.

For example, when they're doing a unit inspection or when they're doing an exterior inspection of the property, everything that they do is contained within this Facilities Plus app. They're using technology when they're accepting a service request and completing it. They're using this iPad to take photos and instantly document what they've taken a photo of and add a description. Instead of waiting on the office to put the service request into the system, and then, "Here's your physical copy," they’re going digital and relying on the benefits of technology of using this iPad and having the instant capability of taking notes, taking photos, and integrating everything into this software that we're using to manage everything about our assets.

Our budgets are in this software. Our invoices, ordering, service requests, and resident ledgers. Everything is contained at the same source, so now they have their way of incorporating what they do effectively and documenting everything in real-time into the same software where we are housing everything. It allows us to teach them technology and teach them the benefits of technology and get their buy-in. This does make things more seamless. This makes things easier.

One of the things we've also had to take a step back and understand as an employer is not everyone, maintenance or otherwise, is as tech-savvy as you might think they are. Creating almost like a computer basics or technology basics type of training is also important. Always have that available for so many reasons. Technology drives our business now. We didn't use to live with a technology footprint. COVID changed that for us. We had to lean on technology to continue doing business as usual. We had to lean on technology to do virtual tours and people moving to online applications that they weren't previously.

It forced our hand in a good way. Not that COVID was good, please don't misunderstand that. Having to finally put our best foot forward and incorporate technology in our industry and understand the benefits of it if it's used properly is something we were forced to do and it resulted in good in my opinion. Teaching all of your employees what they don't know about technology, the benefits of it, and how it streamlines processes makes things more efficient.

What does that do? That also alleviates some of the burden from your site teams. Doing all these manual processes can be very cumbersome and time-consuming. Use technology to streamline things to move quicker. You have more time to be productive and do what you need to do versus being inundated with paperwork. Once they see that and they see the ease of use and they get that buy-in behind it, we're only going to continue teaching the technology and continue using the technology because it does streamline your processes.

When it comes from a documentation standpoint, it is something that I preach every time I teach, “Document everything.” It allows us to do that more efficiently. As soon as your employees realize that, they understand how we have to use the technology that's been provided because of what it does for us. Whether it's lead management software, online reputation management, or social media posting, all of those things are important aspects of our business. Using technology to be able to do all of that allows this ship to keep sailing.

I love that you brought the mobility piece of technology to carry. You have access to your property management system in your pocket for the maintenance teams. One other piece that I'm passionate about and I think that they should have at their fingertips is a library of how-to videos. You mentioned previously that your training is being recorded. Does your company have or are they considering building a library of short how-to videos for maintenance? It’s like how to test the capacitor and what to do if my condenser fan is not working. Particular specific items and specific videos that are 2 to 5 minutes could give them the possible way to troubleshoot that issue.

We already do. We have a maintenance support internet. The whole purpose of the maintenance support internet is a whole series of how-to, how to troubleshoot, and how to make repairs. We're also able within that internet to record our own videos. Our corporate maintenance team, our director of maintenance, and our regional maintenance specialists have recorded their in-house videos and have added them to that maintenance support internet.

There's that constant resource of if you're hiring somebody with a little bit of a lesser skillset, they have a tool in place that's already available to them on their first day of employment. We continue to add to this maintenance support internet. We do have that. We created that about two years ago and it's worked well for us. We're able to go in there and show them, "Here are some basics." They're all micro-learning videos. They're shortened in length. They're little nuggets of information, but it's enough to show them how to troubleshoot and show them how to effectively repair.

Even if you have somebody who's a seasoned maintenance supervisor. Maybe they do what they've always known how to do. They just do what they've always done. That doesn't mean it's necessarily the most effective way. We still promote this to all of our maintenance employees. Even if you are a seasoned professional, you have this resource to go in there. Maybe there's a more efficient and more effective way to complete a repair that may be better than what you're currently doing. We do have that. It's robust. We have it structured to where it's broken out by category too like appliances, HVAC, and so on.

It's structured and easy to navigate, and it has a lot of useful information. Ironically, it’s not only for your business and conducting repairs on property. It's open to everybody. It's not just open to maintenance. It is open to everybody because it's accessible from our company dispatch. Some of our employees have gone out there and looked at how to troubleshoot why the dishwasher at home is not working and how they might be able to go ahead and fix it themselves. It certainly has had its benefits.

Is that mobile? Do you have it available on a mobile app?

It's mobile-friendly. It's not its own app. It's accessible from our company dispatch. Our company dispatch is actually open to the public and so it is accessible for them from their cell phone if they need it to be.

That's beautiful. I've been speaking about it. You have to have that at your fingertips. We're living in a mobile world. About 60% to 70% of the traffic is mobile, and it's growing. That's the present and it's where the future is heading. We should have that available at our people's fingertips. I commend your company for having this initiative. I think it's a big deal. It's a game-changer in helping the teams be successful. That's what you do. You set them up for success.

It's not a generational thing. Here's the other thing people need to understand when it comes to having information at your fingertips and having mobile accessibility, it's not a generational thing. Don't think that its employees entering the workforce are our youngest generation that are using technology. Every generation is on social media. Every generation is using their phone. Every generation is responding via text. It's not a generational thing. That is another reason why you have to go where they are.

I love what you said. You go where they are. People still tend to believe that TikTok is for young kids from 14 to 15 years old. If you're looking at the consumer, you'll see how that age is increasing from 14 to I don't know what it is today, but it's not 14 to 15, I promise you that. A lot of individuals who are grownups in their 20s, 30s, and 40s embracing the platform. That goes for every other platform. I just happen to think about TikTok, but you're right.

People have found a way to use social media to promote their business and to promote their brand. You can select what your platform is or what your message is, and use social media to get that message to the masses. Small businesses depend on social media. If you think about it, your property is your business. Your management company is your business. What story are you telling about your management company? What it's like to work for your company?

Another thing that I talk about a great deal because I do a lot of human resources-related training and I teach human resources modules for CAM pretty regularly. One of the things is you have to think about what story are you telling as an organization and how that impacts your hiring. If your properties are out there posting what they love about where they work, they're posting about their community, they're having fun working together, and they're creating this environment that they enjoy working in. When they have an open position, where do you think today’s job seeker is looking? They're looking at your social media platforms, "What is it like to work there?"

It's not just your potential future residents who are looking at social media saying, "Is that someplace I want to live?" It's also job seekers looking at your social media profiles going, "Is that a company I want to work for? Do other people enjoy working there? Is that a property I want to work for? Do other people look like they enjoy what they do?" Social media has such tremendous reach and you have to use it as the resource that it is. Not just for your brand or your hiring. If you have open positions, it's not just posting an ad, "We're hiring for this position." It's like telling a story. Storytelling is powerful. That's how you have to use your social media platforms to tell that story that entices someone who's seeking employment to want to come to work for your organization.

Totally. Let's remind everybody. External customer, but internal customer. Your candidates and your potential employees are out there too watching what you're doing. They're your potential internal customers. They should be your main focus. Not just who you have within your organization now, but who you want to attract. What type of talent do you want to attract? What's your strategy tailored towards who you want to attract? What type of message do you want to get out to the talent that you want to attract? That's powerful. You've been actively involved in various industry organizations and committees. How has this involvement enriched your knowledge and contributed to your success in your current role?

There's a lot to unpack there. I wouldn't even be in my current role if it wasn't for an apartment association. I did not realize that being a full-time trainer was even an option for me. I didn't realize it was even a path for me. It took somebody seeing something in me that I didn't see in myself many years ago. An individual who asked me to teach a class at our local affiliate, AAGO, ignited that spark. I wouldn't even be in my current role if Desiree Starr, who was with AAGO at the time hadn't asked me to teach a class and she put it out there.

She's like, "I think you'd be great at it." I looked at her like, "You're crazy. I can't do that." I then did it and I got through it. I liked it and I wanted to keep doing it. Ultimately, Royal American posted for several regional trainer positions, and then everything happened from there. What has it done for me? It has helped me to be a better leader. Exposing yourself to other companies, other people from different walks of life, and people with different levels of experience. I've learned something from every single person whom I've interacted with. No matter how little or how long they've been in the industry.

Sitting in a classroom, I have learned from my fellow students as much as I've learned from my instructor. That has allowed me to continue improving my skillset as an educator. Sitting on committees and being able to have a voice that way and contributing to an organization allowed me to not only fine-tune my voice but also gave me a voice in the first place. It allowed me to come out of my shell a little bit and know it's okay to speak up and contribute my ideas.

When I first started as a regional trainer, I was figuring it all out. I was learning as I go. Making mistakes and understanding the mistakes is an opportunity for growth and learning. Being involved in these affiliates and developing this network of people who I've known for years and champion each other. Having that strong support system, especially on the days when we didn't choose easy. We chose property management. No matter what role you're in within this organization, some days can feel thankless or you feel like your contribution is not enough. You're not doing enough. You're not making enough of an impact. You feel like today you failed.

Having that strong network lets you know that you're just having a bad day. You're still the best at what you do. You're still great at what you do. You still have something to contribute. Remember when you did this, or remember when you did that, or remember how you impacted my day when I was going through this. Just those little reminders and having that network of people to fall back on in those days where that day is harder than others have been so critical in me staying in the right frame of mind to continue doing the job, and to continue trying to exceed expectations.

Having that group to fall back on and now being part of mentorship groups and serving as a mentor within the industry, I learned so much. I'm like this little sponge. I want to soak it all up. I've learned so much from being involved with so many different types of people from different parts of the country. Different backgrounds have worked with different companies. I've learned so much and that keeps me humble and it keeps me always wanting to learn more. It's that fuel for me to continue igniting this passion for education and professional development.

I could not sit here and encourage people enough to get involved, whether it's your Chamber of Commerce, a local apartment association, a state affiliate, or a national apartment association. There is so much value in even sitting in a meeting as a member, not being a committee chairperson, which could be a leadership role that you can take on. By sitting in meetings, having a seat at the table, and hearing what others have to contribute, you will learn something that you can rely on for years that you can reference back to, and that will make a profound impact on your life.

You just have to show up. You have to put in the work. You have to go out there. You have to meet the people. You have to shake hands. You have to listen to people's stories. You have to feel comfortable sharing your own story because people have as much to learn from you as much as you have to learn from somebody else. You don't have to be an instructor for that. Imagine what a world we will live in if everybody can sit together and have a conversation.

How much better would we understand each other? How much better would we be able to work together? How much better would we be able to support each other if we could do that? It not only has lent to my professional life but it has also lent to my personal life. Some of those people that I've met are now my close personal friends or people I consider like family. That's the nature of our industry. If you put yourself out there, you will develop a network of people who will wholeheartedly rally for you. They'll speak your name in a room full of opportunities.

Lori, you mentioned being a mentor. I know that you're a mentor for the National Department Association Diversity Leadership Program. That's commendable. Can you share some specific experiences or insights gained from this role?

It's been extraordinarily rewarding to do that. I'm in my second year serving as a mentor for the DLP program. My mentees have been extraordinary people. I've learned a great deal from them. I've been able to be there for them, not only professionally, but personally. They've been able to come to me if they've had a personal challenge or a professional challenge. We've been able to talk through it. We've been able to talk about our mutual experiences or experiences that may be parallel to each other. They've always been able to reach out to me. I share my personal cell phone number if they need to shoot me a text, "I'm having a day. I need to jump on a call.” I'm making myself available.

One of the biggest things about mentorship is if you are going to serve as a mentor, please make sure that you can dedicate the time to it. It's not fair to someone that you set a meeting and you're constantly rescheduling or they try to reach out to you and you're not available. If you're going to do it, make sure you have time to invest to do it. Don't over-promise and under-deliver. I do keep the number of mentees that I have to a minimum, maybe five or fewer, so that I can dedicate my time to them when they need me.

First and foremost, the diversity leadership program that NAA offers is incredible. The work that the mentees or the students put in is profound. It's life-changing for them. They're not only learning to be better leaders but they're also learning to embrace what makes them them and know that their superpower is being who they are, showing up and being their true authentic self, and being celebrated for that. The DLP program encourages and supports that. It's a robust program with incredible instructors and it's an honor to be a part of that program. There are only fifteen students each year. That program in itself is something to be celebrated.

The experience overall of helping somebody navigate this program, and then seeing them cross the finish line, seeing them graduate, and being able to celebrate them after their capstone project. It's been an incredibly rewarding experience not only personally but also professionally because of the relationships that have been forged. Not only mentor to mentee but mentor to mentor. Mentors also have a group orientation and a group chat going. We're able to also support each other along this journey along with supporting our mentees.

I applaud NAA for offering this program and continuing to offer it because it creates an opportunity for someone to not only navigate this program and come out the other side with a whole new perspective, with a whole new set of tools and resources to be successful in business. They're doing so very intentionally embracing that what makes us different is what makes us great. That's something that every organization can and should be doing. When it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, that's something every company should be embracing. It should be part of the DNA of your organization.

NAA is more intentional about how they do that and who does that for them. They have some pretty incredible people. A couple of people that I couldn't admire more are Marci French, Melissa D. White, Ashia Shepherd, and Dana Duckworth. These people are out there doing this wonderful work and getting this message out that at the end of the day, NAA is promoting this program and they wholeheartedly believe in this program. They're passionate about it in hopes that other organizations also bring these types of programs into the fold.

We all should. We have our internal programs in Royal American. It's part of the DNA of our organization. We have a committee that embraces all the observances throughout the year. We have different activities and contests. All of our employees get involved. We have programs for residents and the communities we manage to learn about property management. After graduating from the program, we can hire them and we do hire them. That's life-changing for them.

NAA is putting this out there. What I hope other companies can learn from this is to find a way to incorporate this into your organization if you're not already. I know some organizations have a robust DEI program. Some organizations don't have one at all. If there's anything to be learned from this diverse leadership program, that's something your company should be offering. They should be embracing DEI within their organizations as part of who they are as an organization. That's something the present job seekers are also looking for. "When I look at your leadership team, do I see somebody that looks like me?" That's important. There should be somebody that looks like them on your leadership team. There should be multiple people that look like everybody on your leadership team.

Getting back to mentorship, I wish I had a mentor early on in my career. I do now and I have several. Mentorship is such an important aspect of your professional development. Having that supportive person who is either in the role that you seek at some point in your career or somebody who has a strong head for business. They have many years of experience. They have some skillset that you are trying to attain because it serves so many purposes.

They're not only there for support. They're there for encouragement. They're there for inspiration. I want to be a better public speaker so I have a public speaker as a mentor. When it comes to creating an outline for a session, presenting a session for approval, speaking at a conference, or any type of speaking engagement, I have somebody that I can fall back on who's been doing it for years and who can give me honest feedback to help me shape that presentation and be the best I can be within that space so that the audience gets what they came for.

Mentorship is something that your company should offer, which would be great. If not, then seek out those opportunities within the industry. There are mentorship groups out there that you can join that cost you nothing and can expose you to a whole new network of people that you wouldn't know otherwise. You could be paired up with a mentor or you can even serve as a mentor yourself. Those opportunities are out there. If you don't have that currently, seek those opportunities. LinkedIn is a great space to do that.

Lori, amazing conversation. Extremely engaging. We barely scratched the surface of all the topics that I wanted to touch up with you.

I'm sure.

That's hopefully a good thing that maybe I could get you back to do a second episode here with so many other questions that I do want to ask. I appreciate so much your taking the time to be here and to talk about all of those important topics. In closing, I like to give you the opportunity to say something you wish you had the opportunity to say and you didn't get a chance to, or maybe answer a question you wish I would've asked and I didn't.

That's a tough one. One last thing we probably didn't touch upon, or maybe this is a conversation for another day and I'd be happy to come back. Thank you for having me. I know we've talked about training and professional development. Be inquisitive, ask questions, seek information, seek opportunities to learn, and seek professional designations. I can tell you as a hiring manager, if somebody comes to me with a certification or an industry designation, those resumes or applications tend to take favor because that tells me that's great that you have a college degree. Not everybody is going to. It's great that you accomplish that, but what skillset do you have that's relevant to our business?

Seek out those education opportunities either at a local apartment association or state affiliate if they offer it. There are other organizations like IRAM that offer robust education schedules. Seek out opportunities to learn. Don't ever assume that you know it all. As I sit here as a Director of Training and Talent Development, an industry educator, and a public speaker, I will never sit here and tell you that I know it all or that I do it all the best way. I'm always learning and I'm always willing to learn. You have to remain a student your entire life. That doesn't just apply to your professional career. It also applies to your personal career. Always be learning. Always have that vantage point.

Lori, if someone wants to reach out, they want to connect with you, what are the best ways to connect with you?

I can tell you the space that I spend the most amount of time on is LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. You can search for me by name. I'd be happy to connect. I'd be happy to have a dialogue with you. I'd be happy to share information if you need it. A lot of people ask me how I became a full-time educator in multifamily. How did I become a director? How was it that I started teaching or have continued teaching for apartment associations? I'd be happy to help anybody on their journey, and then continue to check in from time to time.

I'd love to be part of people's journeys. There are people that I have known for years and I've seen their professional growth. I've seen where they started and I've seen where they are now. That's an amazing thing to be able to have that vantage point that maybe when I met you, you were a student in my class, you were a leasing consultant and now you're a regional manager. That's extraordinary. If you're able to see someone's growth, that for me is exciting. Not because I contributed to it personally, but because I'm all about seeing people win. If I can contribute in any way to helping you win to get you where you want to go, I am happy to do that. That's my lot in life.

Lori Agudo, thank you so much for being here with us and for taking the time. Again, amazing conversation. I hope to get you back here soon for a second episode. There’s so much more to talk about.

There is always more to talk about. Thank you for having me, Adrian. It has been a pleasure.

Everybody, thank you very much for tuning in. I'm your host, Adrian Danila. This is Multifamily Chronicles. I hope to see you back here soon. Have a great day.

Important Links

• Royal American Management
• Facilities Plus
• LinkedIn – Lori Agudo

About Lori Agudo