Lessons In Maintenance Services With Jason Fein Of Camden Property Trust

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Lessons In Maintenance Services With Jason Fein Of Camden Property Trust

In this episode, we have right here with us in the studio, Jason Fein. He is the National Maintenance Services Director for Camden Property Trust. Welcome to the show, Jason.

Thanks, Adrian, for having me.

Jason, why don't you start by introducing yourself to the audience? Tell us a little bit about yourself, your personal and professional background, and a little bit about your history. How did you get into multifamily?

I'm the National Maintenance Services Director with Camden Property Trust. I've been with Camden for a few years. I support the maintenance teams. I have a group of great market maintenance managers. We just changed our title. I am the Regional Maintenance Director. What we do is support the onsite teams with training or tools. I love my career. I fell into it a little bit.

I don't know how many people graduate high school and say, “I'm going to go paint walls and be a maintenance employee.” I was living in an apartment complex and they needed a maintenance technician. I was paying my rent. They knew I was in construction so they asked me, “Do you want to get 20% off your rent and free cable?”

I was 21 at the time so I said, “Yes, I do.” I joined and worked my way up. I've been blessed with the ability to be able to learn different parts of the maintenance industry from doing repositions on turnovers and doing capital work at the properties. I'm the Maintenance Services Director for the company. That's been my professional career path for the past years.

How long have you been with Camden?

I was with Equity Residential before that and that's where I started my career. I was a maintenance tech, scraping and caulking at every turn for multiple months until finally, they let me do something else.

I want to ask you a little bit about your company. We all know that it's one of the most sought-after companies in the industry. They win awards for best places to work all the time. A little bit about the culture. What makes Camden the great company that they are? Would you like to share a few things with us?

The name of the company is just a name. It's a stock ticker. It's a name on the header or a signature in your email. That's all it is. It's the people that you work with. It's the ability to give your people a little bit of room to be able to make mistakes but learn from them. One of the things that I loved about Camden was we're empowering our people like the maintenance technicians, groundskeepers, and supervisors.

Everybody gets an opportunity to be able to voice their opinion and see what works. What's been great is watching the executive leadership give the onsite teams the ability to do that. Sometimes some of the companies before Equity, it's my way of the highway, whereas at Camden, it's a lot more of, “Let's give it a shot and see what happens. You put it on paper. Let's see if it floats.” That's what makes the culture a lot better than some of the companies out there that I worked with before Equity.

You had an amazing career in the industry. A lot of young folks are looking up to people like you because you're a role model. They want to get where you are. I do want to ask you to walk us through what were the things that helped you get from a maintenance technician to a national director for one of the largest and best companies in the country. What were some things that you think you did or traits that you have that helped you move up into the organizations and land at the top?

One thing that I tell every new employee that comes into Camden, and when I was at Equity, I told them the same thing, is it's about attitude and drive. If you come in, have a good attitude and work ethic, and you're competitive, then you can see consistent growth throughout your career. When I was a maintenance tech and I was scraping and caulking, I remember going to my boss and saying, “I'm a good soldier. I'll do what you want me to do but at some point in time, I like to do a little bit more.”

They gave me more. They said, “Let's see what you got.” They gave me a shot to be able to manage the turn process at a 1,400-unit property. Some people might shy away from that and say, “That's too much. I'm not getting paid enough.” I took it like, “I'm going to cut my teeth and show what I got,” but I'm also doing this under the supervision of a supervisor. I have guidance and support. I'm not just being thrown to the wolves.

As I became more comfortable with the turnover process, I set up a good system. Every day, we were turning in as many units as possible but our goal every week was to get all of our turns done. At a 1,400-unit property, it's a pretty big challenge but my bosses knew I was hungry for more. It is attitude, competitiveness, and communicating your goals. If you communicate with your boss and say, “This is what I want, why I would like it, and why I'm good at it,” and then you take some risks once in a while, you can see rapid growth.

One of the things that is talked about a lot in our industry in general is centralization. I'd like to talk a little bit about centralization. First of all, I do want to ask this question. Is centralization possible in maintenance? How much centralization can we do in your opinion?

In my opinion, the residents are letting maintenance go in their apartment. They have to trust the maintenance team that's going into their apartment and taking care of their possessions. It’s important. We can centralize maybe PM work. If there are multiple properties within the same region, maybe centralizing those communities and in that way, we can be able to have economies of scale. We can have multiple employees. Maybe we have a couple of guys or employees who are doing only HVAC work because they're very strong in HVAC work.

Maybe we start centralizing but they're still within the same little group of communities. That is a great way to be able to centralize. I struggle still to find a way to be able to centralize it over a broader range. Residents still do and me as well. I'm living out a community and I see maintenance employees. I want to be able to trust them. I know them and I know they know me. A big piece of what we do is maintenance.

One of the things that comes to mind from a previous conversation we had was we're talking about access control locks. You shared with me the fact that Camden went to a program where they replaced regular deadbolts with electronic locks. It’s locks that could be rekeyed or access that could be controlled remotely. I like to ask you about the project. How this idea did come about? Secondly, how did it impact? This is one of the few ways, in my opinion, that we could centralize maintenance.

In other words, you could have this watched from above. A single person could watch 10, 20, or 50 properties at once, create access, and delete access to the end users. What that does is it not only saves technicians time from going back and forth to and from the office dropping keys and pulling new keys. They could be on a property all day long and use their app on the phone to complete the service request.

That's a huge time saver but then also, it could avoid having a line of vendors waiting at the office to get the key to get access to an apartment. I'd like you to tell us a little bit about how this project came about. What are the benefits if there are any benefits to it? How do you like it? How do the site teams like it, if they do?

Time management is the most important thing that we can teach our teams or give our teams. We’re giving them the gift of time. Every time I go to a property, groups of maintenance employees will tell me, “I wish there was more time in the day.” I wish there was more time in the day but we all have to look at everything we do every single day.

We have to be able to say, “Am I using my time efficiently?” If you look at a garden-style community, if the maintenance shop is on one side of the property and the office is on the other, how much time does it take to drive from the shop to the office or from an apartment to the office? It might be ten minutes. If you go to an apartment, I know we've all been there where you drive to an apartment, you've got that key in your hand, you get to the door, you put it in, and it doesn't work.

I have to go back to HandyTrac or KeyTrak. I have to sit there and figure out what's going on. It's a mess. You take 6 trips to the office and it takes 10 minutes on average. You do the math. That's an hour. That's a lot of time that could be used for tickets and turns. A lot of property management companies out there are looking at it and some of them are doing it.

Cabo was a system that's been out there for a pretty long time. We're using a platform with RealPage called Chirp and it's great. The maintenance employees can go straight to a door. They can be able to open the app and say, “I need access to this apartment.” It gives the resident a log as well saying, “Jason Fein was in your apartment on this day at this time.” That's fantastic.

We never had this kind of visibility. The residents never had this visibility. They can change the PIN codes on their locks. They can be able to change a PIN code. If they feel like their PIN code has been compromised, they can change it. You can walk up to the door and when you're walking out, I don't know how many times you've had groceries in your arms or you've got bags and cages.

You're trying to get out the door, get the key, put it in the door, and lock it. With the locks that we chose, it's a Yale product. You can be able to put your hand on the lock and it locks itself. It doesn't unlock that way. You've got that benefit and the residents have the benefit of locking with their hand. They've got the PIN codes. They can use it to lock/unlock their door. They have the log.

Our maintenance employees can walk up and check out a key for that apartment. They can get access to the unit. It's great. During fire inspections, how many times have you had the big ring of keys? The ring of death is what I like to call it. You're sitting there. You have a fire marshal standing behind you. You're trying to get in this apartment.

It's the end of the day but your hands are sweaty. Maybe you wrote with a dry-erase marker on the tag so you can figure out which key goes to which apartment. Now, it's all wiped off. You're putting keys in doors. That's a lot of time wasted. All of a sudden, I can check out a key, open up the door, and get the fire marshal in. We can go in and go out. We can do what we need to do.

I find this very beneficial. We're on the cusp of using technology for a lot of stuff like smart thermostats and appliances. I envision the one day when appliances or HVAC units have a diagnostic tool where you can be able to patch in your Bluetooth with your phone using an app and it'll tell you, “You got high head pressure, or this or that.” All of a sudden, we're saving time on our units.

I use this analogy all the time. We have the ability to send a rocket up into space. It comes and lands back down on the same pad but I got to sit there and try to figure out what's wrong with my defrost timer for twenty minutes. We should be able to have a diagnostic tool on our fridges that tells us what's wrong or on our washing machines so we can cut the time down for troubleshooting and be more effective. I'm excited about the future of maintenance.

We've been sending rockets into space for many years. It's about time to bring some of that action into maintenance. It’s a tiny piece. It’s about small increments or progress a little bit at a time. Going back to the time that it saves the teams, how much time per day do you estimate that your centralized key system saves each employee? How much time are you giving them back to their day by not having to handle keys?

Maybe 40 minutes a day and that's being conservative. I told you that it takes ten minutes to get to the office to go get a key or something. You get a great maintenance employee going to a service request or have a bulk of service requests. They get some buckets. They put them in the back of the golf cart. They get enough parts to be able to go do their job and then have all the tools.

If they have complete access to every single apartment, they don't have to go to the office at all. If you pair that up with mobile service request systems, we don't have to print anything off or have to go back to the office and close out tickets. If you pair all that technology together and efficiency, you could be saving an hour per day. That is my opinion.

Some of the audience that don't know you very well, Jason, I do want to say that you are a podcast host like I am. Tell us a little bit about your podcast. What is the name? How did you start it? What type of topics do you like to have? What is it about? How can someone be a guest on your podcast?

I was working with the Texas Apartment Association. They have a maintenance group and we get on once a month. We talk about different things in the industry. We have different partners on the call as well. I know HD Supply is on there and some other vendors. One day I was asked to join Hints From HR Podcast. I joined and we talked about maintenance hiring.

During the maintenance hiring conversation, I said, “It helps when the office team knows how to speak maintenance.” That's exactly what I said. I said, “If they understand maintenance and what they're going through, then they can help and assist. They can make sure that they're not hindering the maintenance team from doing their job. We'll be more productive because of it.”

It triggered conversations and then we started having these podcasts. It's How to Speak Maintenance and it's once a month. It's the last Wednesday of every month. It's on LinkedIn and Facebook Live. We have different guests. We'll have an office guest and a maintenance guest. We talk about the impact we have on each other and how the office team can help support maintenance groups. That's our focus. It's a lot of fun. Becca Ramati is a great co-host.

Becca's awesome. I hope she's reading this episode. You did mention hiring maintenance personnel and talent. As an industry, we have our challenges with bringing in new blood, hiring people, or retaining people. What are some things that we're not doing the way we should? Let's go and move it forward to once we recruit and we get that person into the door retaining that person. Let's start with the recruiting. What are some areas of improvement that you see for us? What can we do better?

We're all having the same challenge with getting tenured maintenance employees to apply. The tenured maintenance employees who are well-trained and great with residents are being taken care of at their current companies. They're not out and about. Companies are trying to retain them as much as possible. We are getting a lot more green employees that are coming in. People are saying, “Do you know what I've heard about this industry? Let me check it out.”

You have to try to figure out what your pipeline is. Everybody puts things out on Indeed or has their company websites. I've heard of some companies where on the back of the business cards, they put something about the career link for their website. When you're out at a restaurant or walking through a property, you can throw your card at somebody and say, “You have a great attitude. You might be a good fit for our company. Here's a card and on the back is a QR code.”

That's a pipeline. You're seeing people out in the field. If you go to a job, trade schools are a pretty neat way to be able to tap into. Some people are learning a skill like HVAC work or maybe plumbers. They might have a vision of starting their HVAC company and they don't know about the apartment industry. One of the things that is attractive about the apartment industry versus the multifamily housing industry versus the trades is not cyclical.

We have people living in homes. We have to take care of them. During recessions and pandemics, we still have to take care of residents. There's still work. That's pretty attractive. We have to tell these newcomers coming in to get out in the field and try to find ways to attract talent. Once they're in the door, we have to make sure they're trained.

One of the things that I had growing up in my career was you get in the door and they've had this open position for six months. What do they do? “I'm so glad you're here. Here are your keys, the site map, some service requests, and an app to get you in the door. Hit the ground running.” That's amazing. That's how it was for a lot of my career.

I know it's the same for a lot of people coming in because some positions have been open for a long time. We have to make sure that we ease them into the company. We give them time to breathe. They've shaken up their whole world. All of a sudden, on day one, you're going to throw them into a bunch of videos or make them take a bunch of tests or you're going to throw them straight into service requests.

One of the great parts about Camden is we sat down and started an onboarding program. It's eleven weeks. We break the whole maintenance technician position down into chunks so that way, we can see, “How do you do with electrical and plumbing? Let's ease you into it and have you shadow the other maintenance team members. You get to make friends with the people that you're working with. You get to know them personally. We show you around and how to shut off the water in case of an emergency. We’ll show you where all the breaker panels are.”

For eleven weeks, we're slowly getting you in there. You're going to do tickets and you'll do turns once in a while but we want to slow it down a little bit. Once you're here, we got to figure out ways to be able to empower our supervisors to train our employees. There's nothing worse than coming to work every day and you do your tickets and turns, and you go home. You don't learn.

If you ever look back at your group or team, ask, “How did I advance my group this year?” If the answer is, “I didn't do anything for them. I gave the work and did tickets and turns,” then we need to do better. We got to take them, sit them down, and say, “I know you're not the best at HVAC work. I got an HVAC ticket. Come with me. Let me show you some tricks and stuff. Let me teach you.”

I challenged my maintenance supervisors all the time. “If you got some green technicians and we have our proctors for EPA certifications, let's get them EPA certified so they can work with Freon, and then let's start easing them into the process. I got to change out this AC unit. I'm going to teach you how to recover refrigerant. That's all you're going to do. The next time, I'll give you the next step and the next step.”

Over time, you're going to build your knowledge. We can't just sit them down in front of an AC unit for eight hours and say, “This is how it works. This is how electricity flows through the system. This is a contact.” You can't do that. They're not going to retain it. We have to give it in pieces and make sure they understand that it's okay for them to learn slowly but over time, they will get it.

At the end of the year, all of a sudden, they're replacing AC units and troubleshooting. They're using their meters and gauges. That's cool stuff. It's a combination. Have the right pipeline. The long answer is you have to have a good pipeline and make sure that we ease them in the first couple of months. After they're here, let's engage, empower, move, and give them more knowledge. That way, they feel like they're growing.



I love this long answer because it tells the story of why Camden is successful. It’s part of the story. It’s not the entire story. I've been dying to get to have a conversation, especially a public conversation with someone from your company because year after year, you're over there up top of the best companies to work for. To stay up at the top, you must be doing something right and those are great examples.

Those are some things that I've implemented throughout my career on and off. I know that they bear significant results in retention. Jason, what are some things that we could do better as an industry to shut the back door and close the back door on people once they come in? What are some things that you have done yourself and your company to improve employee retention on the maintenance side?

I come to work every day and do the same function. I make a widget every single day. I don't see a vision for my future. I can only do that for so long. At some point in time, I'm going to start to say, “I'm going to start looking somewhere else.” Imagine if I was making that widget every day. My boss was including me in bigger conversations. My boss was like, “This is why we built the widget. This is where the widget goes.”

He may have shown me how I have an impact on the bottom line. Maybe they gave me a pathway and said, “Jason, here are some things you can do over the next six months that can help you learn the next level in your career.” There's no promise that you'll do these things over the next six months and then you're going to get a promotion but I'm going to teach you some things and you'll be ready for when that promotion comes along. That engages me and our maintenance employees.

Have them be a part of the bigger picture. Give them some kudos. Let them get some win. When I was a maintenance supervisor, I had a maintenance tech. I remember he came to me and said, “I'm green. I was working at a deli before.” I was like, “That's fine.” I could feel like he had a great attitude and he wanted to learn. He had some basic knowledge and tools. We hired him.

I told him, “I made up a position. You're going to be the make-ready coordinator. I'm going to put you in charge of the whole make-ready process. You're going to be in charge of it and it's going to be your win. If you can get these things done, you can make sure these apartments are turned fast, they look great and the residents are happy, that's all you.” He was excited. He wanted me to stay out of his business. As a supervisor, I was like, “I'm going to come over and grab this turn.” He said, “No. I have a plan for that turn. Leave that turn alone.”

I had another guy who was in charge of the tickets. It’s the same thing. If he won an award based on service requests or turns, then that was his win. That wasn't mine. As leaders, that's what we need to do. We have to make sure that we're giving them the kudos. They did the work. We're inspiring them and removing roadblocks. If he came to work every day and painted walls, turned apartments, and didn't have a future, I don't think he'd be around much longer. That's how it is.

Another thing I believe that closes the back doors is the feeling of teamwork and camaraderie. There was a property that I remember in Virginia. I remember the first time I walked the property. At lunchtime, somebody got on the radio and there was this long saying that they did. I was like, “What was that?” They said, “That's the lunch call.” I said, “What's the lunch call?” The whole team had been there for 15 to 20 years. That’s the average tenure for the maintenance technicians at that property.

They said, “At 12:00 every day, he does that call and everybody comes down. They all go down to the shop and eat together. They enjoy time together. It's mandatory. It's not split-up lunches. If there's an emergency, we'll pull out a lunch and go take care of it but if there's no emergency, we're taking an hour-long lunch break. We're all doing it together. We're going to eat together.”

I feel like teams that eat together stay together. You're not just employees doing these functions. You're human beings. I get to know you and you get to know me. I remember another team I walked in on a Thursday and it was lunchtime. They had this whole table and it was like a potluck. Everybody brought in food from where they were from or foods that they loved. They all shared and it was every Thursday.

Every Thursday, everybody made one pot of something. They brought it in, sat, and ate. I feel like that helped the teams gel and be closer. They didn't want to leave because then they'd have to build something out. They have to meet new people. Maybe they didn't like the people as much as they liked these people. I love talking about people, teamwork, and food. Having a vision for the future can help make sure that people want to stay.

These are very powerful stories. Thank you for sharing. You did mention the onboarding process and how you feed your new employees a little bit at a time instead of dumping on them and saying, “Here are 1,000 work orders. Do this.” During the onboarding, is there any section right there where they’re being paired with a peer coach or someone who's senior with a company? Are they doing any part of the onboarding offsite and not at the site where they're working? Is that part of your onboarding or not?

There are a lot of different onboarding programs. If the community is chaotic, then I highly recommend having the person go offsite, go to a quieter property, and be able to get 1 day or 2 to see the company and get to know the people in a non-chaotic environment because that happens sometimes. Every company has maybe one property that's a little bit older and there's a lot of stuff going on. Maybe it's a student property and they got all the move-ins or something.

It's important to be able to make sure that they get time with a mentor. We have a mentor program like that and it's great. They come out and sit down. They say, “How can I help you? What can I show you?” They make sure that the person is comfortable. I honestly like the onboarding program. I like the idea of other peers and other maintenance technicians on the team helping onboard that person. If it's somebody from outside of the property coming over and mentoring this person, then they go away.

However, I'm still here every day for five days a week with this group of people. I want to get to know them. I want to know them and them to know me. I want to feel comfortable. It's important that any onboarding program also involves the technicians at the property and groundskeepers or everybody. Also, even leasing. If they can come, be with me, and show me some tricks and stuff, that'd be great.

You mentioned during the conversation how the employees are being trained a little bit at a time for certain tasks. What should training look like in 2023 for the apartment industry on the maintenance side? How do you envision the ideal training for maintenance?

I feel like maintenance employees, myself included, were very proud. We get a job. We get in. We're proud. We don't want to say, “I got the job but I'm not certain about this. I struggle with that.” I don't get that a lot. We got to find ways to be able to uncover the hidden training needs of a maintenance employee. We can do it in a way that doesn't make them vulnerable or feel like they're exposing themselves and they're going to get fired.

That's why we started building the onboarding program. “In the first week or the second week when we're doing plumbing, let's go to an apartment. Let me show you a shutoff, how the water flows through the apartment, and what an angle stop is.” For somebody who's seasoned, I open up the cabinet and say, “Here's an angle stop.” They're like, “It's a compression fitting and this is how it goes on.”

All of a sudden, that employee knows what they're talking about and they've been around plumbing a little bit. Maybe I make a note. It'd be great if it was on some electronic platform that says, “Steve is my new maintenance tech and he knows what he is doing when it comes to plumbing.” Maybe by Thursday, I start to get a little bit more in-depth. We can start talking about brazing or sweating. Maybe I take him to the shop and give him a piece of pipe. We see, “Is he good at sweating? Does he understand the glue time on the CPVC pipe? Does he understand those things?”

If he does, I'm like, “Great.” I signed off on him. However, maybe I get the electrical section and say, “Here's the meter. This is how you read volt and test a receptacle.” They're like, “Show me that again.” If we could take that information, we can put it on a centralized platform. Maybe at the end of those eleven months, I have a good understanding of Steve, my maintenance tech, or Rebecca. I can be able to say, “Steve or Rebecca is my new technician and they're good. Here are the things that they're great at and the things that they're struggling with.”

We can take that information and then build a prescriptive training program for that person. If I have maintenance trainers or a group of learning and development people within our company and they're armed with that information, I envision one day as a facility or a maintenance services director, or you can pull into a property, in the parking lot, open up a sheet or an app and say, “At this property, I've got Rebecca, Tim, Steve, and Carl.”

I can see, “Carl is struggling with plumbing. In his last annual review, it looks like the manager is saying that they shy away from giving him plumbing tickets because he's slow and he takes a lot of time.” Instead of going here, looking at a leak, and walking out the door, I'm going to grab and find Carl. I'm going to bring him with me and show him a little bit about plumbing.

Maybe I go build a class. Maybe I can filter by my entire company and say, “Who are all the people that need plumbing?” All of a sudden, I knew it was Rebecca, Steve, Carl, and over here was Trevor, Tiffany, and Heather. I’d grab that whole group, bring them over to a property, and we do a class just for them because that's going to be the right way to train.

If I had to do a training class and say, “We're going to have a plumbing class on the 14th. If you're interested, let me know.” Some people might be like, “A day with pay off-site and I get to go sit in the training room with air-conditioning.” There are people that do that. I used to be a trainer. I used to sit there and train. I could see it in their eyes like, “Why am I here?” Why are you here? I don't want you to waste your time. I'd rather find a class that engages you and gets you excited. Maybe it's a soft skills thing.

I see digital platforms or something that has a list of every employee and what training we need to give them. There's data being pulled in from reviews from their managers and supervisors. I've got great actionable items that I can implement training on and elevate all my people. That's how I see training in the future.

You are building employee profiles that tell you everything you need to know about an employee. You pull it up on your phone and see who this person is from a professional standpoint, what their strengths are, and areas of improvement.

Maybe they have the ability to go into it as well and say, “Here are my aspirations for the future.” All of a sudden, I know what their goals are for the future and what training their supervisors want to give them. I can shoot a rocket up into space and make it land on the same pad but I can't come up with an app that has a training program for all my people.

We touched a little bit on technology. I wanted to stop and make it the next topic of the conversation. Typically, when technology for multifamily is developed, maintenance goes there too. It’s a technology that's applicable to the maintenance field. Companies hire great salespeople so they can go out and sell the product. They hire code writers, the people who write code.

Those two groups of people are developing this product and taking it to the market. It goes to the top of the company because they're not going to go to sell them on other sites. They have the conversation in a meeting room with the president, vice president, and CEO of the company. They're doing their sales speech. The way it happens is to get a sale and that person is impressed by what they see. They're saying, “This makes sense. We have to have this product for maintenance teams.”

Most of the time, this person has no maintenance background. They’ve never been the end user for that particular application. They're looking at something. It's a shiny object. They’re like, “We got to have it because it is shiny. It looks great. It has all the bells and whistles. Our teams are going to love it,” but are they going to love it? That's the real question.

The end user input doesn't exist, typically. They're not building the products with the end user in mind. This is one issue. The second issue is the way we roll out as an industry. The person makes the decision and it says, “We're buying this product. We're launching on October 1st.” The company has 100 or 300 communities throughout the country.

“We are going to have some training, 2 to 3 sessions and we're going live.” There's no consideration about training on a smaller group of properties, maybe 3, 5, or 10. You work out for 2 or 6 months and see what's working or what's not using end-user input to maybe improve and work out the kinks. Instead, we roll it out, and then six months later, we get low adoption rates.

People are not embracing the new technology and everybody struggles. Instead of helping the process, saving time, and making it more efficient for our team members, it is the other way around. People are hating it and it's creating one more task they see as a chore. Does this sound familiar to you as to what's happening in the industry? What can we do to change things to improve the process? First of all, do you agree with what I said?

If you use a big-bang implementation process, then you're not going to get the adoption rates. If you are looking for buy-in, I'm a big fan of running a pilot. I'm involved in a lot of the meetings with the vendors that come in and they're trying to sell us things, which is great. That goes back to what is Camden doing to try to engage their people. Instead of it being in a room with CEOs and CFOs, they're entrusting myself, the SVPs, RVPs, some directors, and managers to listen to this person, give them some feedback and maybe we do a pilot in a market.

We're always trying out new things at Camden. I know that you can't just do the Big Bang philosophy. You can't just flip a switch and everybody gets it. You need to get a specific market and maybe you get a market that might not have good adoption but you try to see what would it take to get them to adopt it. If you take the market that you know will embrace whatever it is you're trying to roll out, they're going to be super excited, ramped up, and be like, “It's the best.”

However, if they're one of the regions and the other 75% of your company hates technology, and they don't like new things, then the pilot's going to look awesome. You are going to roll it out to the other 75% and they're going to be like, “Why don't you ask me?” It's important that you do a pilot and get some good feedback. You try to see if you can work with the developer to make it a little bit more end-user-friendly.

I'm a big fan of technology. There's a future where we use more technology to track PMs and maintenance on equipment. It has to be fewer clicks. It can't be multiple apps. There's a world with QR codes and the QR code takes me straight to an app or a website. If I'm at an RTU and I click my camera, open my camera, and scan the QR code, it takes me to that website and right to where I have to fill out the information.

As a maintenance tech with there being zero time in the day available to do extra stuff, all of a sudden, I get straight to the point. I get to that website. I filled out the information and then it's logged. I can move and keep going. Time is a valuable resource. You have to make sure that whatever you're rolling out like if you work with a developer, you let them know what could help your company. Do a pilot. All of a sudden, you've got people within the company that are bought in. They can help with the implementation and training in the other market.

We're speaking the same language. We're on the same page as far as how the product should be built and implemented as well. Jason, I want to switch gears a little bit and ask you to share a pivotal moment or experience that significantly influenced your career trajectory from the maintenance technician to your leadership role. What was one moment that you would pick that changed things for you and rocket ship your trajectory towards where you are?

It's been a couple of moments. It's been these moments where there was a position somewhere else and it was going to take uprooting my family and moving them to a different city. That's what's helped move my career. I started in California. I grew to be a maintenance director out there. I wanted to be a facilities manager. That was my goal. I remember asking my boss, “How do I become a facilities manager?” They said, “They need high-rise experience.”

I said, “We only have garden-style properties here. I don't understand how I'm going to get high-rise experience when all we own is garden style.” They said, “That's what we're looking for, somebody with high-rise experience.” I had to look inside and be able to see how flexible am I. When I started looking around, my company, Equity, had properties on the East Coast that were high-rise buildings. They had booster pump systems, boilers, and all that stuff.

A spot came open on the East Coast in DC. I remember driving home. I had the job application and position. I was sweating the whole ride home. I was like, “How am I going to talk to my wife? We're having a kid. How am I going to do this?” It was a long night. I had to sit there. We had to do the whole pros and cons list. We were in LA at the time. I was like, “You hate it here. It's smoggy and nasty.” “We've never been to DC. Let's try it out.”

Once my wife signed off, I went out. We figured out moving details. I moved to DC and got the opportunity to work on some high-rise buildings. That was a pivotal moment for me. There were other opportunities that came up. I've seen people not take those opportunities. Maybe it was a money thing or a commuting thing. They were like, “It's five minutes on my commute. It's not enough extra money.”

I remember one move I made and it was to a facilities position. I remember that I went through the interview process and everything was great. They said, “We want to give you the spot but we're not going to give you extra money. It's a lateral move.” I said, “That's fine but in six months after I show you what I can do, I'd like to have the opportunity to talk about compensation.”

They were fine with it and that was a great way to do it. Instead of saying, “No, I'm not going to do it and take it unless I get more money,” I said, “That's fine. I understand there are budgets but at some point, in time, let's sit down and talk about it.” Those are the moves that I've made that have helped get me in the right spot.

When I was in DC, I had the opportunity to talk to Camden and they said, “At some point if you want to join our company, we need you to move to Houston.” Once again, I was driving home. I have two kids. It was a lot. I knew my wife was going to be like, “I don't want to move my kids. I don't want to do this or that.” It was a great opportunity to do what I'm doing now. We all agreed. Those are the moves.

You have to go where the action is to grow. Could you share a specific instance where a mentor or influential figure played a role in shaping your career decisions or approach to leadership?

There are a lot of times when we take the best maintenance technician. Somebody that comes to work, you give them twenty tickets. At lunchtime, they come back and give you twenty tickets. You're like, “This person is amazing and we need to promote them to be a supervisor.” I've seen it a lot of times where we take that person and move them into a leadership position.

I had this great guy. He was a technician and he got promoted fast. He became a supervisor. He wasn't walking his building or taking care of the mechanicals. His ticket count was low and his turns were getting done very fast. To me, what was he doing? He was doing what he was used to doing. You come to work and do your tickets and turns. You do everything that's on your dashboard and go home.

No one had ever taught him all of the managerial pieces like walking your building, opening doors, pushing buttons, and making sure the AC in your elevator machine room was still working. It's things like that. I went to him and said, “We need to talk about this.” He said, “Jason, tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it.” That was a moment that I was like, “Got you.”

He's still stuck in technician mode. I went through that as well. I was a technician and people said, “Here are 30 jobs.” I was like, “Great.” I was gone, running and doing things. When I became a supervisor, I remember somebody did a capital project and they put these doors on the side of the building but in the capital project, they didn't paint the doors and they used T1-11. They had these T1-11 doors. They didn't paint them and they put it on me.

I came to work and was like, “One day, I'm going to get to paint those doors.” I was young. My boss came to me and said, “When are you going to paint these doors?” I said, “I'm going to get to it. I promise. I got a lot of tickets and turns. It's only myself and this other guy.” He was like, “Get it done.” Week after week went by and I was trying to make time to paint these doors. He said, “Jason, you're getting yourself in a pickle here. Those doors are untreated. The weather is starting to deteriorate the wood. We need to seal the wood. You got to make time for this.”

We had a whole conversation about earmarking time. Put it on your calendar. Tell your bosses, “On these days, from this time to this time, I cannot be bothered with anything else. I have to paint these doors.” That's one of the things that has stuck with me. Whatever it is, put it on your calendar. Make time for it. Whether it's training, learning a new skill, or learning how to cook. Whatever it is that you want to do but can't find the time for it, make time for it. Put it on your calendar. Try to see if you can earmark it and say, “Nothing else is happening during this time.”

I'm trying to teach my kids that stuff too. Make time for your future. Come up with a plan. Earmark time during your week to sit down and make time for it. That way, you don't look at it through a week and go, “I did my tickets and turns but I never painted those doors. I'm in trouble. I look like I'm not doing everything I'm supposed to do.” That was the best piece of advice I got. What was your best piece of advice?

A piece of advice I like to share with me moving up is noticing that there are certain things that most people don't want to do. I noticed that people avoid it at any cost. They'll drag their feet, try to put it on somebody else, or ignore it hoping that either it is going to take care of itself or somebody else will see that and take care of it.

I noticed that there's value in being the person who goes the other way or against the mainstream. You go the other way. You are the one who picks up the piece of trash that nobody else wants to. You get the dirty work when nobody else wants to. They raise their hand and volunteer when nobody else wants to. Those were things that catapulted my career. You pull yourself into that top 1% or 3% of the people who want to do what nobody else wants to. It makes you very valuable.

People start noticing that and then the next time there's an opportunity coming around, you'll be top of the mind. Make yourself visible too. We're living in 2023. It doesn't matter if you're someone who's already in a leadership role like you and I are or if you're a groundskeeper. You could still build your visibility. You have to learn your trade.

I do want to say this because people might misconstrue and take this as, “We got to build a personal brand and make everything look shiny but then we suck at our job. You can't suck at your job and think that building a great personal brand will help with that. It’s like selling something that is not. Get great at your job and at the same time, let the world know who you are.

It’s two components right here. I've done this throughout my career and I'll say with amazing results some things that I was able to accomplish. I'm looking back and I'm so thankful. Sometimes, it seems like it's been surreal and an incredible journey for me with incredible results. I meet people all over the country who are coming up to me and saying, “I know you from LinkedIn.” It's amazing.

What's happening in 2023 is you have to know what you're talking about in your field, build a very strong skillset, and be great at what you do. On top of that, compliment that with visibility. Get visible. That's the reason why I started conversations like the one we have. It’s not just for my sake or my visibility. I like to bring visibility to what you and I do.

When you look several years back, remember what happened at the time on LinkedIn, for example, because that's the platform for professionals. Let's take LinkedIn. The only people who would host or write things about maintenance on LinkedIn would be people who have never done maintenance. There will be executives, trainers, or speakers in the industry.

I said to myself, “Why not me?” It’s because I'm the one that's doing it or has done that. Why not be the practitioner and also the person that talks about it? The struggles, challenges, and areas of opportunity that we have. Part of the reason why I started this show is to have conversations with individuals like you and show the world what is possible.

I don't consider myself an extraordinary person. I'm a regular guy. I show up every day. I do my very best and do the best that I can. The rest always works itself out but I do want to show everybody else in the world out there. If you and I were able to make it in this world, it's a piece for everyone. That's what's important. Legacy is important too. What do we leave behind? How do we help people who have no one to turn to?

Let's speak the truth here. The reality is that a lot of companies don't have the structure. The culture is not the culture of trust where individuals at the site level could pick up the phone, call their director, and say, “I'm struggling with this.” They're in a position where they have no one to turn to. They don't know where to go to get answers.

That's the reason why I bring individuals like you, very accomplished professionals, and others at this level to tell their stories. If someone is going to watch this episode, I'm sure that they're going to have a lot of takeaways that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. This is the only place where they could get it or one of the few places. I'm not trying to make this unique or something that’s out of this world that I'm doing here.

You got to expose this stuff and you're doing a good job.

We have to. We are not going to make things better for us and the industry unless we start talking about it. That's the first step. Let's start talking about it. Let's not get stuck into the mindset of just talking about it. Once we talk about it and identify the issues, let's identify solutions and go to execute. That's another thing too. What do they call that? It’s analysis paralysis. We keep analyzing and we never get to execute.

It’s a very long answer but this is something that I've noticed that helped me throughout my career and great people to look up to always. I've been extremely fortunate to have amazing people to look up to. Jason, I do want to ask you a question. How do you get to be efficient in managing or overseeing assets that are located throughout the country?

You're not present in all places. You're not ubiquitous. You're not in twenty places at once. You are only in one place at one time. How are you able to do this successfully from where you live one location at a time in an organization that has assets all over the country? What are some things or techniques that you would like to share about your success?

Organizational skills are what will set you apart from everybody else. For myself, when I visit a market, I use OneNote. When I'm walking properties, I open up OneNote and I have folders for every community. I write little notes about things that I notice when I'm walking, things about the people, things about the market, and even specific maintenance needs. After I'm done with that walk, I'm able to take my team that's in that city, be able to work with them and come up with ideas to try to fix those issues. It's a follow-up.

If I go walk a property and say, “You guys got some issues. Here are some ideas,” and then I walk away, am I being an effective leader? Am I helping this team at all? They told me a problem. I said, “Yeah, it's a problem,” and then I left. I want to be the person that goes to a city or a market. I walk a property. They tell me that there's a problem that's plaguing them and keeping them up at night. I want to be able to help push and give my team the information that they need to be able to help make sure that it gets fixed.

I was in DC walking at some properties. There was a community that said that over the past three months, their fire alarm system has been having supervisory problems and issues with the high-low limit switch on the dry sprinkler system. The alarms are going off. Whoever's on call was like, “Here it goes. I'm going to get plagued with calls.” They had been doing this for three months. I said, “I'm going to come back tomorrow and sit down with you. Let's have the vendor, our monitoring company, come and give us a list of all the calls for the past three months.”

They came over and gave us the list. We put it in Excel and then we sorted it. We figured out building issues and what the problems were. The vendor was there. We got proposals for 3 of the fixes that are going to help solve probably about 80% of those calls. My local team in that city is going to take those proposals, go to the right teams, and say, “We need to do this fix. This is capital. This is an operating thing,” but if we do this, it's going to stop overtime and help with employee morale because people are being plagued with calls.

You have to earmark stuff. What I did is on my calendar, I have a little tickler that says, “Call your team in DC and find out what's going on with the fire alarm system.” I feel like, “I've made an impact. I went to a market. I listened. I heard what their problems were. I came up with solutions. I gave it to my team. I have team members in those cities. I'm going to organize and follow up with them later on.”

The next time I go to DC, I'm going to remember that. I'm going to go to that property and say, “How are things going? Are things better? Are they worse? Have they improved?” Hopefully, the team looks at me and says, “That was amazing and so cool.” When I go on property walks, I don't want to just walk and do the dog and pony show. I'm watching maintenance team members as they walk around the property. “Do they have the right tools and items? Do they need anything?”

I remember I walked into this property and this maintenance employee had an old luggage cart. It's a high-rise building so they have those luggage carts that the residents can use. It was falling apart. What happened is the office team had these brand-new luggage carts. They didn't know what to do with the old luggage carts. They gave him the maintenance employees. The maintenance employees had rigged it up somehow with some wood to hold it together still. He was going to go do an AC ticket. He had a recovery machine. He had Freon on it. He had his tools hanging from it.

It was moving all over the place and it was falling apart. I stopped him and said, “Do you guys have any carts? Do you guys need some big Rubbermaid carts?” The guy said, “That would be amazing. This thing is falling apart.” I said, “You're in a nice property. If you go to a Four Seasons hotel, do you see maintenance employees walking around with carts that are falling apart? They've taken wood and rigged it up so it still stays together.” They're like, “No. You don't see that at Four Seasons.”

I was like, “Are you a Four Seasons or are you a mom-and-pop hotel on the side of the freeway?” They're like, “I'm a Four Seasons.” I was like, “Great. Let's do this.” We went online. We found the carts that he needed. It was going to be a capital expense because it was over a certain threshold. I called the facilities guy. I said, “I'm going to buy these two carts. It's going to cost about $600. They're nice carts. These guys are using dilapidated old luggage carts. Let's get it for them.”

He was like, “That makes sense.” I said, “Great.” I turned to the guy and said, “Order the carts.” I stopped by the next day and he had the carts. I said, “Let's put them together.” I'm a national guy and I'm out in a city. Do I do the dog and pony show and just walk around or do I spend some time and make a difference? When I leave, they're like, “Jason comes on board and all of a sudden, he gets me carts or he figures out what's going on with my fire alarm system. I can sleep at night.”

I have people in those cities and I empower them to do the same thing. That's the secret to my success. That's what I try to do every day. I got to stay organized. I've got paper, my phone, and apps that I use. I got my inbox. Between the three of those things, I feel like I'm an octopus. I'm able to do eight different things all at the same time.

This is an amazing conversation. I truly appreciate the time you got to spend with me. In closing, I'd like to give you the opportunity to say something you wish you had the opportunity to say or maybe answer a question you wish I would've asked that I don't get to ask.

One of the questions that I always mull in my head is that I've got children who are starting to go into the working world. I remember back when I was a kid coming out of high school. I remember my parents were beating into my head, “You got to go to college. That's the only way you could be successful.” My friends were beating it in my head. “I'm going to the best college and have the best job.”

I look back and I'm like, “Does having a college degree equate to your success in the future? Is it hard work? Is it determination? Is it job experience?” It's a combination of the two. I did go get my degree. Has it helped me? I've never had a boss say, “You have a Bachelor's degree. Congratulations. Here's your promotion.” It's never been that way. My boss in my last company has no degree whatsoever. He went to trade school and he was a groundskeeper. He worked his way up to VP.

I like the conversation. Maybe that's another topic that we can earmark for the future, which is real-world experience versus college degrees. How does the maintenance industry have an impact on that? Do guys like us need degrees or not need degrees to be able to get to the positions that we're in? I'm telling my team that they don't need it. If you want to go back to school and learn some stuff, great. By all means do it. Our company has education reimbursement programs and stuff like that but do you need it? That's a good question. I'd love to get on another call with you about that one.

Let's make a point to circle back and do an episode on this. There's a lot of traction that I'm getting from posts like this saying, “Is it necessary to accumulate a lot of student debt and come out with a degree that might not have a lot of applicability in the real world? Is it better to take an apprenticeship, learn, and get paid at the same time? Four years later, you're maybe in a way better position than someone that went to college for something that they can get a good paying job for.”

I like to make this exclusive on top of a topic or a conversation for a future episode. Let's find the time to get back here because it'll be extremely important for our audience to hear from us the way we came up in the industry and what we advise people who reach out to me all the time and ask me, “Do I need certifications? Do I need to go to school so I can get to where you are?”

My answer is the same as yours. You don't. I'm not saying people shouldn't go to college. This is not an either/or situation. I'm only trying to show people that there's more than one way to skin the cat and college is not the only way. There are other ways. Not that college is bad or not going to college is good. I'm trying to say that there are other ways besides college to make it in life and make a career for yourself.

Let's circle back very soon and I'll set up a time to have that conversation. In closing, Jason, how can our audience get ahold of you? If someone wants to get in touch with you and ask for advice or they're looking for an opportunity and they're hearing that Camden is hiring and they love to join your team, how can someone get ahold of you?

I'm on LinkedIn. My name is Jason Fein. My email is JFein@CamdenLiving.com. Feel free to email me. I'm always up for having conversations with people. I'm also on LinkedIn so you can message me there as well. I look forward to talking to anybody who wants to figure out how we can improve the multifamily industry.

Jason, thanks again for joining me. This is an amazing conversation. Let's put that on the calendar to have our next conversation about college versus no college education. That's a very important message that we have to get out there to the world.

Thanks for having me.

I appreciate you coming. Everybody, thank you very much for taking the time to read this. I hope to see you back here soon. Have a great day.

Important Links

• Camden Property Trust
• Chirp
• Hints From HR Podcast – Past Episode with Jason Fein
• How to Speak Maintenance
• OneNote
• Jason Fein – LinkedIn
• JFein@CamdenLiving.com