It honestly breaks my heart to have to give Cortland a one-star review the culture of this company used to be really special. Your success at this company will wildly vary by what community you work at and whether or not you are in the Cortland clique (more on that later). Upper management demands impossible metrics of on-site teams. You are measured by your move-in, prospect and current resident survey scores. The expectation is constant improvement on these metrics. The other expectation is that you slash your budget to create better ROI for the investors. This means that if you go over budget on items that are absolutely necessary to the bare minimum expectation, you are failing. HVAC, Carpet Replacements, Roof Repair, Plumbing; it literally does not matter when compared to being able to report favorable year over year to investors. It's a lose-lose and you're the one left holding the TNT when it blows up in your face. Pay is semi-competitive when you reach the management level, but Office Associates are severely underpaid and overworked. "We all make coffee and pick up trash" sounds great in theory. In reality, it's a catch all phrase that is used to pressure low-paid associates into doing projects that are well outside of the job description. The spreadsheet deadline bloat is endless. How one is expected to manage/grow a team, handle property/resident concerns, keeps Ops clean, chase down missing invoices, walk property AND meet deadlines for every redundant performance measuring spreadsheet is beyond me. MD's and DO's demand that you stick to written performance agreements and plays fast and loose with their own promises and signed documents. Finally, the favoritism/clique culture. It's rampant. It's a massive problem that is not even talked about internally as far as I'm aware. You are either "in" or you're not. As someone who was fortunate enough to benefit from the favoritism for the majority of my time with Cortland, I can tell you first hand that there are absolutely associates who are given the "benefit of the doubt" compared to others that "need to prove they're committed." This difference in outlook often times translates into promotion opportunities, raises and recognition. I have first hand witnessed upper management talk about performance of my peers, I've heard my peers share personal private information amongst each other in an extremely toxic manner. I've been on leadership calls where the performance of a specific associate at a specific site was called into question in front of the entire leadership team of the region. There is a very specific type of personality that MD's and DO's want to cultivate and if you are an outlier: you will have less opportunity and more to prove.
