Salary:
Salary is average for the industry 14-16 per hour. If you are considering working here you need to know the first 2-5 sales are non commissionable each month! The goalposts are changed monthly so do really well and the target is higher next month. They got rid of Assistant Manager Positions, there are Senior Leasing Consultant roles instead - which have all the duties of an Assistant Manager with much lower pay.
Resident Relations:
No budget for resident events. No move in gifts for Residents - even if you want to pay out of your own pocket they won't allow it. No coffee, There are nationwide competitions for Residents with no actual prize - winners just get mentioned on website. I'm lucky to work with an awesome team onsite and we make the best of what we have to work with to make residents happy.
Shady Promotion Procedures:
Internal recruitment does not follow best practice HR. You've got to learn how to play the game to get promoted. There is extreme favoritism and Regional Managers and Community Managers act like a gang - a prior review accurately said its like high school. Promotions are granted on a shoe-in basis, word-of-mouth, some positions are not even advertised.
Training/Development:
To cut costs, training courses are completed online on company computers. This means if you work at a busy property you must say back and complete this in your own time, unpaid, or leave the course running on your PC whilst you do other tasks. An ineffective and cheap method of training.
No Decision-Making Authority on-site:
There is no autonomy given to Property Managers, day to day resident relation decisions and account decisions must be approved at HQ, Regional and VP level, making decision making embarrasingly slow and held up with red tape. (for example adding a simple parking charge) There is a huge level of distrust between Snr. Management and properties resulting in an archaic style of micromanagement and resentment amongst property staff.
Bad Reputation in the Industry:
Recruitment Agents have told me working for Equity is a bad mark on your resume because of how they operate. Renowned for being a cheap company, terrible customer service, focused on cutting costs, and imposing hidden costs on Residents. As a publically traded company Equity makes no attempt to hide the fact that its prime focus is on the shareholders and chairman of Equity. Just google 'Forbes interview Sam Zell Grave Dancer' - where our Chairman boasts about dancing on other peoples mistakes and profiting from it - this article was internally promoted and applauded and is a true reflection of the company culture and management style.
