This Company Needs to Re-Prioritize Managers and Training
Pros
Salary and benefits are above industry standard. I have a great relationship with my supervisor and their supervisor. The building owners are logical and savvy.
Cons
This is going to be long, but to summarize: If you are reading this review because you were offered a position as Community Manager, then I recommend that you decline that offer. You will notice that most of the positive reviews here are hourly positions. I have decades of experience as a Manager. So, it is not an overstatement to say that the Community Manager position with Greystar is flawed. They have overtasked and undersupported this position to the point of futility. Further, please do not consider my comments as the remarks of a disgruntled employee: I received an outstanding annual review and bonus. In fact, I do not have plans to leave the company. Instead, I will transfer to a different role. However, I wanted to share my experiences because many of my colleagues feel the same way. So, I post these comments as instructions to anyone incoming and in the hope that someone at Greystar will read these comments and make changes. After all, your Managers are the heart of your business - you should do everything to offer them support and resources. Now, for the cons. 1. Work-life balance is non-existent. To succeed in this company you will need to make work your life. I routinely work 55 hour weeks over 6 days. This is for many reasons: Managers do not have support. Helpdesk is almost non-existent. It is very difficult to set up new vendors. There is very little training (more on this later). 2. You will spend most of your time doing reports. You will not have time to walk and inspect your building. You will not have time to meet residents or vendors. There is a never-ending queue of reports. Sometimes, a large report will be added at the last-minute with a 24 hour turnaround time. See point number 1. 3. Metrics are all that matters. I understand that a company of this size must depend on high-level metrics. However, each property is different and has its own story. Decisions are made on-site in the context of what is in front of your Manager. You cannot judge performance solely on metrics. 4. Promises are not kept. I have known people to be verbally offered positions, only for that to be withdrawn a month later. Get everything in writing. 5. Training is woefully insufficient. The training materials are a series of online videos. These videos do not cover much of what is expected of employees. There is no hand-on training team. So, as Manager, you will have to set aside a large amount of time to train and onboard new hires. As you can see from my other points, you will not have time to do this. Additionally, if you as Manager need to figure something out, you have next to zero resources to do so. Most of the limited training is low-level. As a result, you will waste a lot of time on trial-and-error as you try to come up with the best way to do your job. This point is particularly aggravating because I have worked for companies the fraction of this size with better training and onboarding. This is also part of the reason that there is such high turnover. 6. Emails are never-ending. Ideally, a Manager will not spend their entire day at their desk. However, you will receive around 150 emails every day of which 50% will need your response and all will need your attention. This does not seem like a lot in and of itself. However, many of these emails are changes to policy without warning. That means you will need to thoroughly understand content and be able to inform your staff. Additionally, don’t forget about all of the reports and training of employees that you are doing at the same time. 7. The corporate support structure is non-existent. The only people you can connect to are other Managers who are just as busy as you. While there are people that work at the corporate level they are there for oversight (making sure you meet all deadlines) rather than support. 8. The culture is toxic. This is due to the mix of factors above. As a result, everyone is out for themselves. Outside of a few colleagues, everyone is very cold. You might be able to find a few kind people, but they quickly burn out. The people of this company are starved for help at all levels. 9. There is no plan. I do not see a grand strategy in anything that Greystar does. Every policy-change is last-minute and reactive. Events that can be easily predicted (the end of the pandemic, for example), seem to catch leadership by surprise. As a Manager, you will have to be the person to offer excuses to your staff and residents and apologize for this short-sightedness.
