Faith Mendoza Career Background
What is your biggest career achievement?
- My transition from the Systems Support Specialist role to the Performance Development Manager at 26 years old has been the most significant to my career to date.
I started my career in property management as a leasing consultant when I was twenty, working my way up to a community manager. I took another leap at 24 and became a Systems Support Specialist for Avanti Residential helping team members resolve their Yardi issues on the back end through internal support tickets.
The challenge with my Systems Support role was working for a company that was a startup. As we know with startups, if a form or process is not made, you are going to be the one who makes it. At first, this was daunting! However, it was because of my team’s support through these challenges that I was able to make more of a positive impact and find my passion for learning and development.
While working in systems, I started to see common issue trends, but instead of just solving their issues, I would create How To’s, videos, and additional tools to teach them how to solve on their own. It became noticeably clear that I had a passion for training and supporting others. My team moved me from Systems Support to the Performance Development role where I now produce training programs and asses learning opportunities for all our regions.
In this new role, I’ve had the opportunity to develop the mentorship program at our organization - Avanti Advisors. This program is about pairing our new hires or those beginning a new role, with experienced mentors who can guide them on their professional journey. I have helped build the program from the applications to training tools, and even the pairing structure. Our program stretches across all six regions and is not just a one-day meeting. The advisors have a difficult series of checklists to complete, over the course of 12 weeks to truly foster team members’ professional growth. I have even created a series of Advisor Graduations to celebrate our teams and their commitment to our organization.
Our Advisor program is an ongoing project of mine that is extremely valuable and personal to me. It is the most beneficial face-to-face training our new team members and promotions go through. It also promotes a nurturing work culture where we build up our biggest assets - our people. I want our teams to have all the resources available to them as they grow into that next role, and I know how much a mentor or accessible training tools can impact someone’s career. I am always trying to take the opportunity to make someone’s learning and growth experience better and it fills my heart when I know that what I have done has made their journey better in some meaningful way.
Given your past experiences, what event/ project or moment would you revisit and how would you go about it differently based on your current frame of mind?
- I can think of a couple of scenarios where I took the back seat on a project or shied away because I was not the expert on the topic I would do differently. I would tell myself to not sweat over my title and to embrace any opportunity to build and collaborate with others. It can be intimidating to speak up when you are not the manager or director, but if you were given a project, it is because your team trusts you can handle it. I understand now more than ever that I do not need to manage things alone, and it is ok to ask for help along the way. Projects that have you step out of your comfort zone are what create professional and personal growth. Getting out of my comfort zone allowed me to maximize my growth zone!
My new frame of mind is you do not have to be the smartest in the room to create amazing things, nor does a title make you a leader, it is about collaborating with your team to achieve that outcome together. I pride myself on being an advocate for sharing feedback and recommendations regardless of my position because not all the best ideas come from the same department or level in an organization. Teamwork makes the dream work!
From your perspective, what is the industry lacking to support the modern renter and how do you plan to help supply that need?
- A majority of our platforms are automated and the modern renter has everything fast and at their fingertips. However, coming out of our COVID era, renters are also weary of getting a bot for every email response they send and crave human interaction. They want to live somewhere where they can reach out to the management team and know it is a person on the other side who is attentive and benevolent.
As an industry, we need to reframe the way we look at these human interactions, as they are much more valuable. We can no longer just give the tour, handle their work orders, and expect them to be happy with their living arrangements. We need to bring our focus back to creating memorable moments with our renters that make them feel respected and valued. In other words, providing people-centric service for our customers that will WOW them and keep them happy long term.
To do that, this upcoming year, our performance team is focusing on training ‘Igniting Happy’ moments. We are shifting gears to make sure we are putting our people at the heart of everything we do. Igniting Happy trains our teams that customer service is about celebrating your resident’s life events, new babies, pets, jobs, or even weddings! Residents will remember the floral arrangement the leasing team left while they were ill, or the bottle of champagne management sent for their engagement, versus a concession on their rent. The reason for that is because there was a human factor put into that act of kindness; something they were not getting for the past couple of years, and that is what the modern renter needs.
It’s also important to remember that technology should be used as a tool as it can get teams 80% of the way to the finish line. The technology must also work and be seamless, so it doesn’t disrupt or make human interactions harder. If systems are working properly, teams will be able to focus on those human moments. As an industry, that’s when we will see an increase in occupancy, customer reviews, revenue, and people-centric communities.