Tyler Marker Career Background
What is your biggest career achievement?
- There are many, and for that I am deeply blessed. From company and nation-wide awards for my work on various projects, assets, and workforce development programs within our industry, nothing compares to the following:
Within this soon-to-be past year (2022) I have witnessed and been part of several new hires I made 6-8 years ago to reach wild success within multifamily. Most recently, one of my first Leasing Consultant hires 8 years ago was just promoted to Director of Operations and Asset Management with The Cardinal Group- he referenced how my mentorship and direct guidance as his supervisor all those years ago sparked his love for multifamily; I knew he would be an incredible professional in our industry from the first day I interviewed him.
Another example being two of my, then Leasing Consultants, are now Assistant Community Managers with reputable companies within our industry- one of them to my delight was at the community I moved to, and I ran into her in the hallway one day.
And finally, one of my early Leasing Professionals is now starting her own company in multifamily after her experience working on our team.
Career success has been present in my life, to achieve a Director status by the time I was 27, winning such prestigious accolades over the years with each employer I have had the honor to work for but nothing compares to seeing and being a foundational part of other professional's success and having them find a love for multifamily based on their time on my team. Helping retain exceptional professionals and witnessing them achieve incredible heights is without question my greatest career achievement thus far.
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?
- Gosh, this is a challenging question. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20 and there are always various projects I hoped would have turned out differently, but in the end we typically got the results we were after. I'm not afraid to fail if it means I learn from it and find a better way, that has always been my approach.
However, I think the most meaningful moments of my career have been where I worked with my teams. During my time with Pierce Education Properties, I served as a Regional Manager at the age of 23 and was often asked to communities who were struggling. I typically had only a week onsite to dissect our issues and correct them. I suffered from being very young for my role and feeling the need to prove myself- especially to those onsite older and more experienced than I.
Admittedly, if it was a staffing issue where the team had a poor attitude I would come in hard and fast with invasive conversations that struck their core. I was tough, and I did not accept excuses. I regret to share; I often made my teams cry from breaking them down with "come-to-Jesus" meetings as we say in Indiana.
While in many cases this approach of tearing my teams down to build them back up did result in better leasing and customer care; I even had one of my team connect with me years later saying my hard conversation with them was a pivotal point in their career and they were thankful I cared enough to have that conversation with them. Nevertheless, it took a toll on the relationship I had with my teams and myself internally.
Fast forward six years to now and my leadership approach, I would have done things differently. I choose to lead my teams now quite different from how I did in my early twenties.
Today, I take the same 4-step approach with my teams:
1. Building the relationship with them as an individual by being willing to open up, that encourages them to open up as well.
2. Ask a lot of key questions to understand. This often consists of asking deliberate questions to understand their passions, skills, what they thrive in doing, where they struggle and how I can help support them.
3. Provide tactful influence. This is often where I provide the direction, expectations and provide the necessary resources to accomplish a task.
4. Provide strategic influence. Only if I have successfully achieved the first three steps, have I earned the right to share the vision while empowering and coaching my teams because our foundation is built on a trusting relationship.
I also like to empower my team to make decisions. The best approach I've found is to think of decisions like a tree:
1. The roots (these are decisions only leadership can make)
2. The trunk (these are decisions staff can make but checks in with leadership before the decision is made)
3. The branches (these are decisions staff have the authority to make but need to let leadership know what was decided after the fact)
4. The leaves (these are decisions staff can make with full autonomy and will be backed by leadership)
The idea being there are more leaves than branches/a truck on a tree, meaning I aim to provide my teams insight to how and why decisions are made. Over time, I aim to empower them to be able to move from trunk, to branch, to leaf decisions. This allows them to feel they have investment in their work and have my support as their leader.
Looking back, I started in a leadership role quite young, had I been in my current state of mind, those "come-to-Jesus" meetings would have looked different. I have grown a lot during my twenties, and I look ahead to my next decade with fresh eyes ready to learn more about becoming a better and better leader for my teams.
From your perspective, what is the industry lacking to support the modern renter and how do you plan to help supply that need?
- When we look at how the industry could better support our renters, we must start internally. A great customer experience starts with a great team; but it is our teams our industry is struggling with. According to the 2021 industry survey performed by NAA, 74% of respondents voted the number one challenge facing our industry today is employee turnover and retention.
The modern renter is changing how they search for, prefer to interreact with staff, and their expectations of management. Post-pandemic multifamily is a vastly different landscape to navigate. We could talk about the latest technology solutions, amenities, or centralizing our leasing operations- but I believe that overlooks the single greatest hurtle we are facing.
Our industry is now pressed to seek out new ways of attracting and retaining top quality talent given shifts in what an employee/employer relationship looks like. Before we can talk about centralizing our teams, we must first address what we as an industry are doing to bring in new, and empower existing talent.
I for one like to look outside of our industry for inspiration. The top industries that benefited from the labor market shifts during the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, were Non-Profit and Technology. What are they doing that is driving people to them and they can be as selective in their hiring as they wish, whereas most in multifamily are just happy to have a body?
Some of my findings were the following across both thriving industries:
- A menu-style benefit package where employees can select the top 3-5 most relevant benefits to fit their lifestyle
- Hybrid work opportunities- studies from the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) prove hybrid work opportunities increased productivity, and improved employee morale, resulting in a higher ROI per employee salary
- Investing in employee ongoing professional development- a salary is an investment by renting someone's skills and talents, if an employer wishes to see their investment grow, they must develop that employee to raise their skills to fit what the business needs.
These three items stuck out the most to me among many that help draw talent to these industries that I believe would work well within multifamily. NAA can serve as a guiding force on best practices to members and create various initiatives to market this structure out to companies about how multifamily can compete in the talent war we are experiencing.
Recruiting and retaining exceptional talent is where meeting modern renter demands is going to start, and it appears to be our greatest hurtle as an industry. I am very passionate about promoting multifamily and look forward to assisting in these efforts of guidance to members.