Are you ready to revolutionize your company’s training and onboarding processes? Say goodbye to traditional learning plans and welcome the era of multifunctional, cutting-edge assignments that will take your employees’ learning experience to new heights. According to Sapling HR, the average new hire is expected to complete 54 activities during their onboarding process. These activities help ensure the employee is set up for success in their new role. With the latest advancements in learning management systems, it’s time to unlock the power of consolidated tasks and personalized learning paths. Gone are the days of cumbersome paperwork and disjointed training modules. Multifunctional learning plans consolidate onboarding tasks, form completions, training and email campaigns, all while seamlessly tracking progress on a single assignment. Imagine the convenience of having everything your new employees need in a centralized learning plan, where they can refresh skills or revisit resources at any time. So, what exactly can these multifunctional learning plans offer? Let’s explore the various elements that can be included in an Aspire learning plan to make it more inclusive of steps that might otherwise be completed outside of the LMS with less efficiency or consistency: Narrative instructions: Engage your employees through dynamic video and text instructions that provide clear guidance and foster a deeper understanding of the tasks at hand. Self-paced courses and live training: Combine the flexibility of self-paced online courses with interactive live training sessions. Empower your employees to learn at their own pace while still benefiting from valuable real-time interactions. Company policies and resources: Ensure that your employees have easy access to essential company policies, procedures and other valuable resources that help them navigate their roles with confidence. Graded online assignments and quizzes: Assess your employees’ progress and knowledge retention through engaging online assignments and quizzes. Provide immediate feedback and promote a continuous learning cycle. Customizable acknowledgements: Tailor tasks with customizable acknowledgments to recognize your employees’ achievements and motivate them to reach new milestones. Reference content and checklists: Equip employees with reference materials and checklists that serve as handy reminders and support their learning journey. Esign documents and forms: Simplify administrative processes by integrating electronic signatures for documents, forms and checklists, ensuring seamless completion and reducing paperwork. Pre-scheduled custom letters: Strengthen communication and engagement by automating pre-scheduled custom letters that provide personalized updates, encouragement and important information. But why settle for the basics when you can take your learning plans to the next level? Unlock even more potential with these advanced features: Elective steps with “Choose Your Path” options: Cater to diverse learning preferences by offering elective steps that allow employees to choose their own learning paths. Empower them to explore topics that resonate with their interests and goals. Pre-scheduled refresher training campaigns: Ensure long-term knowledge retention and skill enhancement by automating pre-scheduled refresher training campaigns. Keep critical concepts top of mind, solidify understanding and support long-term change. Ensure long-term knowledge retention and skill development by adding pre-scheduled refresher training courses that auto-unlock days or weeks after the learning plan is completed. Surveys, polls and chat groups: Foster a sense of community by creating learning plan task steps. Prompt employees to participate in a chat group or a class discussion thread to fulfill an assignment. Test out for advanced learners: Customize learning paths to accommodate different skill levels. Let advanced learners demonstrate their proficiency by testing out of certain modules, while beginners benefit from hands-on field trips or experiential learning opportunities. Step-specific student nudge emails: Keep your employees motivated and on track authorizing the LMS to send nudge email campaigns when unlocked steps need attention. Available nudges include deadline reminders, encouragement, and tips and tricks. Point rewards and badges: Gamify your learning plans by incorporating point rewards and badges as employees progress through key milestones. Embrace the future of employee development with consolidated learning plans that deliver highly personalized experiences while simplifying access and messaging. Ready to embark on this...

Spend time with professionals from the affordable housing space and public housing agencies and you’ll likely hear a timely HUD topic brought up in conversation: HOTMA. It’s a buzz that has many public housing agencies and affordable housing providers asking questions and perhaps feeling concerned about how they will manage to implement new compliance mandates. We met up with Gabrielle Van Horn, Yardi PHA director and Dave Kessler, Yardi vice president of affordable housing, to learn more about HOTMA and what it means for PHAs and affordable housing organizations. They also provide insight on Yardi’s plans to accommodate new compliance mandates that will affect households as they qualify for housing units. Q: First, tell us what HOTMA stands for? Gabrielle: HOTMA is an acronym for the Housing Opportunity through Modernization Act. It was signed into law in July 2016 and goes into full effect on January 1, 2024. Q: What is Congress asking HUD to achieve by implementing HOTMA? Dave: HOTMA is an opportunity for HUD to standardize the way affordable housing programs calculate income. For example, in the past, a household’s calculated income would vary depending on the applicable affordable housing program. Now, with HOTMA, it’s less confusing for housing providers because it standardizes the deductions and exemptions that factor into making a final determination of a household’s income. Gabrielle: Factors such as deductions from income for households with seniors are not only being recalculated, but also standardized across certain programs. That’s good news for programs affected by HOTMA. Q: What should affordable housing providers be working on now to prepare for upcoming changes? Gabrielle: Like anything with HUD, there are aspects of HOTMA that may be a challenge to comprehend and implement. There is a lot to learn and prepare for as the January deadline approaches. Dave: Yardi, as well as other affordable housing and PHA software vendors, is updating our technology to accommodate changes required by HOTMA. We’ll have online coursework for our clients to make sure they remain compliant throughout the process. We are also expecting to soon see HUD’s updates to forms 50058 and 50059, as well as other forms that are directly affected by HOTMA. Once we see those in final format, Yardi will make sure our clients have access to them in our software and that the data fields and calculation formulas are adjusted for HOTMA compliance. Gabrielle: I also want to express that training organizations and nonprofit affordable housing advocacy groups are the best resources for learning about HOMTA. I follow NAHRO’s blog and social media posts for up-to-date information on HOMTA, including training resources they’ve been sponsoring. I recommend this type of training for affordable housing providers and PHAs, and that they get started as soon as possible. Q: What would be an example of an upcoming change? Gabrielle: One that’s sure to help many is the increased income deductions for seniors. Increasing those deductions will make it easier for households to qualify for a unit. It makes sense to make that adjustment now, especially as inflation has increased expenses. Dave: Yes, I’m not sure if HUD expected the pandemic and its residual effects in terms of wage increases when they passed HOTMA in 2016. However, the timing is perfect as it will help households qualify for needed housing resources even as their income may have risen due to high inflation rates over the past few years. Q: How will Yardi software adapt to HOTMA? Dave: We are actively working on updates to Yardi Voyager and Breeze Premier as well as RentCafe, our portal solution for applicants, renters, and private landlords. We’re focused on having that technology ready when our clients are required to adopt HOTMA standards. Gabrielle: We’ve also made additional support staff available so that our clients can get help with Yardi software. But, again, learning HOTMA regulations and compliance mandates is best done with training resources such...

In the dynamic world of property management, training and development play a pivotal role in ensuring the success of your team and the smooth operation of your business. As a leading learning management system (LMS) provider, we understand the importance of seamless integration and customization when it comes to training your valuable workforce. Our cutting-edge platform offers embedded authoring tools and customizable content, empowering your organization to shape your training programs according to your unique needs. Read on to see why incorporating your own policies into training content is key for maximizing learning outcomes, enhancing compliance and fostering a cohesive team culture. Tailored training No one knows your business better than you do. Each property management company has its own set of values, policies and processes that drive its operations. By integrating your company’s specific policies and procedures into standardized training content, you can provide your team members with relevant and practical information that directly applies to their roles. Customizable content allows you to adapt training material to reflect your unique company culture, ensuring that your employees understand the specific rules, regulations and best practices that govern your organization. Cohesive team culture Incorporating your company policies into standardized training content goes beyond compliance and procedural adherence — it fosters a sense of belonging and unity within your team. When employees receive training that aligns with the company’s values, policies and processes, you create a sense of relevance and ownership among your employees. Customized training content reflects your company’s unique identity, helps build a cohesive team culture that promotes collaboration and leads to enhanced performance and productivity in day-to-day responsibilities. Easy updates and maintenance Company policies and processes evolve over time to adapt to industry trends and regulatory changes. With Aspire’s embedded authoring tools, you can easily update and modify the content to reflect these updates. Instead of relying on external providers to make changes, you have full control over the content, ensuring that it remains current and aligned with your organization’s ever-evolving needs. Aspire provides full audit trail and revision history, plus page-level customization locks that prevent your content from being overwritten during content upgrades. This agility empowers your company to respond swiftly, update a single source and ensure your employees always have access to the most up-to-date information. Consistency and compliance Maintaining consistency and compliance with industry regulations and legal requirements is of paramount importance in property management. When you include your company policies and custom processes in standardized content, you establish a unified approach that reinforces compliance messages, making them more visible and accessible to your employees. By embedding policies into the training program, you create a seamless learning experience that ensures everyone understands the guidelines, minimizing the risk of non-compliance and potential legal ramifications. Cost and time efficiency Embedding your company policies and custom processes into standardized training content can significantly reduce training costs and time. By utilizing Yardi Aspire interactive courses and customizing them to fit your needs, you can save valuable resources that would have been spent on developing training content from scratch. This creates a harmonious blend of product, industry expertise and internal practices in a single learning experience, increasing efficiency and maximizing training outcomes. A connected and customizable solution for all your training needs Training can play a critical role in the success of property management companies. By incorporating your company policies and custom processes into Aspire’s training content, you empower your team with relevant knowledge, reinforce compliance and strengthen your organization’s unique identity. Our customizable solution, equipped with customizable content and embedded authoring tools, enables you to seamlessly integrate your policies into your training, fostering a cohesive team culture and maximizing learning outcomes. Learn more about Yardi Aspire and reach out to see how you can optimize your property management training to drive success, efficiency and compliance within your...

Artificial Intelligence was an important focus at the 2023 Apartmentalize conference. Utilizing AI will empower property management companies, but what is the difference between AI in operations? Augmented versus generative AI is used differently for specific tasks for property management. Let’s explore a synergistic approach that combines augmented and generative AI for enhanced customer experiences and drives operational efficiencies. Revolutionize property management with generative AI that emphasizes creative output in marketing efforts, including realistic property visualizations, creating virtual tours or personalized marketing content. For example, Fidelity vice president Sarah Hoffman recently spoke about how generative AI will improve efficiencies and creativity: “Generative AI can definitely take efficiency to the next level.” In contrast, augmented AI focuses on automation and data. The collaboration of both AIs can optimize property management workflows, reduce costs and improve productivity. Use AI in property management for leasing, lead nurturing and training employees. Generative AI can streamline resident communications and maintenance requests.   ChatBots are being used at every turn for customer service and can also assist with leasing new residents. Most can even understand slang or misspelled words. A ChatBot will also help with lead nurturing by creating a heatmap so management can see what areas of the website prospects spend the most time on. ChatBots can answer more questions for maintenance requests so residents can say precisely what is needed for the work order. Use generative AI for marketing to furnish a vacant unit so a prospect has a better visual. Generative AI will also help collect pre-qualifications with an improved qualification rate. Save several hours in the office but remember that AI is here to help and not create more work. Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad. In a recent article by CNBC, generative AI is creating new cybersecurity threats. Generative AI is used to create more convincing scams with fake written content, digital content and documents. Do some research to avoid rising AI-based threats and consider an AI security tool. AI in leasing will also help with trends in the market, revenue and balancing supply and demand. Augmented AI is used for data analysis with a human touch. Augmented AI can be used for risk mitigation–facial recognition, and security. AI-powered surveillance systems and fraud detection algorithms ensure residents’ safe environments and property assets. Augmented AI will catch fraud early and identify potential risks or glitches. Send renewals easily and craft offers with data on market trends. Augmented AI can also help with marketing to predict demographics, location and movements. Use it for screening to allow more residents and acceptance rates. Student housing is already implementing AI and specialized technology, such as AI-powered surveillance systems, which is the evolution of technology for the multifamily sector and the type of business that should be embraced. “The new wave of renters are students, and students want to avoid talking to humans and prefer text, email and chats with more efficiencies,” said Connie Aldape, director of leasing centralization at Cushman and Wakefield. Augmented and generative AI can empower property managers by automating routine tasks, providing data-driven insights and enabling continuous learning through AI-driven training and knowledge-sharing platforms. Remember, AI will give support, but it will never replace humans entirely. Having that human touch will still be essential. Nobody can predict the future, but augmenting humans with AI will soon be a new...

Staying competitive in the property management industry requires comprehensive employee training programs. However, developing and administering training can be costly. Streamline training processes and reduce expenses with an advanced learning management system (LMS) from Yardi Aspire. Read on to see how Yardi Aspire, with its customizable training content and advanced features, empowers property management organizations to save money, enhance efficiency and improve employee performance. Reducing turnover costs Comprehensive training plays a crucial role in retaining talent. Studies show that employees who receive job skills and career development training are two times more likely to stay with an organization. Without formal training, turnover rates increase. In the property management industry, where turnover rates reached 26% in 2023, replacing one employee costs approximately 1.5x their annual salary. By providing comprehensive training through Aspire, companies help employees gain new skills that are vital to operational success, increasing employee productivity, promoting innovation, creating higher morale and reducing turnover. Efficient compliance training Compliance training is essential for property management organizations to avoid fines, legal issues and reputational damage. Aspire offers unlimited access to comprehensive training modules on topics such as harassment prevention, fair housing laws and workplace safety. These modules help companies ensure their properties are safe and welcoming. By using the customizable compliance content in Aspire, companies can avoid the cost and hassle of purchasing off-the-shelf external training that could run $125 to $200 per person per year. Customizable content from Aspire allows organizations to incorporate their policies and procedures, providing targeted and cost-effective training within their centralized learning environment. Savings in training development Aspire clients can take advantage of hundreds of engaging courses for training on Yardi software, industry knowledge, regulatory compliance, safety, professional skills and more. Developing a single elearning course with moderate engagement typically takes a minimum of 74 hours. With Aspire, clients who use just 25% of the Aspire catalog save an impressive 22,200 hours in training development time over the first two years. This time savings translates to a significant reduction in costs, as it would take a full-time instructional designer over 11.5 years to produce the same content included in Aspire. Streamlining live training management Managing live training events involves various tasks such as setup, registration management, attendance tracking and reporting. Aspire integrates with leading online meeting and webinar providers, automating event setup, calendar synchronization and attendance tracking. This integration reduces administration time by 75%, saving clients approximately 9,600 hours during the first two years. Additionally, clients can leverage Yardi’s expertise by integrating over 2,400 free webinars into Aspire, expanding training options without the need for additional trainers or internal resources. Efficient training administration Manually assigning training courses to employees can be time consuming, especially when dealing with a large workforce. Efficient user data imports and automated training assignment rules from Aspire allow clients to configure the system to import user data from HRIS or payroll systems. This automation eliminates the need for administrators to manage user accounts and training assignments manually. The time saved by using Aspire’s automations allows trainers and administrators to focus on more strategic projects. Optimizing on-the-job training Relying on individualized onboarding without a dedicated training team can be costly and lead to knowledge and skill gaps. A mentorship module from Aspire helps strike the right balance between trainer involvement and learning autonomy. By providing structured, independent learning activities to deliver knowledge and basic skills, senior employees can spend more time evaluating and fine-tuning skills for better results. This approach reduces senior employees time spent with new hires by up to 50%, allowing a company that hires one to two employees per month to regain 4.5 months of productive work time from their most experienced staff. What’s next? Yardi Aspire offers a comprehensive learning management solution for leading property management companies, enabling them to optimize training development and administration. With customizable training content, advanced features and integrations, organizations can significantly reduce operational expenses,...

Building occupancy is unpredictable and costs property owners and managers time and money. Without technology that delivers reliable analytics to make sense of trends, resources are likely wasted. That’s where smart tech and the Internet of Things (IoT) comes in. In the recent BOMA Buildings webinar, “Practical Ways to use Data Analytics and IoT to Manage Your Properties,” attendees learned how data analytics can be a powerful tool to improve building efficiency and reduce operational costs. The expert hosts delivered practical tips on how to use data to manage properties and: Save costs Increase visibility Improve efficiency and productivity Property management pain points The webinar attendees expressed greatest interest in learning about saving money and avoiding costs for the buildings they manage. When asked via poll to identify their biggest pain points, they chose repairs and maintenance as their primary concern (at almost 44%), followed by building tech (IoT) upgrades (37%). With regard to the importance of collecting data, 38% responded, “to learn how to make buildings more sustainable (smart lighting, HVAC),” followed by 33% saying it was important for “gaining insight into property enhancement needs (repairs, upgrades).” The majority (almost 67%) said they currently collect data from any sort of IoT-connected device from HVAC systems. 61% responded that they haven’t yet used data analytics from any IoT-connected devices to save time or avoid costs in any of their properties, while 38% said yes, they collect data for the purpose of saving money. Tips from IoT experts The webinar hosts focused on the key benefits of data including helping property managers create standards and processes, improve visibility and productivity and save costs. Tip 1: use data to create goals and processes Connected building tech delivers data across locations and enables you to compare analytics from equipment and systems in multiple locations. You can leverage the data gathered to create new standards and goals for underperforming buildings and make adjustments to improve processes and efficiency to meet those goals.   Tip 2: use data to avoid downtime Smart building tech gives you near real-time data so you can manage equipment alerts, make proactive maintenance plans and schedule necessary replacements to avoid downtime in your buildings. Keeping your buildings operating at peak efficiency with strategic maintenance not only extends equipment life but also keeps tenants comfortable and happy. Tip 3: use data to reallocate budget When it comes to spending, data will guide you in these key ways to make the right decisions for the best results: Evaluate: use of resources and equipment, occupancy patterns, changes in staff responsibilities Look: for energy and cost savings opportunities based on data gathered Implement: changes in your systems and processes to save costs Finding the right solution The industry has embraced a single technology platform solution as a best practice to consolidate your data for a single source of truth across your portfolio. You can maintain peak performance while improving tenant experience by automating preventive maintenance, property inspections and work order management. Ready to gain management level oversight of maintenance across your properties and connect tenants, technicians and vendors on a fully integrated platform that gives you actionable analytics? Learn more about Yardi Facility...

You’re likely familiar with the challenges of managing documents across your business, both for your staff and external users. A few of these challenges include maintaining consistent folder structures, managing security and permissions, integrating content and users, finding documents quickly and tracking multiple versions over time. You can overcome these challenges by storing and sharing content in a unified system that leverages SharePoint and the cloud. Even better is a solution that integrates with your property management platform for a single source of truth. Centralizing key documents and enterprise information in a secure, mobile-enabled system will help you increase communication and productivity across your business. Read on to learn five big benefits of a full-featured document storage platform.  Five features to look for in a document management solution 1: Searchability Finding documents using native SharePoint functions is even more effective when coupled with AI meta data tagging. Adding OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities that convert images of text into a machine-readable text format will make your search for elusive documents even more powerful, giving you the ability to look for keywords within a document. 2: Findability Organization for your documents is key. Implement a taxonomy with a uniform structure that makes it supremely easy to locate documents. Automation will ensure consistency and maintenance of your folder structures. Just as going to a big box store at any location in any state will give you the same layout and experience, a taxonomy that consistently organizes your documents to ensure a familiar experience makes information easy to find. 3: Scalability Without a document management system, managing information across an organization is a laborious undertaking. With an automated solution, it’s easy to maintain taxonomy and security for your documents on a large scale. Automation organizes your documents within hours, and when integrated with Yardi Voyager, you can access documents from a single source of truth. 4: Integration With seamless integration of your document management system with your Voyager property management system and other Yardi platforms (including Yardi Elevate, CommercialCafe and VendorCafe) it’s easier for approved users inside and outside your organization to upload files. Security is managed in Voyager. Depending on the outside user, such as a vendor, when they upload documents they will not be aware that the files are stored in SharePoint behind the scenes. Inside your organization, users will be able to interact with the files in a SharePoint setting where they can leverage all of its features. 5: Compliance Laws and regulations are changing to require less paper and accept more digital documents. Maintaining compliance and security in this evolving digital environment is a necessity. Document management in SharePoint has many features for compliance including retention policies, workflows and the ability to integrate with third-party tools such as DocuSign to meet regulations. Ready for scalable enterprise content management that delivers a single source of truth across your business? Yardi has a solution that enables you to take advantage of all the great features listed above. Join a Yardi Document Management for SharePoint webinar or learn...

The Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HOTMA) of 2016 brings significant changes to HUD’s public housing program. After years of preparation and implementation processes, public housing agencies across the country are ready to change the way they complete many of their core processes. Yardi is also ready for HOTMA with updates to our PHA Suite in development, as well as a plan to provide hands-on assistance to our clients as we work through HUD’s new program mandates. Gabrielle Van Horn, director of client services for Yardi, recently led an online webinar for Yardi clients walking them through Yardi’s HOTMA strategy. The webinar’s agenda included an overview of HUD changes, notably: Finalization of the Public Housing Over-Income Rule: Section 103 (PIH 2023-3) Final Rule for Sections 102 and 104 HOTMA Implementation Revisions to all 50058 forms Housing Information Portal (HIP), which replaces IMS/PIC National Standard for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE) Van Horn walked attendees through Yardi’s plan to accommodate these upcoming changes. She also provided a timeline for all Yardi PHA clients who will need to upgrade their software this year, in order to remain compliant with the new HUD rules. Important notes on preparation and training from Gabrielle’s presentation included: Prepare your Board of Commissioners: ACOPs and Admin Plans must be adjusted. These are not optional changes We recommend utilizing training from HUD, industry experts, and industry groups such as NAHRO and PHADA for regulatory guidance An in-person training will be offered at the Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference in San Diego, September 6th – 8th Additional training will be available via online learning and documentation for those unable to attend the conference “This is an all-hands-on-deck process for the PHA client support team over the next few months. We’ve got a plan to help all of our clients to get their software ready for new HUD requirements, and we are allocating resources from within to help make the process as smooth and timely as possible. We’re committed to helping our clients through this process,” said Gabrielle. As a leading provider of PHA software and services, Yardi has access to contacts at HUD to seek clarification and provide feedback on how new rules can be accommodated. Yardi, as well as other vendors, will soon have a private meeting with HUD to discuss particular challenges and to provide advice on implementation strategies. Public housing agencies who are current Yardi clients can log on to Client Central to see Gabrielle’s recorded webinar. Questions submitted during the session, along with answers from Yardi, are also available on Client...