Rethinking Centralization - A Leader’s Journey to Empower the Front Line. Efficiency Isn’t Always Centralized - A Real-World Proof Story

Centralized recruiting can look efficient on a dashboard and still fail the people doing the work. We sat down with the leadership team at Baron Properties to unpack how they moved away from a single gatekeeper and toward a human-centered, AI-assisted hiring model that puts decision power back where performance happens: on-site and at the regional level.

We walk through the real problems that sparked the change - resume floods, slow responses, and culture misfires, and the new mechanics that solved them. Adaptive interviews generate tailored questions that probe genuine skill gaps. Property-specific job profiles capture the competencies and success factors that make one site different from the next, so the same candidate can be a great fit in one place and a poor fit in another. Managers enter conversations with context and confidence, and candidates feel seen rather than filtered by a black box.

What makes this story different is the partnership. Instead of buying a rigid ATS and hoping it fits, Baron collaborated with product leaders to iterate fast, integrate cleanly, and train community managers to own the pipeline. Small frictions like interview no-shows or integration quirks were solved in hours, not quarters. The early results are clear: better candidate quality, faster decisions, and teams energized by hiring people who truly match their culture. The longer-term gains like retention, engagement, resident satisfaction are already lining up behind this shift.

If you lead multifamily teams and feel stuck between efficiency and empathy, this conversation offers a third path: decentralize decision-making, centralize insight, and let adaptive AI support the humans who carry the brand every day. Listen, share with a colleague who owns hiring outcomes, and tell us where you stand on centralization vs. empowerment. And if this resonated, subscribe and leave a review. We read every word.

About the Multifamily Innovation® Council:

The Multifamily Innovation® Council is the executive level membership organization that makes a difference in your bottom line, drives a better experience for your employees, and allows you an experience that keeps demand strong for your company. The council is uniquely positioned to focus on the intersection of Leadership, Technology, AI, and Innovation.

The Multifamily Innovation® Council is for Multifamily Business leaders who want to unlock value inside their organization so they can create better experiences and drive profitability inside their company.

To learn more or to join, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com.

For more information and to engage with leaders shaping the future of multifamily innovation, visit https://multifamilyinnovation.com/.

Connect:
Multifamily Innovation® Council: https://multifamilyinnovation.com/
Patrick Antrim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickantrim/

Transcript

Rethinking Centralization In Hiring

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome back to the Multifamily Innovation Podcast. My name is Patrick Antrim. I'm the chairman of the Multifamily Innovation Council and the Technology and AI Center of Excellence. I have here our director of product and innovation, Miles Maby, with us. He'll be co-hosting this conversation. Today we're talking about rethinking centralization. We're talking with leaders about a journey to empower our leadership teams. And, you know, oftentimes we think about centralization, we're thinking about a profitable business and we're keyed into the word efficiency. What's the easiest path forward? Maybe automation, even AI. But today we're talking about a human-centered, people-centered approach to empowering teams throughout the organization. It's a pretty interesting conversation. We brought in Baron Properties, their leadership team, both what we call an MVT, minimum viable team. This is the executive champion. We have the business process owners, and we have the technical natives here that were able to transform an experience for an organization that you know essentially makes it more productive, more profitable, more enjoyable to work at. And so Baron Properties is one of the nationally ranked best places to work multifamily companies. So they think a little differently about investing internally in the business. They're shifting from a centralized recruiting model to a decentralized recruiting model. And this was an effort to empower company structure, but also empower people through that process. What they're using today and part of this series is what we're calling proof over promise, which means this is what happened. So this is a look back of a real-world innovation, what made a difference in an organization and the teams that made that happen. So we'll be talking about use their ability to use Picasso Hire, which is powered by Nectar Flow. Miles will be talking a lot about that as well. But it's again centered on a human-centered hiring decisions, which is improving the candidate quality and the interview confidence so we can select the right people. And that is really what uh we're talking about here on our Proof of a Promise series. So today, with the topic rethinking centralization, a leader's journey to empower the frontline. It isn't always about efficiency and centralization. This is a real-world proof story. So we'll be talking today with Liz Schloss. She's the chief operating officer at Baron Properties. Today we also have Lori St. Germain, she's the senior regional property manager, and Lisa Dryling, who is the human resource director. Uh awesome team that we've been able to assemble here. We have Miles Maby, our direct director of product innovation at Nectarflow. We'll be talking with Miles as well. And Peter Astorga, who is the property manager for on-site operations where the business happens, and we'll be showing you uh that conversation live with us. So welcome in.

SPEAKER_05 3:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, we have uh you guys are in Scottsdale, so it's nice to have Baron come over to the innovation lab and share the time. And that's I think where we all started this journey uh back at the summit, and then now uh a conversation with Liz and uh maybe we can start there. Liz, um you were looking at um maybe I know we talked about a problem worth solving, but uh maybe go into a little bit of your vision of why you were thinking about this, why this mattered to the business objectives and begin there.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Well, you know, as a company, uh multifamily is definitely increased in the size of you know units and um throughout the nation. And so with that, you get the challenge of uh attracting the right talent. And um in today's world, you've got a little bit more of a diluted talent pool, especially with the expansion of the industry growth that we've had. So our goal was to how do we figure out the right person for our company for this particular asset? We don't want to blanket uh a um a job description for one community manager because a high-class community, you know, type A and an A location getting$5,000 rents, it's much different than perhaps a more affordable or attainable. And Barron does both of those. So we were trying, we were searching for something that could help us differentiate that talent pool and then also hire the right people.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Yeah, you know, the conversation around AI today is interesting, it's a moving target in some sorts, and you know, it's it's you know, the the human experience becomes the compet the last real competitive advantage and your ability to do interesting things. Um, talk to us a little bit about um when you realized um this was a problem we're solving, like what what process, what thinking process did you go through to actually get into action?

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Well, I think it was more of a you know trying to understand how AI could help us in this capacity. And you know, one of the biggest things that we struggled with was we went through several interviewing processes with several different people, and the person would start, and then after 30 days, we find out it was a mismatch. It just wasn't a good fit for that particular role. And so it was how can we utilize AI with you know some sort of um psychology, if you will, to come and insert into this equation and try and pinpoint some you know thought-provoking questions for our leaders to be able to get more out of them to get a better quality uh employee.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah. And you know, with before using Picasso, like what did that look like? Um even in the interview process, um, standardized questions, like how were you thinking through that? Um, I guess before we were started working with that.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

You know, and I think there wasn't a lot of uh really standardization to that, but what we did have is our we had an in-house recruiter that would manage the process from the posting of the ad to the taking in of the resumes and ultimately then interviewing. So I think it was really up to our recruiter and what his thoughts were, which were probably fairly common questions for the same role each and every time. And then he would pass on his quality uh candidates on to the properties themselves.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, yeah. And Miles, you've worked uh clearly with uh the team. Talk to us a little bit about moving through that challenge, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Yeah, uh well, one of the challenges with that is is there's one person that's kind of everything's gotta go through. Um that's that centralized approach. That's a centralized approach. And so um with Picasso Hire, uh the candidates come in, um, you know, it also handles the posting of the ad and those types of things. And so because things are displayed really nicely, I think that really lends to opening it up and having more people being able to have access to the candidates that are in the system so they can review it and look at it. Um you know, and you can get more eyes on the same candidate, and then more opinions can be uh formulated and put together to lead to that selection piece. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

And and to add on to that, so you had a centralized person who was in a corporate office, that there was maybe a little bit of a disconnect between what the personality was at the asset or what the culture was at the asset. So he may be looking for something that he might think is a good candidate, but it may not fit that culture at that particular asset. Exactly. So the standardized centralization, we thought, God, you know, can we get can we do better? I think we can do better. And so that's why we the that your product was so um intriguing. And so, you know, we just said, why not? Let's try it, and it's ended up ended up to be great.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, so and that brings up a good point. I mean, this goes to leasing as well, but is that you have different investment objectives at each asset too. So having a centralized person far from that, maybe not even in that role, specifically knowing like what is materially needed. Were there any bottlenecks with the old way that you you found were unlocked by moving to this new process?

SPEAKER_04 8:40

You know, I think one of the biggest challenges we had is just the number of resumes that we get. Yeah. And just going through, I mean, um, our in-house recruiter going through those resumes, it was so time consuming.

SPEAKER_05 8:53

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

And that's one of the things that we've really enjoyed with Picasso Hire, is just that really the efficiency of the product um has helped immeasurably. Um, because a lot of those resumes are not resumes that we necessarily wanted to spend time with, but it was taking us so much time. I mean, often we had hundreds, two to three hundred resumes for a position within a week. And so that takes up a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah. And it's interesting, it's not just a company problem, this is an industry problem because uh, and even outside of multifamily, is that because of that overwhelm from an admin standpoint, and the way that technology has been built to solve for um selecting the right people has been in a centralized program. You can't buy an applicant tracking system for every property. And so you end up with this centralized view, and it and then then the I guess the recruiting manager gets overwhelmed and they don't follow up with everybody, so then everybody that's applying, they just keep applying to everything, and it overwhelms the system. And uh so that's it's uh what we call the candidate experience, is um at least we're able to, you know, can s sift through those resumes faster. And was it seven seconds they spend on average on a human uh and looking at a resume? And it's like, well, who did we miss?

SPEAKER_03 10:16

Right.

Why Human-Centered AI Matters

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Not always, you know, who's not in there, but like who did we miss?

SPEAKER_03 10:20

Or sometimes it would take too long for us to get back to that candidate and they'd already accepted a position somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

So yeah, they're happy to hear back from somebody, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, that's interesting. Um so uh you were working with um an applicant tracking system currently. So was it did it feel like um a change management initiative, or was it how did you think through from a leadership team? And maybe you guys can talk like how you interface together about that. Um was everybody excited at the beginning or not? Or was it like I know Liz, you were a champion. Sorry. So certainly how important is that?

SPEAKER_03 11:01

Certainly a champion. And I I do believe that anytime you adopt technology AI into a business that from the very top down there has to be buy-in. Um and if there isn't, it was simply will not work. Um so it doesn't mean that everyone has to have buy-in, but the executive leadership absolutely has um must have that. And I was fortunate enough to have my partners in in our business who believed in what we were doing. And so um I do think that there were um the change management is probably the most difficult within any corporation with technology. Um, but I think if you approach it in the right way, um, I think that it will that that's the key is to make sure that you're hitting, you're you're approaching it in the right way, that you you have measurable goals and outcomes that you want to achieve. Um, and then the partnership is hugely important. So I know Lisa's, we wouldn't, we talk about it all the time about the partnership and how special that has been with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yeah. Well, let's talk about that. Miles, like uh what we did uh as part of this, and and you guys know this, is we ran a beta program, and we had about 87 people. And I think you reached out, Lori. Was it?

SPEAKER_05 12:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

And uh we were talking about other things, and we ended up like, what's the biggest problem we're solving? And you said, well, we need to meet our COO, and we met Liz. And so in that beta program, we grouped them because we had an we had almost 87 people sign up for that, and we knew we wanted to sort of what we call obsess on our first you know, hundred to really build with them instead of going to market, like, hey, we built this software, buy it, make it work for you. It's like, how do we work together to figure out what's the real problem we're solving? How do we get that alignment so then uh executives and stay excited about that initiative? And then how do we involve everybody in the process from on-site? You know, we're gonna be talking about that with Peter today, and then you know, with your your needs, compliance, you have other things that are going on, current technology you're using. Um, and so that was our initiative. And I think you came in excited, and I was like, we're gonna do, we're gonna slow down actually. Like I would have loved to sell you all kinds of stuff, right? But we're like, let's just crawl, walk, run here, let's get this right and establish confidence and let the teams experience some. So, Miles, let's talk about that a little bit. Um, and maybe you guys can share more. I I don't know much about what your experience was, but uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:32

Well, I mean, the way that our system had been set up is we work with an HRIS system, and so we were utilizing that HRIS system to feed our um our, in this case it was uh LinkedIn or Indeed.

SPEAKER_05 13:45

Yeah, the ads and all that.

Bottlenecks, Resume Floods, And Speed

SPEAKER_04 13:46

Exactly. And then it would um move through that process and back into the onboarding piece. And so it was really uh a complete flip for us because we had to move in a different direction. The way that the our HRIS system was working didn't really allow for us to work in tandem with Picasso Hires. So um Miles was integral in making sure that we were able to get the system to the systems that we needed to talk to one another. And you know, and it took us a little bit of time. We worked through some challenges, um, but ultimately coming up with a product that really is providing us um a very fast, it's a very fast process for us to get the candidate information, for our managers to get that information, and for us to be able to self-select.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Sure, sure. And maybe Liz or you know, Laura will talk to us a little bit about how important that partnership is, like in terms of um making sure success is increased.

SPEAKER_06 15:48

Sure. So the the partnership is really important. Um, what I've noticed, particularly with Miles, is that if we've got a question or oh, how do we handle this or oh I wish it did this, we reach out and he makes it happen. So I have 100% confidence. All I have to do is shoot off an email. It'll be done in about two hours. Um and we're we're kind of improving the system together.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Yeah. How does that feel? Is that is that um you think that's an I mean, obviously important, but uh is it informative, educational? Like uh do you feel like you're more empowered with that process or is it just like relief to the I think the whole process is um it's it's putting it into the right hands where it needs to be.

SPEAKER_06 16:35

I need to see those candidates. And and like Lisa was mentioning, um easily we get a hundred applications.

SPEAKER_05 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:43

Normally our normal process is gonna be, hey, we're gonna look at this one. Nope, okay, this one is a maybe, maybe, maybe. And then we're going through our maybe pile and we're like, nope, maybe, maybe. Um the process is so much faster because it's already kind of picked up some key things. Um, and if we this is another part I love, if we aren't getting the right candidates, we can change something in our job description. I know we're gonna talk about the job description part um to get the right candidates. So uh really interesting that it we couldn't have done it without that partnership. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

And Liz, we needed to make sure this went well for you. I mean, you were you were trying, uh you want you knew you had a path and a vision for a better way forward. And um there had to be.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

There had to be a way. And I do believe in technology and I do believe in innovation. And so being able, I I get excited about that to be able to come into an industry where it's very antiquated when it comes to technology, the real estate world. Um, but we're starting to get there and to add little bits and pieces to our world. And you know, the human capital piece is such a precious resource that we hold sacred at our company. And so to be able to have a tool and a partner to help us find that precious resource that we want to have for a long time, um, that's valuable for us. Um, and so that, you know, I think the the platform that we've entered into, I still think is in the infancy stage. Um, I still think we can go further with trying to attract, you know, even you know, just more ideas, you know, for what we need. And I think that's just a in you know, future, future years to come where the the enhancements of this will be pretty empowering.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah, yeah. And how did you feel the alignment improved? Um now regionals are more active in the selection process. Is that getting closer to the asset? Is that our managers now?

Change Management And Executive Buy-In

SPEAKER_03 18:41

Yeah, so one of the things that was very important to us is that we still wanted that human interaction. We did not want technology being the face for Baron because we are a people business, we're a transactional business, but we do want to use technology as a partner um in order to make decisions. And how fun was it to uh, and we'll talk to Peter a little bit later, but one of our um candidates utilized the AI bot to interview him, and how fun that that was to explain to him what we're we're you know, testing and let us know your feedback. And um, so that's how you get buy-in is to continue to experience what that is and to help improve it too. Sure. I mean, we talked about taking the um speed up, you know, the conversation, slow the conversation down. This is what we want the we want the bot to preface this, you know, prior to the, you know, um to the conversation, really making it clear that we would be ultimately making the decision the human would be, but it it comes with a partnership um with technology.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, you know, we that's the name of the the company. I mean, Picasso, and and and I think you guys know this uh for the viewers and listeners, um, we we looked at the resume, and the resume is sort of comes in as like a stick figure. It doesn't really tell us a whole lot about the person, their competencies, the success factors, the things that are going to lead to actual performance at work. And so when we talked about the name Picasso came up, like we just want to give you better decision intelligence to choose and select and give you a full picture, full colorful because humans are full range, they have unique abilities, they have uh just things that sometimes they just need to express themselves even outside that resume. And um, you know, using the AI voice technology allows us at the front end, I think, to get the improv the selection better for you to have something to go off of to have productive interviews and things like that. And I think that's in the nuances of that competency. We talked about job descriptions, like um not rushing that process, getting that right, uh, and that competency, right, that that talks about the behaviors and then the success factors. Um, that plays out in improving our model. So this is where your team has an intimate understanding of the business, of the location, what's useful, what does it need, what are the priorities, and who do we need to to come into this equation? And if that gets into the model, now this is this is something no other HRS system would have because you're you're kind of creating your own train AI model for every job role, you know. And um, how has that been in terms of getting the competencies and getting that into the model?

SPEAKER_06 21:33

Is that Liz set up all of the different job descriptions for the different sites? Um did a really good job. We had to tweak a little bit. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 21:42

Thank you, Lisa.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

And you're co-hosting, so whatever you jump in. I don't want to dominate the I just totally forgot what I'm talking about. Um we're talking about the job competencies, uh descriptions.

SPEAKER_06 21:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 21:52

Okay, so um with the with each each posting is its own, basically. It's not a blanket, it's unique to that property. Um, and I I do like that. And what we have seen is that one candidate might apply to more than one job and be ranked differently. So it's really about that job description and how they um match up with what that property needs. So that is the one thing that we haven't been able to do before. Um, so that's really exciting for us. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 22:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:25

And I I think too that the managers also have additional confidence now in they have so much information about these candidates to be able to look in and really, you know, where it's really breaking that resume down to determine the skill set of the individual, I think gives the manager confidence in their next interview that they're going to be having. Plus, the interviewing questions, I think, has just created a real positive experience for our managers to take that next step in finding the right candidate, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Yeah. And they don't have time to come up with those questions. I mean, you want them leasing, right? I mean, you want them taking care of residents.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

And you want the questions tailored to what that residence resonance resume portrays. And so what I thought was so um unique about the the program is that not every question was the same. If you looked at, if you started really studying them, they were different based off of the resume. And then once you get the profile after the AI interview, then it even gets more robust. Um, and so those questions you can dig in a little bit deeper. So maybe you have two or three candidates that you're really you just don't know which one to choose. That AI lat that last interview component will allow us to do that last interview and answer some questions that we may not have known to think of, but would definitely make the make it easier, uh, the decision easier to make.

Building With A Partner, Not For You

SPEAKER_01 23:52

So and I think this this highlights one of the advantages and power of generative AI is this individualization of things like the questions or the conversations that you know it'd be hard to do that for every single candidate, for one of you guys to to sit down and write those types of questions. You'd run out at a certain point and start reusing questions or something like that. So the great thing, uh, and this is where this new technology that is relatively recent, combined with the um automation of the ATS type where we keep all the organized the resumes organized and everything, combining what information we get from the candidate and what we can do with generative AI, creates a much fuller picture and that report that has the questions and the skills and all that for you guys to have all that information on every single candidate.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Talk to me about the assessment itself. Like, how's that been different? You've you're what our vision was typically when you hire a high-level position, like a CEO position, it goes through a full range of this type of analysis. And then, but the problem with that is you're paying a 30% fee to a recruiting agency to do all that hard work and and to do that. And so we've been able to do that on every applicant for you, technically, in that assessment. That would be like a presentation, like, here's what you have, by the way, these this is where we need to lean in. This may be a red flag here, uh, ask these questions, get clarity on this. How has that report or the assessment been uh useful in in crafting and managing these conversations with potential candidates?

SPEAKER_04 26:02

Well, you know, we use the we use that the AI assessment after we've had our um in-face, our person-to-person interviews, because we wanted to make sure, because we are a company that's concerned about our employees, and we wanted to make sure that it also was a fun component. That this was something that we added that wasn't laborious or you know difficult. It was actually going to be interesting and informative. And um, so we've tried to make it a fun ad to our candidates, and I think that they have picked up on that. Um, and then getting the information where we're learning more, like kind of a Myers-Briggs style personality test. We're learning more about that person and how they're gonna fit into their team. And really to Liz's point, you know, we were talking about each property has its own culture, it has its own feel. And so this is where the manager can really take that information and really drill down to say, you know what, this is a personality and a person that's gonna be a great fit for us. So, you know, to Liz's point where we have maybe two or three different candidates, we can really pick the right candidate for the role. And ultimately, we believe that that's going to give us a higher quality candidate, a candidate that's going to stay with us longer because they enjoy their job and they're a good fit. So we're helping them also in that fit process.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Right, right. It leads to culture and everything. Were there moments where you you doubted things? Like you didn't think like early on, we're like, oh, will this even work?

SPEAKER_04 27:35

Or you know, I know I did. Um I I was That's your job too, though. It is. I'm a natural skeptic.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

I am a natural skeptic. So call it the Valley of Despair. Yes, you go down and you're just like, just wait and just wait. And then as soon as we get above that threshold, we're there. And um, so yes, we had we did have some Valley of Despair conversations. We did.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

We did, yeah. Um, but what I think Well, how did you push through those?

SPEAKER_00 28:02

Let's get into that. Because that if if you if you retreated, you wouldn't have benefited from all this impact, right? Financially experienced company culture, all that stuff, right? Like driving the business forward. So, like when you are in the moment, you're trying maybe something new or different, and there was a moment of doubt, instead of quitting or retreating, you guys pushed through. So, what was what was that like?

Property-Specific Competencies And Fit

SPEAKER_04 28:24

Truly super miles. Yeah, it is super miles. Um, I think that our product is so custom to what we needed that when we did have a moment where we said, I don't know if this is gonna work, being able to come back and the partnership that we had with Miles to say, Miles, I don't know, this doesn't seem like it's working right, was the moment when Miles, who always has a smile on his face, by the way, would say, Lisa, here's what we can do. Um, there were even situations where I think Lori had reached out to me and said, Hey, Lisa, I'm really struggling with we're, you know, we're getting these interviews set up, but then when we're ready to speak to the person, sometimes the candidate isn't showing up. And so I was like, gosh, we've got to remember a way. We need to come up with a way to be representing this so that we know that when that person interviews again, that okay, they don't show up for their interviews. This isn't the candidate we want. And so I reached out to Miles, asked the question, and Miles said, Hey Lisa, give me about 30 minutes. I'm gonna I'm gonna go work on something. Let me get you on the phone and we'll we'll talk through it. So I was like, sure, he's got stuff going on. So in about 30 minutes, we get on the phone, and I said, Okay, so Miles, here's the situation. He goes, Oh, oh yeah, yeah. So I did it. I fixed Walready for you. He had already found the solution, implemented it for us, and given us the the outcome that we needed. And it's things like that that made those moments, those low moments made us made us realize.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Yeah, yeah. And from a partnership to from the other side of the pond, if you will, um, even though we're really in the same boat, um, you know, you guys were very vocal in letting me know what where how you were feeling. You know, sometimes uh you you just have a customer, they don't you don't interact with them very much, and then they cancel out of the blue, and you're like, you don't know why. Um, and so what's really been great is that partnership in the communication back and forth. Um, I know Lisa, we have exchanged I don't know how many emails about stuff, you know, questions, comments, concerns, and and I love that feedback, you know, to know, okay, let's tweak this, let's change this. This isn't working for them. They need this, you know. That's the important thing for me as is for the product and innovation to push it forward is that feedback loop. And so even when you were in the middle of despair, um, as you say, being able to communicate between the two of us, that communication level was so important for me to be able to be there to help. Um, because when the customer's despairing, I also feel despair, you know. Um and we worked through quite a few different things, two different integrations, indeed, and another one, you know, to get our software up to uh functioning in this nice flow that reached that efficiency. Right. Um and you guys were extremely helpful in walking us through uh those integrations, giving us access to be able to test things, um, to make sure everything was as robust as possible. Uh and so you know, from the partnership, the communication and the mutual benefishing is this you know what made that work and helped us get to the point we are now.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Yeah, yeah. And and you had so you had the line resources to do that, but one of the things and you're not talking to someone in sales, it's he's leading up product. So that's one of the I think the benefits of working with Nectar. Flow and even under the Picasso Higher product is like um you're not it used to be we bought software that was built for everyone and now we're building with you a solution to solve a business problem, not sell a software.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

That's the game changer. That is the game changer. You know, you even with we utilize in Toronto for our software program, and absolutely wonderful. We love them as partnership, but it's their software. And to be able to accommodate our needs is not necessarily what that they're there to do. Um, and so that is why I think this is such a unique partnership, is because it is so tailored to um to customer, if you will, and what we're what we're really wanting and trying to achieve.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Yeah, and I think that's that's important to get that. You talked a lot about the alignment and things like that, to be able to have that business goal and and to be able to, you know, we want we want the business outcome. We don't necessarily want the tool, right? We and and if we know what the business outcome is, we can apply decisions, what software can solve that to make the problem go away or create this new future you want. And and uh I'm I I get a lot of uh satisfaction knowing like you've led such a great process there. I I really appreciate that. And it it's not it's you need the customer commitment too. So I think a lot of people in multifamily say that hiring is a problem, but they haven't approached it the way you have. They're just advertising and they're they're not think stopping to think about how big this problem is impacting their business. I mean, you think about one rent a week over a course of a week or a year at one property, the financial impact by not getting this right is substantial. So I commend your leadership on that.

Assessments, Interview Confidence, And Fit

SPEAKER_03 33:34

And and I you I talk to my peers about it all the time. It's one of the number one problems is staff recruitment and then staff retention for you know the talent talent. And to get the right person, I think is in step number one because if you've hired the wrong person, you're not going to retain them.

SPEAKER_05 33:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Um, if it's not a good fit, chances are the retention's not going to be there. So let's let's start off with step one in the right direction, and then we have a better chance of that retention. I think it's still too like soon to tell whether or not, you know, we're gonna we haven't even approached a year now, but yeah, but it I do think that as Lisa, when I asked her at the very end, the comment, I said, Do are you happy with what you know Pelaso has to offer? And she said, we are getting better quality can candidates faster. And that that's just you know one, you know, one of the pieces to the puzzle of hiring a great um uh candidate or employee, but that is from a monetary standpoint, that's huge from um from my chair.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, let's lean into more of that. You're an executive, you have financial penal responsibility over the organization, where investments are placed and prioritized. Um how did that shake out for you? Like um, I know that you you went from centralized to decentralized ROI standpoint, like where where are we on that metric?

SPEAKER_03 35:00

I think it's too I think it's too early to tell right now, um, but I do know that we're going in the right direction. Uh, I do know, you know, it was not the idea to replace a position, but this platform has replaced um our recruiter. Um, it doesn't mean that there are things that are needed. Lisa's taken on some additional responsibilities, but we're also utilized utilizing some technology in other areas of her world that are allowing her to what I say, instead of doing four things, she's managing eight because of technology. So that that is really the goal within you know each of our positions, leadership positions, is to to get that, not to take positions, but to get a little bit more bandwidth, and we just need to do it differently than what we used to, what we how we used to operate.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Yeah, so you had the centralized one recruiter, that role changed. Now you have your regional operations, even your on-site managers, property managers, better at recruiting. Like tell me how that has made turned them into recruiters essentially.

SPEAKER_06 36:25

Well, Peter, who we'll be talking to, was actually the first one that did the AI interview for us. So he's kind of walked through the whole thing, and I don't want to take from his experience, but uh we'll yeah, we'll we'll ask him for for sure about that.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

Yeah. But I mean, are you getting is that has that been an improvement to have more uh I guess closer to the operations? Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:47

You know, I think one of the pieces that we haven't talked about is it talks a little bit about what motivates the person. And that's really key because there's the baron, and like that that is our culture, and then there's the site that we have to also match up to.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

So yeah. Um, I I have a question here about like what advice. So there's a lot of people are gonna listen to this, watch this. Um, they're leading national, regional portfolios. Uh, you guys have a lot of really great assets already underway. Um, what advice would you give to other multifamily leaders that are considering thinking about either using Picasso or even um solving this business challenge? Any any reflections on that? Any one of you can share on that one?

Pushing Through The Valley Of Despair

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Well, I think, you know, I I had said it earlier on in the conversation is to adopt something like this, you will need a foundation of support. Um, and so having that is number one is everyone has to have buy-in from an executive leadership style. And then the appropriate individual and the appropriate processes in order to implement that change because of the change management, more so on the people side, that's very difficult for some people. So, whatever you do, um that's what I've learned in the short time that we've started to implement that we've started to implement more technology into our business, how how important it is to have a plan and what that looks like, and the proper communication uh and the style of communication to certain audiences. Um you can talk to me all day long about it, I get excited, but if you go to a different personality, it's fear. Um, or am I going to lose my job? Or it it's um so you you've really got to tater to you've got to uh tailor your your communication to the appropriate audience, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Yeah, yeah. And uh in your role, what are you most proud of with this process?

SPEAKER_04 38:50

You know, I think um, you know, to Liz's point that she uh, you know, she had mentioned, you know, getting a better quality candidate more efficiently, I think it's really exciting to see our managers getting excited. Um I I can't tell you, I mean, it really, it really makes me happy to hear from my manager saying, hey, guess what? I just met this great person and they're gonna be a great fit for our role, you know, and just seeing their enthusiasm and their excitement for their new candidate versus having somebody more like, you know, handed to them and they go, oh, okay, there's a choice. Work with them, make it work. And one of the things that we were hearing at the corporate office was they were saying, well, our candidates are not a good fit. Um, we were hearing that there was a disconnect, and we're like, where's this disconnect coming from? We think we've got these great candidates that we're sending to you. But our employees and our managers are saying, you know what, I found the right candidate. I've looked at all of these people, and their enthusiasm to me says we made the right decision.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, yeah. Elevating, that's the empowerment piece.

SPEAKER_04 39:59

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

You know, where uh and then they can grow and scale whatever whatever visions you have for the for those roles. Anything else that you wanted to share?

SPEAKER_06 40:08

Or I guess the only thing we talked a little bit about about the cost savings, like as we did our budgets this year, yeah, it's less expensive for us. Yeah. In the most part, there was a handful of few that it's gonna be a little more depending on the size of the property. But yeah, so uh it was a a benefit in that way as well, a real win-win. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

And then Liz, going back to you, like how does it feel being I mean, it's never done. I always tell Miles or we always laugh because we'll talk about ready versus done. It's never done, it's just ready for the next version, the next it's like our iPhones, right? Like they're just constantly innovating, and we want to continually have interface with you guys as we build the business uh to um continually innovate and make make the product better as as our businesses evolve as well. Um, knowing what you've accomplished in such a short time, how does that deliver confidence for your stakeholders and and how does that make you feel as a leader in that process?

SPEAKER_03 41:08

Well, I think that we're moving in the right direction. I've got my next set of questions and challenges for you guys. So we what I always try and say, we talk about it, let's break the system. Try and break it with just pushing it as hard as we can push it. And I think that you guys have been great with that. Um I do, I do know that there's buy-in. I know that they're um, and I am I'm even more excited, probably next year at this time, we'll have a really good understanding from a retention standpoint and what we've been able to accomplish. Obviously, that there's the the uh the the areas that are probably they're not able we're not able to measure as as it relates to true performance. Um, you know, but um the retention, the turnover, um, the satisfaction that we're starting to see from our own employees when we complete those resident um excuse me, those employee satisfaction surveys, I think that will speak volumes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

So what's on the roadmap for Barron? What are you guys excited about now that you're I mean, moving forward in new directions and like what what's exciting? What's next?

SPEAKER_03 42:15

I think we're looking for you to guys to tell us what what do you have next to you know venture into? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ROI, Costs, And Quality Gains

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Well, this has been exciting. I I uh I have uh I want to do go into our next segment. We're gonna talk more at the location, more at the property, on how this essentially gets down and gets alignment between corporate initiatives, financial governance, compliance, vision for a better hiring and company culture. We talked a lot about um the impact to the decision intelligence and all that stuff. But now let's get into the conversation with Peter and get into like how it's impacted his world from his point of view, because that's ultimately what we're all building is this business to support the field the closest to the customer that we can impact. We can drive yield, protect yield in the business, and uh we'll have that that conversation with Peter. Any final remarks that you want to leave with or any any any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 43:13

I just want to thank you guys for an incredible partnership. Um, it's been great since day one. Um we've we've certainly meandered through a lot of peaks and valleys over the last you know six to eight months. So it's been and thank you for allowing us to to join you today on your podcast. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

It's been great to have you guys on. And so we'll cut right here for a break, and we'll be right back with Peter. All right, welcome back. We're here with Peter Storga. He's the property manager for Baron, and this is all about rethinking centralization and empowering leadership teams, even on the front lines. So, Peter, welcome in. Thank you. It's great to have you here. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, have you been on a podcast before?

SPEAKER_02 43:56

I have not.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Okay, all right. Well, now you have. And uh, you know, one of the things that we do with these conversations is we're talking a little bit about more proof of our promise. Uh, you know, especially as an on-site manager, I mean, we've lived your world, we can appreciate that that's where the value is created. Um, you're you're a mayor of a city, basically, there, and you're taking care of a high task, what I call high task and high relationship. But you're running a hundred million dollar asset, probably, right? And and sometimes we don't uh appreciate that because we get lost in the activities, they are so high, the pressures are so high, we've got to turn around a property, lease it up, got collections, you got all these things that we're doing. And at the end of that day, um, people are the most important asset, and behind every success and failure is a person. And I wanted to get your perspective of how you've been able to think through selecting your teams or going through that process and uh get some perspectives maybe from your point of view, um, what that's been like. So, uh how has been working with Picasso been different for the way that you've typically approached hiring new people?

SPEAKER_02 45:04

Uh so it's very new to me. I'm very old school where you grab a stack of papers and you kind of have to go through everything and try to weed out the ones that aren't a good fit. Um, but it's very black and white. Picasso Hire has streamlined it so well that it's like having your personal assistant telling you this is a good candidate. This is not, this is, you know, this is there have gaps here, asking questions about this. Um and it streams streamlines it so easy for me. Um it makes my job so much easier.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yeah, yeah. And so um how does that feel like knowing like you're more prepared for that interview? I mean, at some point you were interviewing, right? And you know, the process can be intimidating, right? So as a candidate, you know, when you're coming to that meeting as a property manager, you're there face to face with the interview. Um, I'm sure that has a different feel now that you have sort of this appearance of you've done all this investment in them to really understand and connect. What is what is how is that played out at all?

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Yeah, personalizing the questions to the candidate is um I know it empowered me. Um I think they feel it as well because it's not like, hey, I'm gonna ask you generalized questions, it's more of hey, I seen your resume. I've seen that you're good at this, this, or this. Um, can you elaborate a little bit more? So personalized questions to each candidate is amazing for me.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah. Now, did I hear that right? Did you come in through Picasso as a I did? So you were hired through this. Okay, I didn't know that. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Yeah, so that's great. They had me go through the process. Okay. I thought it was a little clunky at first because I was like, Well, I'm talking to a robot. Um, but as the interview went on and it started asking me personalized questions, I was like, oh, this is it's learning as I'm talking. So um that was pretty, pretty fun.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and how are you um how do you feel as a leader? Like, do you feel like you're growing in your career? You're getting better at that process. I mean, ultimately, I know as you're building teams, um, your ability to build a great team is is really what makes you grow in this career. And do you feel like you're getting um more intelligence on that?

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Oh yeah, um, asking the right questions. Um ultimately it comes down to personality. Um, I know you have five great candidates, but how they act, react, um, face to face really makes a difference.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Yeah, yeah. And uh and feel free to jump in. I don't want to dominate the host here. Um what uh what are what are some of the things that you're hearing in those interviews? Are are are people coming less prepared for those types of questions? Like the standard questions, these are different questions, or I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Um, like you guys said mentioned earlier, um, it does get kind of repetitive and it's kind of a blanket statement or a blanket interview. Uh now it has become more of each individual person. Um I think.

SPEAKER_06 47:55

Yes.

Empowering Managers As Recruiters

SPEAKER_02 47:56

Yes. Yeah. Um and it's yeah, it's it's been great. Yeah, great.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

I know a lot of the questions that are written, uh, some of the goals of the question is to just uncover the gap between the resume, what's presented in the resume, and the job, description, competency, success factors. Uh, and that's a huge goal that we have written in those questions is to come up to find those gaps, because they may be gaps, they may not be gaps. Um, have you had experience with like asking those questions and being like, wow, they really do have a gap or they really don't have that gap? Has that um played out through your interviews?

SPEAKER_02 48:30

It has, yeah. So sometimes they are real gaps, um, and they have no excuses for it, so they just kind of tell you up front. Uh, and sometimes they're not. Um, sometimes they're moving out of state, so um, trying to get into the new state and trying to work is something new to me.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Yeah, that's great. Well, let's talk a little bit about the process now. Like, for example, you have you know the corporate office or your your leadership team that you interface with, like, and you have your regional managers and the leadership team there. How how does that flow? And maybe you guys can talk about how that that works involving the on-site team in this process.

SPEAKER_04 49:06

Yeah, well, you know, what we what I do is I try to be an asset to Peter. Um, so what I'm doing is I'm going in, looking at the Picasso hire candidates that we have, um, and just kind of self-s you know, selecting the the candidates and then reaching back out to Peter to say, hey, did you happen to see, you know, XYZ? Did you see these people? What are you thinking about that? And Peter's like, oh, you know what? I was just looking at those. We go through the process of when he's done interviewing, you know, how did those interviews go? Is this the right person for the role? Just having more of an open dialogue, I think, to make sure that we're continuing to move through the process of getting that right candidate for the role.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

Yeah. I like that you could put your steps and which step you're in. So she could see that, I could see that, and I know where I'm at with the person that I'm talking to.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Yeah, that's wonderful. And you're not sending emails back and forth, like all of it's in the one system, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_05 50:04

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:05

Yeah. How has that been for you to not have to like have all these downloaded things and like papers printed everywhere? And your time is precious.

SPEAKER_02 50:14

So it it cleared the clutter for sure. Um, and less emails between me and Lisa because she could kind of see what step I'm on. She knows where I'm at, and so it's been it's been great. Streamlined it a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

Yeah. Any other final thoughts you guys want to share or Miles, if you have anything?

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Sure. Well, I was just gonna uh bring up I know um a couple months ago uh is when we did the training for uh the community managers. So that was something that was part of our partnership. Was uh, you know, Lisa and the team expressed that they wanted their community managers uh to be trained on Picasso Hire so that you know this type of dynamic can happen. And so um that was something that from a partnership standpoint was I think went really well. Um, you know, we had Liz on the the call, we had Lisa, and they kind of explained how this new system was going to work with Picasso Hire in conjunction with the older one. Um I don't know if you guys want to talk a little bit about that transition moment, if you will, yeah and how that went.

SPEAKER_04 51:17

That's a good point. I think one of the things that I really wanted to make sure in that conversation we all had was that we talked about how the product is a tool that we're using. It's a tool that you know is correlating data for us, but ultimately we're a human company. So we're taking a tool to enhance our hiring process, but we're using our personal intuition and our personal skills to find the person. So I think it's the best of both worlds. Taking information that's making us more efficient and giving us more information at our fingertips to then use our own personal skills and our own personal intuition and our understanding of that person and how they're gonna fit into our property. So it's just a more well-rounded process, I think, um, with the add of technology.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

Yeah, I love that. I love that. So one of the things that we've been able to accomplish internally is we through our beta program, we were able to select who's committed to solving this business challenge. And we had a leadership team, we have what we call the MVT minimum viable team. So that's the executive champion, business process owners, and you guys own that process, right? And the technical natives, in this case, our team, to help provide that tool and that aspect so you guys can make the intelligent decisions. And that's the one thing I want that I think is special around this proof of a promise series is that because you've had leadership and you have you know supported each other in the roles from on-site to regional to HR compliance, even, and then the executive reasons for this type of initiative in the business, making the business better in so many ways, financially and and from an experience standpoint, culture, um, is to get that minimum viable team in place. A lot of times, in our experience, uh, just in other products and solutions that you think about, we buy tools, but the tool itself is not enough. You need to have this alignment and this um process uh all in place. So appreciate you guys being part of that. And uh I know people will probably have questions. Uh, we'd love to uh invite you in to some of the other innovative things we're doing, and we'll be spending some more time in product innovation. Great. Um, but thank you for allowing us to build with you and and make the business better.

SPEAKER_04 53:40

Thank you. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

Appreciate it. All right, well, that's a wrap. Uh, we'll see you guys in the next episode.