PRINT THIS STORY:

CHANGE TEXT SIZE:

Employee retention key in tight market

By Debra Hazel

Good times aren’t always good news, particularly for employers. With the U.S. Department of Labor reporting unemployment rates between 3.9% and 4.1% since October 1999, the United States is statistically at full employment. But great economic news means problems in hiring for just about every business in the United States, and the shopping center industry is no exception.

With new hires demanding more money, more perks — more everything — developers and managers are working hard to keep the workers they have, through growth opportunities and training.

“We lost a staff person today to another department,” said Maria Argyropoulos, vice president of Portfolio Review for Chicago-based General Growth Properties. Support staff, she said, is particularly hard to find.

“I’m on my fourth temp. We’ve done an internship program, and everyone has had to pick up extra workload,” she said.

Finding new workers simply has become more difficult, with many employers having to become much more flexible on requirements.

“It works both ways. Some companies prefer to have hands-on experience, while others are willing to take the time to train someone from outside,” said Neil Weiner, partner of Summit Search, Birmingham, Mich.

Some companies are going further afield to find new staff, reported Roberta Rea, president of San Diego-based recruitment firm Roberta Rea & Co.

“Some firms are looking outside the industry, hiring brokers from the office or hotel side,” she said.

As a result, employee retention has become critical. One way to keep staff is to offer them more opportunity to grow: Like many shopping center firms, Chicago-based General Growth Properties has a policy of promoting from within whenever possible. And in an effort to develop its staff, The Macerich Co. recently allowed its marketing director and her assistant director at its Northwest Arkansas Mall to exchange jobs for a three-month period.

“It’s so hard to find people to stay in the industry, and it’s hard to retain them,” said Darla L. Parker, CMD, regional marketing director at Santa Monica, Calif.-based Macerich.

Parker dreamed up the experiment, in which assistant Anita McLendon totally assumed the role of marketing director Lisa Skiles, CMD.

“Lisa has been there 10 years and is a total pro. Anita, who’s a real firecracker, had been there one year,” and Skiles was convinced she was ready for bigger things, Parker said. So a switch was proposed.

“My first reaction was that this was a bold move, not the norm. I praise Macerich for not being stagnant,” Skiles said.

It also was important to show faith in her subordinate and give her the opportunity to grow. McLendon had total responsibility for marketing operations, meeting with Skiles only once per week to go over progress. McLendon, not Skiles, attended merchant meetings and oversaw day-to-day operations; the two even traded offices and phone numbers.
“We switched everything possible,” McLendon said.

Prior to the switch, the two had created a checklist of duties typical of a marketing director; meanwhile, McLendon retained her assistant-director responsibilities as well.

“I think honestly it was the most innovative experience. It was like learning a foreign language: The only way to do it is to immerse yourself in it. I learned the marketing foreign language,” she said.

But Skiles was in no way demoted: Eliminating her responsibility for day-to-day marketing activities allowed her to focus on special projects she otherwise would not have had time for.

“We had just embarked on our ‘Old Glory-ous Celebration,’ [a portfoliowide three-month promotion around Flag Day and the Fourth of July] that had a lot of new elements to it, so we had an exciting new product to throw myself into. I also was working on Macerich’s training committee,” for other marketing professionals, Skiles said. She also created a volunteer program for the mall.

The experiment, which took place from April through June of this year, was deemed a success.

“It worked out really well; it could have not,” Parker said. “Lisa is somebody who gets energized by new projects, and with the opportunity to have day-to-day work completely off her plate, she could focus on them.”

Since then, McLendon has been transferred and is now the marketing coordinator at Macerich’s Lakewood Center in Long Beach, Calif., leaving Skiles with, yes, a job opening. Yet Skiles hasn’t seen some of the hiring problems others have.

“I’ve been pleased with the caliber of applicants,” she said.

Training after hiring is the key to employee quality and retention. Macerich runs a biannual “university” for its staff, and has recently instituted a “Fresh Eyes” program that allows staff from one property to visit others, to provide new viewpoints.

General Growth attempts to spot potential executives early and begins a substantial educational process.

“Our leadership series is trying to develop tomorrow’s leaders,” said Argyropoulos, noting that training new staff can cost between $10,000 and $40,000 per employee.

But the opportunity to learn new skills on the job is not limited to large REITs. The situation may be even more critical for smaller companies.

“I’ve always encouraged my people to do new things, to multitask. The people I hire do all sorts of things,” said Andrew B. Hascoe, president of Bryant Development, Purchase, N.Y.

The firm’s staff of fewer than 25 oversees 17 neighborhood and community centers totaling 2.5 million square feet. Property managers are involved in all areas of management, from acquisition analysis to running projects.

“I hire staff and tell them they’ll be doing a lot, and learning a lot,” Hascoe said, adding that he will pay for classes to develop the skills he believes an employee needs.
“On some level, it helps me retain people.”
Yet over the last year Hascoe actually cut five people from the staff.

“Where some of these REITs have redundancies, I run a lean organization,” Hascoe said. “I’m finding it better to reduce my staff and make it more efficient.”

The head of marketing also oversees personnel and technology, as well as East Coast leasing; the director of property management also is the head of operations. But multiple roles could burn out some staff, a possibility that he acknowledges.

“There’s always the risk of overtaxing your staff. There’s always the chance of overwhelming them, but it depends on what’s going on,” he said. The firm’s six-person Texas office can be used to help the New York office, and vice versa.

That includes heavy involvement on his own part, he stressed. Admitted control freak Hascoe looks at every lease, signs every check.

“But everybody runs their shop differently,” he said. “I can’t disparage the way other people run their firms, especially if they’re successful.”