No training- some property managers that work for a subsidiary called Beacon Management are not skilled in *basic* requirements of the job, such as customer service and employee interaction. Some PMs have never had other jobs or have had few jobs and had nearly zero experience going into the PM position on how to manage a diverse team of people and they aren’t offered training or anything to make them better. The PMs are well-paid and get great bonuses, but every other employee at the residential level has horrible pay and when they are treated poorly by an unskilled PM are basically told to just deal with it. Property managers > everyone else to Beacon and Lightstone. There is also virtually no official training for other employees at the residential level, such as leasing consultants and maintenance technicians. Beacon Management offers zero training for new employees, and expects every employee to flourish in a “learn as you go” type of job.
Bad hours- You are expected to work 8:45 am to at least 6:00 pm, but usually you are working until at least 6:15 pm. These hours leave very little time for family, and make it nearly impossible for a healthy work/life balance. If you have kids, look for a different job.
Bad discount- You only get 20% off an apartment. The industry standard is FREE. If you rent an apartment where you work or at a nearby property, they pay you and you turn right back around and give your hard earned money to the company that just paid you.
Terrible pay, bad commission, little opportunity to advance- this company and its one single owner is worth billions of dollars, but pays their workers $13 an hour and offers a terrible tiered commission package that is not industry standard. You get nothing if you maintain a high occupancy percentage and don’t have any apartments to lease. The only employee at the property where I worked who would even qualify for an apartment at their current rate of pay is the property manager. Everyone else would be denied if we didn’t work there. For perspective, an assistant manager’s yearly pay is only .00002% of the owner’s wealth.
Bad pay periods- Pay periods end on Friday. As an hourly employee who works at a property that is open Saturdays, if you work a Saturday you have to work SIX DAYS IN A ROW in order to make sure you have a full 80-hour pay check. So you’d work M, T, W, T, F, S and be off Sunday and start your week all over again Monday and take the next Wednesday off so you don’t get overtime.
Bad response to COVID19 pandemic- They had a great and timely response for the corporate office, where they set EVERYONE up to work from home. For others, they waited until the very last minute to act at all. They offered extremely limited protections and operated non-essential business, sales, construction projects during state shut down which put its employees and residents in danger during the pandemic. Told employees if they want to or need to take time off due to COVID-19, then they need to use PTO knowing many employees don’t have PTO because they force you to use all your PTO before going on leave to have a baby or to receive cancer treatments. Didn’t get any disposable masks until April. Ran out of cleaning fluid and wipes in March and as of 4/6/2020 still hadn’t received any but we brought stuff from home. They are forcing employees to do work that is normally contracted out (and non-essential) for the same hourly rate. They offered no hazard pay. No expanded PTO or leave benefits. Residents were calling in to say they were isolating due to COVID-19 and when it was brought to PM attention by office staff, it was NOT passed along to maintenance and other residents in the same buildings were not notified. Deemed residential employees essential, but offices are not spacious enough for staff to social distance and they can’t provide proper cleaning equipment or PPE. Deemed every residential worker essential, but asked us to complete projects outside of our normal purview and report back the time it took for us to do it. If we’re all essential, then this is unnecessary.
They are only waiving late fees for residents who pay 25% of their rent every week and pay in full by 4/30. They offered nothing else to residents affected by COVID-19. Keep in mind, again, this company is worth over a billion dollars and so is the owner so they can afford ALL OF THIS AND THEN SOME. They closed on 4 new properties between March and April 2020, but can’t offer any substantial help to residents or paid leave or partially paid leave to their long-time employees who have made the company millions of dollars.
