In this episode, Cerwin Thompson, VP of facilities at RPM Living, and Avery Rouse, regional maintenance director at The Breeden Co. discuss how they’re navigating the staffing challenges in maintenance operations and the strategies they’re implementing.

Both leaders started in on-site roles and worked their way up to corporate leadership. Now, they see technicians entering the talent pipeline who lack some of those basic skills that are so important for day-to-day community maintenance.

Focusing on the fundamentals and sequential training is what’s needed to strengthen teams from the ground up.

Here are some of the topics we cover:

(3:20) The current state of the maintenance workforce

(5:04) Recruiting strategies that work

(7:58) How to prevent burnout and create support systems

(9:53) Which factors most impact retention

(14:37) How training can reveal employee mentality and buildcollaboration

(18:00) Why rushing promotions without basic skills can leadto failure

(26:36) What the industry needs to do differently