RentReady is a marketplace platform connecting apartment communities with service contractors who prepare units for new residents. They provide all apartment turnover cleaning, maintenance, and repairs.
A mission-critical challenge for Rent Ready was to ensure excellent performance from management, employees, and service contractors. But like so many companies, Rent Ready suffered from a performance review system that was time consuming and ineffective.
Without more accurate ratings, leadership couldn’t know how well employees were performing. Worse, employees themselves couldn’t know or improve because they weren’t getting accurate feedback.
The performance review calibration sessions took up a full work day for many of Rent Ready’s managers every quarter.
“Before working with Elevate,” Rent Ready CEO Jonathan Kite says, “I would point to metrics and performance issues and ask managers to give their direct reports feedback, coach them and hold them accountable but I wasn’t seeing a change in the results. When I zoomed in, I saw that 1:1s were being conducted differently, feedback wasn’t getting to the ICs and performance reviews weren't effective. We were late to identify performance issues and even when we did, we weren't effective at turning the performance around or taking action. We needed to do something to set managers up for success.”
After evaluating several possible solutions, Kite chose Elevate Leadership because he could customize the training to Rent Ready’s specific needs. The content was super bite-size, very tactical, direct and actionable.
Elevate fits our specific needs much better than the one-size-fits-all ideas that were offered by other companies.
Rent Ready primarily promotes from within to give employees career advancement opportunities. As a result, managers know the employees and know the business but it also means they are first time managers.
"One benefit of working for a startup is the opportunity for career growth. We’ve recently been able to promote 3 individuals who are now first-time people leaders. They dove into Elevate’s training and you could immediately see how well implementing those learnings impacted their teams. Better engagement with remote teams, better 1 on 1’s, more open and actionable feedback… These sessions have been instrumental for us. They’re better people managers and I’m a better leader for it."
Matt Hupalowsky,
Head of Procurement
Rent Ready shared their manager expectations
Full day in person manager boot camp. Workshops included:
Managers lead monthly meetings with their team where they watched an Elevate Academy class together and used the discussion guides to facilitate a conversation around it
Quarterly planning sessions with Elevate where we discuss current business challenges and Elevate recommends content that can support the team
Managers have access to micro-learning on the Elevate Academy platform - they can refresh on skills and develop new ones as they need them
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“The Elevate program was a true eye-opener for me. I am now able to provide constructive and honest feedback that has improved the performance of everyone on my team. I highly recommend this program to anyone looking to sharpen their leadership skills and create a more positive and productive working environment.”
Heather DeAcosta,
Head of Technology
Within 6 months of rolling out Elevate we have seen a 48% month over month positive impact to revenue from reduced churn and increased customer utilization. I attribute this revenue growth to the team giving each other, our customers and our providers specific and actionable feedback on a timely basis. Our managers are better equipped to manage performance and they are doing a fantastic job.
What changed:
The performance review calibration sessions took up a full work day for many of Rent Ready’s managers every quarter.
“Before working with Elevate,” Rent Ready CEO Jonathan Kite says, “I would point to metrics and performance issues and ask managers to give their direct reports feedback, coach them and hold them accountable but I wasn’t seeing a change in the results. When I zoomed in, I saw that 1:1s were being conducted differently, feedback wasn’t getting to the ICs and performance reviews weren't effective. We were late to identify performance issues and even when we did, we weren't effective at turning the performance around or taking action. We needed to do something to set managers up for success.”
After evaluating several possible solutions, Kite chose Elevate Leadership because he could customize the training to Rent Ready’s specific needs. The content was super bite-size, very tactical, direct and actionable.
“There have been two or three teams where there have been very specific, direct issues, and we set very specific and difficult goals. And in about a 1-month time frame, we’ve seen those core metrics do a complete 180, a total turnaround, with dramatic improvement in performance in key metrics. That’s something that we’ve never seen before. And that’s even with new managers on those teams, leading those teams.”
Jonathan Kite,
CEO
Kite says that partnering with Elevate Leadership has been easy, and has led to continued personal and professional growth among his managers.
“From the very beginning, we’ve been impressed with Elevate, with the co-founders’ professionalism and ability to understand our needs. They’ve made it super easy for us to work together. The ability to get on a call quarterly, share our current challenges and have a thought partner to recommend classes we should watch on Elevate Academy has been huge. It helps me then communicate why we are doing this and it helps hold me and the team accountable.”
“Another thing that sets Elevate Leadership apart is their ability to keep the momentum going. Other programs have tended to lose steam after 60 to 90 days. But Elevate Leadership keeps us engaged and excited about the training.”
“To prepare for performance reviews, we hosted a series of interactive training sessions available on Elevate Academy for our managers. Before Elevate, most employees were rated at ‘Meets Expectations.’ Now, we are confidently using the full rating spectrum to accurately reflect individual performance. Our employees are also happier with the clear and actionable feedback they receive in the reviews. So, a big thank you!”
Jonathan Kite,
CEO
It’s easier than you may think:
We've helped hundreds of leaders, managers, and rising teams with our science-based frameworks and sessions. 98% of attendees say Elevate improved their confidence to manage their team, and 95% of attendees said they’d recommend Elevate to others.
