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Hiring reliable and competent apartment maintenance teams remains one of the most pressing challenges in the multifamily industry. As demand grows and qualified candidates become harder to find and keep, companies must rethink how they attract, support, and retain their maintenance teams.
The solution isn’t just about filling roles — it’s about fostering innovation, investing in people, and creating a culture where technicians feel valued and empowered. In this blog, we’ll explore practical strategies to overcome apartment maintenance staffing hurdles and build teams that stay for the long haul.
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- The Challenge of Apartment Maintenance Staffing
- 3 Innovative Strategies for Engagement and Retention
- Building a Stronger Future Starts Today
The Challenge of Apartment Maintenance Recruitment
One of the most pressing workforce issues is the growing difficulty of recruiting and retaining skilled maintenance technicians. These essential team members keep properties running smoothly, yet filling open roles has become more complex and competitive than ever, and requires more than just posting a job and waiting for applicants.
As recruiting teams face mounting internal pressures and evolving candidate behaviors, it’s clear that the traditional playbook no longer works. What’s needed is a new strategy — one built on understanding where candidates are, how they prefer to engage, and what it takes to bring them on board.
Knowing How To Reach the Right Candidates
In multifamily, maintenance professionals are often referred to as the “invisible workforce” because many technicians have little to no online presence on common recruiting platforms like LinkedIn or CareerBuilder. This creates a major disconnect between where recruiters are looking and where maintenance professionals actually “live” online.
As Adrian Danila, Regional Director of Maintenance, at Lessen insightfully notes, Facebook groups have become a thriving hub for maintenance techs — places where they build community, swap tips, and search for job opportunities.
While service managers or higher-level roles may use LinkedIn, and some candidates turn to platforms like Indeed for quick, one-click applications, the vast majority of frontline technicians still operate outside traditional recruiting channels.
Apartment Maintenance Staffing: 3 Persistent Recruitment Hurdles
- Generational differences further complicate the multifamily maintenance hiring process. Older maintenance professionals often gravitate toward conventional job boards or local referrals, while younger candidates are more likely to engage with job opportunities through social media or mobile-friendly platforms. That means recruiters must tailor their outreach to different age groups and communication styles, or risk missing out on strong candidates altogether.
- Communication itself is another hurdle. Many candidates — especially younger ones — are less responsive to phone calls and prefer texting as a means of communication. While text messages may be effective for quick touchpoints or scheduling, they pose challenges for more in-depth conversations or pre-screening questionnaires. Finding the balance between reaching candidates where they are and maintaining the integrity of the interview process is an ongoing struggle.
- “Ghosting,” which is the “abrupt and unexplained cessation of communication between a candidate and a recruiter or hiring manager,” has also become a new, and frustrating, phenomenon in the recruiting landscape. Candidates apply for positions but fail to respond to follow-ups, skip scheduled interviews, or drop out of the process entirely. This unpredictability adds another layer of difficulty to an already time-consuming process.
Internal Challenges of Recruitment
Compounding this are the challenges facing recruiters themselves — many are overwhelmed managing multiple open roles across different properties and struggling to fill roles quickly while maintaining quality.
Hiring a qualified apartment maintenance technician requires significant time and expense, often stretching already-thin HR and operations teams. Even when companies host job fairs or local hiring events, getting the right candidates through the door can be a struggle.
The apartment maintenance staffing challenge is a perfect storm of digital disconnects, communication mismatches, and limited recruiter bandwidth. Without a strategic playbook, the effort to recruit and retain maintenance talent can feel like an uphill battle.
However, high employee turnover rates and a demanding operating environment make it essential for hiring managers to adopt strategic approaches to talent acquisition and development.
To succeed, companies need to meet candidates where they are, rethink their outreach strategies, and create a process that respects both the candidate’s time and the recruiter’s capacity.
3 Innovative Strategies for Engagement and Retention
Retaining top maintenance talent requires more than just competitive pay — it calls for a thoughtful blend of innovation, empathy, and intentional culture-building. Property management leaders are finding success by embracing new technologies, fostering real human connection, and creating environments where maintenance professionals feel empowered and valued.
From rethinking workflows with digital tools to prioritizing meaningful daily conversations, the strategies outlined below offer practical ways to boost engagement and retention across your teams.
1. Embrace Innovation
Apartment maintenance professionals are natural problem-solvers. Whether it’s a last-minute repair, a resident emergency, or an unexpected supply shortage, their ability to innovate on the fly is essential.
As Paul Rhodes, Director of Maintenance Operations at The Life Properties and a seasoned maintenance leader, put it, “To be an effective apartment maintenance technician, innovation is absolutely required. Every day, we’re presented with a challenge that requires a solution — sometimes without the exact thing that is needed — so we have to innovate.”
During the pandemic, this spirit of creativity was on full display, with teams finding new ways to provide remote guidance to residents and adjust operations under unprecedented constraints.
Today, that same innovative mindset is amplified through technology. Many teams are turning to digital solutions, such as online whiteboards, to track unit turns and make-readies in real time, without needing to return to a central office.
“We have a digital version [of a whiteboard] that lives online,” Paul explained. “It allows a maintenance technician who enters an apartment to identify the issue, capture photos, document its condition, and even create purchase orders.” When integrated with property management or accounting software, these tools streamline the entire workflow, allowing technicians to submit requests and initiate action instantly from their mobile devices.
Having this capability reduces delays and empowers technicians by cutting out unnecessary layers of communication. For example, in the past, a maintenance technician who needed a part to complete a work order might have had an experience like this:
The maintenance technician needs a part, so he tells his supervisor. His supervisor then tells the property manager, who places the order. The order then goes to the accounting department to get the PO, allowing the order to be placed with the supplier. But here’s where things go awry: The supplier doesn’t have the exact part, so the conversation goes back and forth, up and down the chain, becoming a round-robin of communication.
Unfortunately, it’s a scenario that happens all too often, creating frustration among all parties — including residents who are outside the feedback loop but growing impatient waiting for issues to be resolved. However, by giving technicians direct access to the tools and information they need, you not only empower your employees but also create operational efficiency.
💡Looking for more? There’s a smarter way to overcome your apartment maintenance team challenges. Read about this two-pronged maintenance strategy that empowers and trains!
But remember, innovation isn’t just about tech — it’s also about people and creating a positive culture.
2. The Human Factor: Relationships That Make a Difference
While technology can drive efficiency, it’s genuine human connection that often determines whether employees stay or leave. As Adrian shared, “I think what makes a difference is creating real rapport, a real relationship — not just something that’s transactional. People are starting to appreciate genuine conversations with someone who shows empathy and truly wants to understand who they are.”
This mindset starts during the hiring process. Taking time to connect with candidates beyond their technical skills can signal that your company values people, not just positions. Likewise, encouraging peer-to-peer conversations among team members helps foster a sense of belonging and support. When employees feel seen, heard, and valued, they’re more likely to stay committed to the organization and their role within it.
3. Foster a Culture of Respect, Recognition, and Retention
Culture isn’t built in one big moment — it’s reinforced through small, intentional actions every day. Creating space for daily, directed conversations at the site level sets the tone for open communication and teamwork.
Recognizing daily wins, whether it’s a job well done or a thoughtful act of service, boosts morale and reinforces purpose. Yes, it’s essential to discuss what didn’t get done or where failures occurred, but these conversations should be coupled with what did go well, highlighting successes — however great or small.
The key to creating a culture of respect and cultivating trust lies in moving beyond transactional interactions between management and maintenance teams. Maintenance technicians are on the front lines, and their ideas often hold the key to better processes. That’s why it’s critical for management to create space for input from the field.
“Ask the question and wait for the response,” Paul shares. “Since apartment maintenance technicians innovate as part of their job, our responsibility as a company is to capture that spirit. Innovation is in [a maintenance technician’s] DNA. Sometimes all it takes is the opportunity to share ideas.”
Providing consistent opportunities for these conversations — whether through team huddles, suggestion platforms, one-on-ones, or “stay interviews” — ensures the best ideas don’t get lost and alerts you to issues that might cause good employees to leave. These moments of feedback are powerful tools for improving retention.
Ultimately, embracing innovation is about more than efficiency. It’s about trust, empowerment, and respect. When maintenance professionals are given the tools and the voice to shape their work, they’re not just more productive; they’re more engaged, more satisfied, and more likely to stay.
👀 Watch this on-demand webinar to hear from industry experts about understanding and overcoming these apartment maintenance challenges: “How To Create a Winning Playbook for Recruiting and Retaining Maintenance Teams.”
Building a Stronger Future Starts Today
The path to solving apartment maintenance recruitment and retention challenges isn’t simple — but it is possible. By embracing innovation, investing in genuine human connection, and rethinking outdated recruitment practices, multifamily managers can build stronger, more resilient teams.
These strategies don’t just help fill roles — they create environments where maintenance professionals feel valued, supported, and motivated to stay. And Grace Hill has the solutions and tools to help, including:
- A robust course catalog of multifamily maintenance-specific courses to help equip your teams. From Asbestos Awareness to Washer Basics and everything in between, Grace Hill has training tailored to your specific needs.
- With SkillCat Mobile Maintenance Training, your apartment maintenance teams can get the training — and certifications — they need with the convenience of app-based training modules.
- Grace Hill’s Realync Virtual Leasing and Video Tools enable your teams to easily create and share DIY video tutorials, which reduce work order volume and give your maintenance team more time for what truly matters — high-priority repairs.
Now is the time to take action. Start small, stay intentional, and commit to building a culture that attracts and retains the talent your communities rely on every day.
