Dominium (www.dominiumapartments.com), an apartment community management and development firm, introduced Dominium University several years ago, says Tanya Adair, vice president of Human Resources and Administration.
In some cases, outside vendors provide training, such as courses on tax credit compliance, Microsoft® Outlook or Excel. However, most classes are led by seasoned Dominium managers, many of whom have taken train-the-trainer courses on presentation skills.
Not only does that approach help ensure knowledge transfer from experienced managers to new managers, it also provides new managers with opportunities to meet the home office staff and to network. This is particularly important for managers who work in outside offices, Adair says.
The cornerstone program of Dominium University is New Community Manager Orientation, which is a comprehensive week-long training program at the home office in Minneapolis. The company intentionally offers the program about 3 months after hire, so new (or newly promoted) managers come to training with some on-the-job experience, she says. Each day of training is devoted to a different topic, such as tax credit compliance, marketing, maintenance, accounting, and HR/payroll-related issues.
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Participants attend dinner with company executives and take part in a training-related scavenger hunt. In the scavenger hunt, participants are given a list of questions and told to find an instructor in the building who would be able to answer each question. For example, for a question about termination, the participant would go to HR for an answer before moving on to the next question, according to Adair. “It’s just kind of meant to tie together all the training.”
At the end of the week, participants don black graduation caps, and the company president/chief operating officer awards them diplomas.
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In tomorrow’s Advisor, we’ll look at more of Dominion’s training program—plus explore a comprehensive library of online leadership training.